The Lovers

In the late Middle Ages, domestic spaces contained relatively little furniture, mostly utilitarian chests, cupboards, and benches. Textiles in the form of cushions, bed hangings, and tapestries provided softening elements of warmth and color. Although Flemish and northern French workshops produced monumental tapestry series for princes and cathedrals throughout Europe, in the cities of Basel and Strasbourg, on the upper reaches of the Rhine, weavers specialized in more modest tapestries. They included many woman artisans. Their tapestries featured witty, secular subjects—lovers pledging their faith (as here), fabulous animals, and wild men—and often had a gently moralizing tone, indebted to early engravings produced in the same region.