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The Valois Tapestries are a series of eight tapestries depicting festivities or "magnificences"〔Strong, Roy, ''Splendor at Court'', pp. 121–167.〕 at the Court of France in the second half of the 16th century. The tapestries were worked in the Spanish Netherlands, probably in Brussels or Antwerp,〔Jardine and Brotten, p. 130.〕 shortly after 1580. Scholars have not firmly established who commissioned the tapestries or for whom they were intended. It is likely that they were once owned by Catherine de' Medici, but they are not included in the inventory of possessions drawn up after her death. She had probably presented them to her granddaughter Christina of Lorraine, for her marriage to Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1589. The tapestries are now stored at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Tuscany, but are not on public display.〔Knecht, ''Catherine de' Medici'', p. 241.〕 ==Composition and context== The tapestries are based on six (possibly eight) designs drawn by the artist Antoine Caron during the reign of King Charles IX of France (1560–1574). These were modified by a second artist, who reveals a strong personality of his own, to include groups of full-length figures in the foreground. Historian Frances Yates believed that this second artist was the influential Lucas de Heere. The Protestant de Heere, who died in 1584, had previously designed tapestries for Catherine de' Medici in France.〔For this information, Yates cites the early biography of de Heere by Carel van Mander, one of his pupils. ''The Valois Tapestries'', p. 8.〕 In his last years, he was working in Flanders for William the Silent, the founder of the House of Orange-Nassau and the ally of Catherine de' Medici's youngest son François, Duke of Anjou. In 1582, de Heere designed the decorations for Anjou's Joyous Entry into Ghent, de Heere's home town.〔Yates, ''The Valois Tapestries'', p. 18.〕 Between 1582, when Anjou was installed as the duke of Brabant, and his death in 1584, when he still held the town of Cambrai, the French prince opposed the forces of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, governor of the Spanish Netherlands. He met with little success, however, owing to a desperate shortage of funds to pay his troops.〔In January 1583, Anjou's depleted and ill-equipped troops were massacred by the citizens of Antwerp. Knecht, ''Catherine de' Medici'', p. 213.〕 Art historian Roy Strong has questioned Yates's finding that the tapestries were produced in Antwerp under Lucas de Heere, suggesting that they contain Brussels markings.〔Jardine and Brotton, p. 125.〕 Yates believes that de Heere's contribution to the tapestries represented a plea to Catherine de' Medici to send Anjou the funds he needed to confront Parma effectively.〔Yates, ''The Valois Tapestries'', p. xx.〕 Historian R. J. Knecht questions this reading and calls the tapestries "an enigma". The reason Henry III and Catherine did not throw the full weight of France behind Anjou's campaign in the Netherlands was that they feared provoking a war with Spain. Knecht asserts that a gift of tapestries, however magnificent, would hardly have changed their minds.〔Knecht, ''Catherine de' Medici'', p. 244.〕 More recently, historians Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton assess the imagery of the tapestries and "turn Yates's argument on its head", concluding that "the tapestries actually are deeply antithetical to the Protestant, and specifically Huguenot, cause."〔Jardine and Brotton, p. 240.〕 They argue that the Huguenots are depicted in the tapestries not, as Yates believed, to demonstrate the tolerance of the Valois and offer a vision of different faiths and peoples at peace, but to illustrate the certain defeat of the Protestants at the hands of the Valois.〔 They interpret the inclusion of Turks alongside the Huguenots to indicate that both were regarded as "infidels", an association previously made in the ''Tunis'' tapestries for the Habsburg Philip II's marriage to Mary I of England.〔Jardine and Brotton, p. 130.〕 Jardine and Brotton also suggest that the Valois tapestries have a clear antecedent in the triumphalist ''History of Scipio'' tapestries designed for Francis I by Giulio Romano. Yates believed that the depiction of an elephant in one of the tapestries was based on engravings of Anjou's staged entry into Antwerp. Jardine and Brotton suggest instead that Antoine Caron based his designs for the ''Elephant'' tapestry on his own painting ''Night Festival with an Elephant'', which in turn draws on ''The Battle of Zama'' from the ''Scipio'' tapestries. They also maintain that the political message of those tapestries remained part of the Valois ethos, since the ''Triumph of Scipio'' was displayed during the summit meeting between the French and Spanish courts at Bayonne.〔The royal tournament grandstand at Bayonne had been hung with this gold-and-silk tapestry, which illustrated the triumph of Scipio. Brantôme recorded that "the Spanish lords and ladies greatly admired it, never having seen anything like it in the possession of their king". Jardine and Brotton, p. 128.〕 Knecht urges caution, however. The obvious intent of the tapestries is to glorify the house of Valois; beyond that, he believes, all is speculation.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Valois Tapestries」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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