Tapestry "saracens On Horseback Hunting The Ostrich", Circa 1580

Exceptional tapestry from the Marche workshops, based on a cartoon by Jan van Der Straet known as Giovanni Stradano. Saracens on horseback armed with spears, a musket, and scimitars hunt the ostrich on a green background decorated with seedlings of flowers, in an imaginary landscape of flowering trees, a lake on which sailboats sail, far away a fortress, a city, palm trees. In the upper border we find a rabbit reminiscent of the thousand flower tapestries of the Renaissance, on the sides a bird and exotic flowers and fruits. Jan Van Der Straet (1523-1605) created around 1550 and at the request of Cosimo I de Medici 130 cartoons of tapestries illustrating hunting and fishing scenes. Drawings by Van Der Straet on a similar subject to our tapestry can be found in the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Condition report: fairly fresh colors, loose seams, some old repairs, missing bottom border.