Following Arachne

Fondation Toms Pauli is loaning three ancient tapestries for the Rijksmuseum’s Metamorphoses exhibition. Among them, two remarkable tapestries stand out for their exceptional state of preservation as well as for their artistic and historical significance. They are part of the Story of Apollo series, also called the Barberini Metamorphoses, and depict Latona Transforming the Lycian Peasants into Frogs and Apollo and Daphne. Both tapestries were woven in the workshops established in Rome by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VII and a great patron of tapestry.

This ensemble also features a rare tapestry, The Rape of Europa, from the Metamorphoses of La Hyre series, woven in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel workshops, around 1650-1670. Prior to the creation of the Royal Gobelins Manufactory, this was one of the three major private Parisian workshops which at the time brought together the finest craftsmen. The tapestry thus bears witness to an important yet relatively little-known period in the development of tapestry history.

Associated with elites as a marker of social status, these tapestries also reflect their interest in the texts of Ovid.