Seven late Gothic tapestries depicting the Hunt of the Unicorn on permanent exhibition at The Cloisters in New York.

Of all the late Gothic treasures at The Cloisters, none are more resplendent than the set of tapestries depicting the Hunt of the Unicorn. Indeed, of all the surviving late fifteenth-century tapestries, this magical series stands among the very best and is equal in quality to the famous Lady with the Unicorn set in the Musée de Cluny. Complex in meaning, intricate in iconography, richly endowed in formal values, brilliant in technical virtues, the Unicorn Tapestries have been studied in their various parts and categories in a number of articles and essays but, curiously, they have never been afforded a deep examination into all of their facets through all aspects of art-historical scholarship. With this penetrating and balanced analysis, Margaret B. Freeman, in whose devoted curatorial hands these magnificent works of art have particularly flourished over the past three and a half decades, has achieved a fundamental index of scholarship, one that will be the bench mark for all future learned interpretations. - [Foreword]

Language: English