A Falconer with Two Ladies and a Foot Soldier (c. 1500): Artwork and History

A Falconer with Two Ladies and a Foot Soldier (c. 1500) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Franco-Flemish, possibly Paris or Bruges.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Two fashionably dressed women, a man in falconer’s garb, another man in the less ornate costume of a foot soldier, and a dog occupy an island surrounded by a flat expanse covered in an overall pattern of small flowers and plants known as millefleur. The shallow, earthy cross section visible on the front edge of the island reveals that some attempt was made to create an impression of depth. It is unlikely that this image had any particular symbolic or narrative significance; rather, it was probably the decorative qualities of the figures’ stances and costumes and the fantastical millefleur setting that appealed to contemporary viewers. Such millefleur designs were extremely popular because of their accessibility, functional flexibility, and manageable scale. This particular example is of an appropriate size and subject to have hung in the home of a wealthy family.

Object facts

• Title: A Falconer with Two Ladies and a Foot Soldier
• Date: c. 1500
• Artist attribution: Franco-Flemish, possibly Paris or Bruges
• Place of origin: Bruges
• Medium: Wool and silk, slit and double interlocking tapestry weave Warp: Count: 5 warps per cm; wool: S-ply of three Z-spun elements; diameters: 0.9–1.2 mm Weft: Count: varies from 11 to 34 wefts per cm; wool: S-ply of two, three, and four Z-spun elements; diameters: 0.7–1.7 mm; silk: pairs of S-ply of two Z-twisted elements; diameters: 0.7–1.2 mm
• Dimensions: 362.7 × 285.8 cm (142 7/8 × 112 1/2 in.)
• Type: Textile
• Department: Textiles
• Reference number: 1922.5379

Collection credit

Gift of Kate S. Buckingham

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.