Spring: Fishing Scene (designed c. 1535, woven mid- to late 1600s): Art, History and Details

Spring: Fishing Scene (designed c. 1535, woven mid- to late 1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gobelins Manufactory (France, Paris, est. 1662).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In this springtime scene, two fishermen wade in a river, dragging a net suspended between two poles. A noble couple on a bridge gestures toward other fishermen, who occupy the other side of this scene in other extant examples of this tapestry with a larger picture plane. In the background, townspeople walk on bridges that lead to the gateway of a town with brick walls and portals. In the far distance, farmers till the soil to sow new seeds, another typical activity associated with spring. The trees on the hills are just beginning to sprout new buds.

Object facts

• Title: Spring: Fishing Scene
• Date: designed c. 1535, woven mid- to late 1600s
• Creator attribution: Gobelins Manufactory (France, Paris, est. 1662)
• Culture: France
• Type: Tapestry
• Technique: Wool, silk, and gold filé: tapestry weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 255 x 266 cm (100 3/8 x 104 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1952.544.1

A detail from the museum

Spring was considered to be a season of courtship and romance; perhaps the gentleman on the bridge in the red cap is trying to catch the attention of the lady next to him.

Collection credit

Gift of Francis Ginn, Marian Ginn Jones, Barbara Ginn Griesinger, and Alexander Ginn in memory of Frank Hadley Ginn and Cornelia Root Ginn

Further reading listed by the museum

• Scaturro, Jane and Hanson, Robin. “Cycles of Life: Celebrating the four seasons.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 62, no. 1: 18-21.
• Warwick House, Ltd, and Lucas. The Balloch Castle Seasons of Lucas; Being Four Gobelin Tapestries Rich with Gold, 8 Feet 2 Inches High, with Combined Width of 41 Feet 7 Inches, from Balloch Castle, Near Glasgow, Where They Hung for Nearly Two Centuries; a Companion Set to the Famous Months of Lucas, and by the Same Designer. Baltimore: N.T.A. Munder & Co., printers, 1918.
• Hunter, George Leland. "The Loan Exhibition of Tapestries." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 5, no. 8/9 (October-November 1918): 63-87.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.