Venus and Adonis (?) with the Duck Hunt (c. 1600): Artwork and History

Venus and Adonis (?) with the Duck Hunt (c. 1600) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Presumably woven at the workshop of Jacques I Geubels (died 1601/05) or his widow Catharina van den Eynde (died before 1629) Brussels.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Based on the 10th book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, this scene may depict the goddess Venus and the hunter Adonis at the moment in which she warns him about the dangers of hunting. Ignoring her warning, Adonis is later killed by a boar. In the background, men in contemporary dress conduct a hunt, a popular pastime of the privileged elite. The border of the tapestry displays an array of allegorical, biblical, and mythological scenes and figures. Overall the composition gives the impression of receding space, which is characteristic of late 16th- and early 17th-century Flemish production.

Object facts

• Title: Venus and Adonis (?) with the Duck Hunt
• Date: c. 1600
• Artist attribution: Presumably woven at the workshop of Jacques I Geubels (died 1601/05) or his widow Catharina van den Eynde (died before 1629) Brussels
• Place of origin: Brussels
• Medium: Wool and silk, slit and double interlocking tapestry weave Warp: Count: 7 warps per cm; wool: S-ply of three Z-spun elements; diameters: 0.7–0.9 mm Weft: Count: varies from 17 to 30 wefts per cm; wool: S-ply of two Z-spun elements; pairs of S-ply of two Z-spun elements; diameters: 0.5–1.2 mm; silk: pairs of S-ply of two Z-twisted elements; diameters: 0.5–1.2. mm
• Dimensions: 262.5 × 344.4 cm (103 3/8 × 135 3/8 in.)
• Type: Textile
• Department: Textiles
• Reference number: 1896.147

Collection credit

Gift of the Antiquarian Society of the Art Institute of Chicago

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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.