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

Winter: Skating 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:

People of all classes and ages enjoyed ice skating, a winter pastime popularized in the Netherlands. Here, some couples are already skating and slipping on the ice, while others tie on their skates or huddle around braziers (portable coal heaters) to keep warm. One affectionate couple in the foreground hold hands as they walk. A castle on the far edge of the frozen lake occupies the background. In the left distance, several small figures holding ladders and long hooks run toward a building that has caught on fire, a frequent occurrence in the winter when wooden houses were heated by fireplaces.

Object facts

• Title: Winter: Skating 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: 244 x 388 cm (96 1/16 x 152 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1952.544.4

A detail from the museum

If you look closely you can see that the top edge of this scene is missing; look at the top of the castle on the right or the forest fire on the left.

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.