Valois Tapestries: Festival on the Water
by SPIERING, François, Silk, gold, silver, and wool, lined with canvas, 403 x 339 cm
The Valois Tapestries are a series of eight tapestries depicting festivities or “magnificences” at the Court of France in the second half of the 16th century. The tapestries were executed either in the workshop of Spiering, or by Joos van Herseel and Franchoys Sweerts. The tapestries were designed by Antoine Caron. Caterina de’ Medici, queen of France, gave them to her beloved granddaughter Christine of Lorraine, when Christine came to Florence to marry her kissing cousin Ferdinand I. All but one of the hangings depict a series of magnificences that Caterina produced in the 1560s and 1570s.
At the right of the Festival on the Water are Henry III and Louise of Lorraine.