id: 123539
accession number: 1944.133
share license status: CC0
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1944.133
updated: 2022-05-24 09:02:03.629000
Month of May: Scene of May Day Festival, 1723-1774. Gobelins Manufactory (France, Paris, est. 1662), Michel Audran (French, 1701-1771). Tapestry weave: linen warp, wool and silk wefts; overall: 312.4 x 452 cm (123 x 177 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection 1944.133
title: Month of May: Scene of May Day Festival
title in original language:
series:
series in original language:
creation date: 1723-1774
creation date earliest: 1723
creation date latest: 1774
current location:
creditline: The Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection
copyright:
---
culture: France, 18th century, Period of Louis XV (1723-1774)
technique: tapestry weave: linen warp, wool and silk wefts
department: Textiles
collection: Textiles
type: Tapestry
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
---
CREATORS
* Gobelins Manufactory (France, Paris, est. 1662) - manufacturer
For more information: http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000032919
* Michel Audran (French, 1701-1771) - artist
French tapissier, 1701-1771
---
measurements: Overall: 312.4 x 452 cm (123 x 177 15/16 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work:
support materials:
inscriptions:
---
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Exhibition of the Month: Chinese Furniture
opening date: 1946-10-29T05:00:00
Exhibition of the Month: Chinese Furniture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 29-December 30, 1946).
---
LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
* Loan Exhibition of Tapestries. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH ([October 5-December 1, 1918)
---
PROVENANCE
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
date: 1944-
footnotes:
citations:
---
fun fact:
digital description:
wall description:
Seated spectators and splendidly clothed ladies and gentlemen on horseback watch May Day festivities in this tapestry. In the middle distance, archers prepare to shoot at a bush and bird placed atop a maypole, while more spectators congregate in the receding landscape. A border of rolled acanthus leaves and flower garlands frames the scene. This scene is one of twelve so-called Months of Lucas tapestries, each depicting activities that coincide with a month of the year.
The original “Months of Lucas” was a sixteenth-century Flemish tapestry set that was owned by the French monarchy and mistakenly attributed to Lucas van Leyden during the 1600s. To this day, they continue to be known as the “Months of Lucas.” This original set was burned in 1797 so their gold and silver metal threads could be used to replenish the depleted French coffers.
Beginning in the 1600s, the popular Months of Lucas were reproduced in several different versions under various masters at the Gobelins Manufactory in Paris, the famous royal production center for French tapestries since Louis XIV (1638–1715). The lower right hand corner of this tapestry bears the signature of Michel Audran (1701–1771), director of the Gobelins high-warp loom workshop from 1732–71, who produced this tapestry for a private patron in addition to the other royal commissions of the set.
---
RELATED WORKS
---
CITATIONS
Fenaille, Maurice, Fernand Calmettes, and Jules Guiffrey. État général des tapisseries de la Manufacture des Gobelins depuis son origine jusqu'a jours, 1600-1900. Paris: Imprimerie nationale, Hachette, 1903.
page number:
url: https://books.google.fr/books?id=7bNFAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r#v=onepage&q&f=false
Ffoulke, Charles Mather, Sarah Cushing Ffoulke, Glenn Brown, and Ernest Verlant. The Ffoulke Collection of Tapestries. New York: Priv. Print, 1913.
page number:
url: https://archive.org/details/ffoulkecollectio00ffou/page/344
Hunter, George Leland. "The Loan Exhibition of Tapestries." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 5, no. 8/9 (1918): 63-87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25136215
page number: 65
url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25136215
Hunter, George Leland. “The Loan Exhibition of Tapestries.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. (October-November, 1918), 63-66
page number: 63-66
url:
Hunter, George Leland. Loan Exhibition of Tapestries. Cleveland Museum of Art. October 5th-December 1st 1918.
page number:
url: https://archive.org/details/Tapestries_198617/page/n4
Hunter, George Leland. “The Cleveland Tapestry Exhibition” in The Art World & Arts & Decoration (November 1918) 25-28.
page number: 25-28
url: https://books.google.com/books?id=KH0XAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=the+four+seasons+tapestries+lucas&source=bl&ots=QWu0DyxXAj&sig=ACfU3U3Iq8ujNfIEMy8gtfrGGmlfNFP6mw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwls3e6fPfAhVo2oMKHUd9CgIQ6AEwDHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20four%20seasons%20tapestries%20lucas&f=false
Hunter, George Leland. The Practical Book of Tapestries. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott company, 1925.
page number: 120
url:
Heinrich, Göbel,[Editor]. Wandteppiche (II. Teil, Band 1): Die romanischen Länder: Die Wandteppiche und ihre Manufakturen in Frankreich, Italien, Spanien und Portugal [Tapestries (Part II, Volume 1): The Romanesque countries: Tapestries and their factories in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal]. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1928.
page number: 143-45
url: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/goebel1928bd2_1/0163/text_ocr
Underhill, Gertrude. “Tapestries and Embroideries,” in Catalogue of the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection. Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944.
page number:
url:
Catalogue of the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss collection : bequest of Elisabeth Severance Prentiss, 1944. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944. Published as: Tapestry: Month of May
page number: Mentioned: p. 66; Reproduced: XXIII
url: https://archive.org/details/Prentiss/page/n55
Underhill, Gertrude. “Tapestries,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (June 1944), 102-103.
page number: 102
url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25141134
Ward, Evelyn Svec. "Four Seasons Tapestries from Gobelins." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 40, no. 6 (1953): 113-19.
page number: 113-119
url:
Standen, Edith A. "Drawings for the "Months of Lucas" Tapestry Series." Master Drawings 9, no. 1 (1971): 3-80.
page number:
url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1553120
Standen, Edith Appleton. European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Museum, 1985.
page number: 344
url:
Wojciechowski, Jerzy. ""May" and "August": Two Drawings by the Master of the Months of Lucas." Master Drawings 33, no. 4 (1995): 410-13.
page number:
url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1554242
Standen, Edith Appleton and Janet Arnold. "The Comte de Toulouse's 'Months of Lucas' Gobelins Tapestries: Sixteenth-Century Designs with Eighteenth-Century Additions," Metropolitan Museum Journal. (1996), 59-79.
page number:
url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1512972
Mironneau, Paul. Musée national du Château de Pau. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2003.
page number:
url:
Vittet, Jean, and Marc Walter. Les Gobelins au siècle des Lumières: un âge d'or de la manufacture royale. 2014.
page number:
url:
Hunter, George Leland. "The Cleveland Tapestry Exhibition." The American Magazine of Art 10, no. 4 (1919): 129-37.
page number:
url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23925160
Crick-Kuntziger, Marthe, “L’énigme des ‘Mois de Lucas,’” Actes du XIIe Congrès international d’Histoire de l’Art. Volume 2. Brussels, 1930. 497-505.
page number:
url:
---
IMAGES
web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1944.133/1944.133_web.jpg
print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1944.133/1944.133_print.jpg
full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1944.133/1944.133_full.tif