id: 123539 accession number: 1944.133 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1944.133 updated: 2019-11-18 10:14:35.429000 Month of May: Scene of May Day Festival, 1723-1774. Gobelins (French), 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 (French) - 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 id: None None relationship: --- 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: 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