La Dame à la licorne

In the 15th century , the walls of the wealthiest homes were adorned with tapestries featuring millefleurs designs. Amidst the plant and animal motifs, scenes sometimes emerge. The set of six tapestries, " Seigneurial Life," depicts scenes from the lives of the aristocratic elite and their servants. Most of the scenes belong to the realm of courtly life: embroidery, bathing, strolling, reading, and amorous encounters. The weavers employed the technique of reusing stock figures, without attempting to connect them within a narrative or representation. The figures thus often seem oblivious to one another. Nevertheless, a poetic and vibrant atmosphere emanates from these compositions, enhanced by the precision of anecdotal and delightful details, such as the kitten pulling the thread ( Reading ) or the ducks paddling in the fountain ( The Bath ).

Woven around 1500, the six Lady and the Unicorn tapestries bear the coat of arms of the Le Viste family, originally from Lyon, and represent the five senses: Touch, Taste, Smell, Hearing, and Sight. The sixth sense, alluded to by the inscription "my only desire," remains a mystery, inspiring numerous theories.

Without excluding a meaning in the realm of secular love, it could represent free will—the Lady of ethereal beauty renounces worldly pleasures—or the heart, the sense that guides the others. These millefleurs tapestries, with their abundant flora, populated by peaceful animals in this kind of Eden where the unicorn is sometimes an actor, sometimes a mere spectator and bearer of coats of arms, also invite contemplation. The whole is rightly considered one of the great masterpieces of Western art.

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