Garden  /  Millefleurs
Thousand flowers with a Unicorn  and  White Peacock

Millefleurs with a Unicorn (a thousand flowers) 1500, Southern Netherlands, Tapestry woven in wool and silk (V&A)

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This is a fragment from what may have been a much larger tapestry hanging. It is a type know as millefleurs, meaning a thousand flowers. This was a very popular style in the late 15th and early 16th century, and millefleurs were woven in many different centres and workshops in Northern France and Flanders, varying much in quality. They often included small animals and birds among the flowers, in which case the animals might be symbolic. The unicorn was associated in legend with chastity and invulnerability.