# The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries > Unidentified tapestry workshop, Arras (probably) - c. 1425-1450 (individually dated by costume: Boar and Bear Hunt c. 1425-1430; Falconry and Swan and Otter Hunt c. 1430-1440; Deer Hunt c. 1440-1450, on a design believed to originate in the 1420s) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/arras-tapestry-workshop-devonshire-hunt/devonshire-hunting-tapestries-va/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-19 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unidentified tapestry workshop, Arras (probably) - **Date:** c. 1425-1450 (individually dated by costume: Boar and Bear Hunt c. 1425-1430; Falconry and Swan and Otter Hunt c. 1430-1440; Deer Hunt c. 1440-1450, on a design believed to originate in the 1420s) - **Medium:** Wool, tapestry-woven (wool warp and weft), slit-tapestry technique, woven on a mixture of high-warp and low-warp looms across the four panels - **Dimensions:** Boar and Bear Hunt (T.204-1957): approx. 378-385 cm high x 1018-1023 cm wide. Falconry (T.202-1957): 445 cm x 1075.9 cm. Swan and Otter Hunt (T.203-1957): 424 cm x 1118 cm. Deer Hunt (T.205-1957): 409 cm x 808 cm. All four dimensions are as currently mounted, after cutting, loss and restoration; none preserves its full original size. - **Object type:** Textile - **Period:** Netherlandish, fifteenth century (Burgundian Artois) - **Current location:** Victoria and Albert Museum, London (South Kensington), on permanent display. The V&A's own online catalogue currently places Falconry, Swan and Otter Hunt and Deer Hunt in Room 94, the Tapestries gallery, and the Boar and Bear Hunt in Room 10a, the Francoise and Georges Selz Gallery; gallery assignments have changed with redisplays and are not necessarily fixed. In 2021 two of the four panels went on temporary loan to the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, to mark the house's reopening, before returning to the V&A. - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary Four large wool tapestries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, woven in the Southern Netherlands, probably at Arras, between about 1425 and 1450, and known individually as Boar and Bear Hunt, Falconry, Swan and Otter Hunt and Deer Hunt. No designer, weaver or original patron is documented for any of the four, and the V&A's own catalogue entry cautions that the group may be the remains of three or four separate weaving campaigns rather than one matching commission.Their documented history begins in 1601, in an inventory of Hardwick Hall drawn up for Bess of Hardwick, by which point they had already been cut into pieces; roughly a century and a half before that is undocumented. By the 1840s the fragments were being used to insulate the Long Gallery at Hardwick against drafts, and were rediscovered and restored around 1899-1910, then displayed at Chatsworth House until 1957, when the estate of the 10th Duke of Devonshire transferred them to HM Government in lieu of death duties and they were allocated to the V&A, where they remain, with a single loan display back at Chatsworth in 2021.The Boar and Bear Hunt panel carries physical proof of its own weaving process: an inscription reading MONTE LE DESIRE, woven mirror-reversed because the panel was made on a low-warp loom, alongside two figures woven left-handed for the same reason. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1425-c. 1450** Unidentified workshop(s), probably Arras, Southern Netherlands `[unknown]` (manufacture) No commission record, designer, weaver or original patron is documented. Dating and probable place of origin rest entirely on costume analysis and general knowledge of the Arras weaving trade, not on a contract or inscription naming a maker or patron. - **c. 1450-1601** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, location or transaction is documented for roughly a century and a half between manufacture and the tapestries' first secure documentary appearance in 1601. This record does not bridge the gap with an inferred owner. - **1601** Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick), or the Cavendish-Talbot household at Hardwick Hall `[documented]` (first documented record) A 1601 inventory of Hardwick Hall, compiled for Bess of Hardwick's will, lists four matching tapestries already cut into smaller pieces. The inventory documents presence at Hardwick Hall at that date; it does not by itself prove Bess personally acquired the tapestries rather than inheriting or otherwise receiving them, which remains unresolved. A possible earlier link to Mary, Queen of Scots, raised in later writing on Hardwick's textiles, is unverified and is not treated as established. - **1601-1840s** Cavendish family, Dukes of Devonshire, at Hardwick Hall `[documented]` (continuous ownership and display) The tapestries descended with Hardwick Hall to the Cavendish Dukes of Devonshire. No source consulted supplies a detailed record of their condition or exact display within this span beyond the fact of continued presence at Hardwick. - **1840s-c. 1899** William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, and successors, Hardwick Hall `[documented]` (repurposed as insulation) The already-fragmentary tapestries were nailed into the walls of the Long Gallery at Hardwick Hall, in places in overlapping layers, to exclude drafts, with no apparent recognition at the time of their origin or importance. - **c. 1899-c. 1910** 7th Duke of Devonshire; South Kensington Museum (V&A predecessor) `[documented]` (rediscovery and restoration) The tapestries were recognised as historically significant and sent to the South Kensington Museum for reconstruction, carried out 1900 to roughly 1908-1910 by the Decorative Needlework Society under Elizabeth Gemmell. Accounts differ on who is chiefly responsible for the rediscovery and the decision to restore: the V&A credits Arthur Long, Librarian to the House of Lords; Chatsworth's own history credits Lady Louisa Egerton with discovery and names Arthur Strong, Chatsworth's Librarian, as a further figure. This record records both accounts rather than choosing between them. - **c. 1908-1939** Dukes of Devonshire, Chatsworth House `[documented]` (display) The restored tapestries were hung in the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth House, prominently enough that the 1910 guide to Chatsworth described them, rather than the room's sculpture, as its principal glory. - **1939-1945** Dukes of Devonshire, Chatsworth House `[documented]` (wartime storage) Chatsworth librarian Francis Thompson had the tapestries placed in storage before Penrhos College was evacuated to Chatsworth for the war, a decision credited with protecting them. - **1949-1950** Dukes of Devonshire (lending); Musee de Cluny and Burlington House (borrowing) `[documented]` (loan and conservation) Falconry was lent to a French landscape exhibition at Burlington House, London, in 1949. Deer Hunt was sent to the Musee de Cluny, Paris, in 1950, where it was conserved under the Louvre curator Pierre Verlet, an intervention that involved reweaving and some loss of original patterned detail. - **1950-1966** Dukes of Devonshire, then Victoria and Albert Museum from 1957 `[documented]` (conservation) The Boar and Bear Hunt panel underwent restoration work in Paris and in Haarlem across this span, spanning the 1957 change of ownership. - **1950-1957** Estate of the 10th Duke of Devonshire `[documented]` (death and tax settlement) The 10th Duke of Devonshire died in 1950. His estate faced death duties, settled in part through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, under which objects of national importance are accepted by HM Government in place of a cash tax payment. The settlement concluded, and the tapestries were allocated to the V&A, in 1957, seven years after the Duke's death. - **1957-present** Victoria and Albert Museum, London `[documented]` (accession and ongoing display) Accepted by HM Government in lieu of tax and allocated to the V&A in 1957; museum numbers T.202-1957 to T.205-1957. Conservation work on at least one panel continued after the transfer, into 1966. - **2021** Victoria and Albert Museum (lending); Chatsworth House (borrowing) `[documented]` (temporary loan) Two of the four panels returned on loan to the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth House for a single display season, marking the house's reopening, before returning to the V&A. Sources consulted do not specify which two panels travelled. ## Open questions - Were the four panels woven as a single coordinated commission for one set of rooms, or are they, as the V&A's own catalogue entry for the Boar and Bear Hunt suggests, the remains of three or four separate weaving campaigns brought together only by later shared ownership? - No designer, cartoon painter, weaver or patron is named for any of the four panels in any source consulted. The Arras attribution and the c. 1425-1450 dating both rest on style and costume rather than documentation. - Where were the tapestries, and who owned them, between their manufacture in the second quarter of the fifteenth century and their first secure documentary appearance in the 1601 Hardwick Hall inventory? No source consulted bridges this roughly 150-year gap. - Did any of the tapestries recorded in the 1601 Hardwick inventory, including possibly this group, previously belong to Mary, Queen of Scots during her captivity in the custody of Bess of Hardwick's fourth husband? This possibility appears in later writing on Hardwick's textiles but has not been verified against a primary document for this record. - What does the repeated letter M on the horse trappings in the Falconry panel denote? The V&A's own catalogue raises the Virgin Mary as a possibility but explicitly frames it as a suggestion rather than an established reading. - Who should be credited with recognising and rescuing the tapestries around 1899-1900? The V&A's published account names Arthur Long, Librarian to the House of Lords; Chatsworth's published history instead credits discovery to Lady Louisa Egerton and names Arthur Strong, the Chatsworth Librarian. This record has not been able to reconcile the two accounts. - Which two of the four panels were lent to Chatsworth House for the 2021 reopening display? The sources consulted for this record confirm the loan of two panels but not which two. ## Sources - [1] Victoria and Albert Museum, online collections catalogue, 'The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries' (Boar and Bear Hunt), museum no. T.204-1957. - [2] Victoria and Albert Museum, online collections catalogue, 'Falconry', museum no. T.202-1957. - [3] Victoria and Albert Museum, online collections catalogue, 'The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries' (Swan and Otter Hunt), museum no. T.203-1957. - [4] Victoria and Albert Museum, online collections catalogue, 'The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries' (Deer Hunt), museum no. T.205-1957. - [5] Victoria and Albert Museum, 'The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries' (article). - [6] Victoria and Albert Museum blog, 'The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries'. - [7] Chatsworth House, 'A Stitch in Time: The past lives of the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, pt. I'. - [8] Chatsworth House, 'Tracing the past lives of the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries' (pt. II). - [9] Wikipedia, 'Devonshire Hunting Tapestries', consolidating costume dating, loom-type and inscription evidence, and general provenance narrative. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with Wingfield Digby and Hefford (1971) and Woolley (2002), cited in its reference list but not independently consulted for this record. - [10] Wikipedia, 'Acceptance in lieu', for the general mechanism of the UK tax-settlement scheme used in the 1957 transfer. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with HM Revenue and Customs or Arts Council England primary guidance on the scheme. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.