# The Lady and the Unicorn > Unknown weavers, southern Netherlands, after cartoons attributed to the circle of the Master of Anne of Brittany - c. 1480-1500, within a range disputed by different scholars; a minority reading narrows the commission to c. 1493 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/circle-of-the-master-of-anne-of-brittany/dame-a-la-licorne-musee-de-cluny/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-12 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown weavers, southern Netherlands, after cartoons attributed to the circle of the Master of Anne of Brittany - **Date:** c. 1480-1500, within a range disputed by different scholars; a minority reading narrows the commission to c. 1493 - **Medium:** Tapestry weave, wool warp with wool and silk weft (wool and silk) - **Dimensions:** Six panels ranging from approximately 3.10 x 2.90 m (Sight) to 3.80 x 4.64 m (A Mon Seul Desir); full panel-by-panel dimensions in the technical block - **Object type:** Textile - **Period:** Franco-Flemish, late fifteenth century - **Current location:** Musee de Cluny - musee national du Moyen Age, Paris, France - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary Six wool-and-silk tapestries woven around 1480 to 1500, five showing a lady with a lion and a unicorn enacting Taste, Hearing, Sight, Smell and Touch, the sixth inscribed A Mon Seul Desir and meaning something scholars still argue about. The arms woven into every panel belong to the Le Viste family, but which Le Viste commissioned the set is itself disputed. The set is not the other famous unicorn tapestry: the seven-panel Hunt of the Unicorn at the Met Cloisters in New York is a different, South Netherlandish hanging of similar date with a hunting narrative rather than a senses allegory, and the two are confused constantly enough that this record addresses it directly.Found faded and damp-damaged at the Chateau de Boussac in 1841 by Prosper Merimee, publicised by George Sand, and bought for the French state in 1882 for 25,000 gold francs, the set has since been rewoven along its lower edge, hung through two world wars, described at length by Rainer Maria Rilke, and rehoused since 2013 in a purpose-built rotunda at the Musee de Cluny. It has never been sold at auction; its only recorded market transaction is the 1882 purchase from the municipality that then owned Boussac. ## 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. 1480-1500** A member of the Le Viste family (Jean IV Le Viste, or on a competing reading his cousin Antoine II Le Viste) `[disputed]` (commission) The Le Viste commission itself is not seriously contested, since the family arms recur across all six panels. Which individual commissioned the set, and in which decade, is disputed between at least two published scholarly positions; see the attribution field and narrative above. - **-c. 1600** By descent through the Robertet and La Roche-Aymon families to the Rilhac family `[documented]` (inheritance) Reported in secondary literature as an inheritance chain rather than sale; this record has not independently verified the underlying genealogical documentation and flags it for replacement with primary genealogical sources. - **c. 1600-1814** Presumed held at the Chateau de Boussac, Creuse (Rilhac line and heirs); custody not documented in the sources consulted `[unknown]` (gap) No source consulted documents where or with whom the tapestries were between roughly 1600 and 1814. The museum's own catalogue record confirms presence at Boussac by 1814; nothing establishes continuous custody by the Rilhac family for the two centuries before that, only that they were there by the time documentation resumes. - **1814-1835** Chateau de Boussac, Creuse `[documented]` (documented presence) The museum's own catalogue record confirms documented presence of the tapestries at Boussac by 1814. - **1835-1838** Municipality of Boussac (purchased the chateau from the Comtesse de Ribeyreix, born de Carbonnieres) `[documented]` (purchase of the chateau, tapestries included) The chateau, with the tapestries inside it, passed to municipal ownership; in 1838 it became the seat of the sub-prefecture of the Creuse. - **1841** Municipality of Boussac (unchanged ownership) `[documented]` (rediscovery and classification) Prosper Merimee, Inspector General of Historic Monuments, visited Boussac in July 1841, reportedly on George Sand's information, inventoried the six tapestries and set in motion their classification as a historic monument. Ownership did not change at this point. - **1841-1882** Municipality of Boussac `[documented]` (continued municipal ownership, condition concerns, public advocacy) The tapestries remained municipal property for four decades after classification, at continued risk from damp. George Sand publicised them in 1844 and 1847. Whether the six surviving panels were themselves put to utilitarian use in this period, as opposed to other, separate tapestries once at Boussac, is not established; see open questions. - **17 July 1882-present** French state, held at the Musee de Cluny (musee national du Moyen Age), Paris `[documented]` (purchase) The municipality of Boussac sold the six tapestries for 25,000 gold francs to Edmond du Sommerard, curator of the Musee de Cluny, acting for the French state. The tapestries have remained in the national collection since, currently inventoried Cl. 10831 to Cl. 10836. ## Open questions - Which Le Viste commissioned the set: Jean IV in the 1480s or early 1490s, or Antoine II around 1493 as a betrothal gift, remains disputed between named scholars (Teodorescu 2010 versus de Vaivre 2015) and no contract has surfaced to settle it. - What A Mon Seul Desir actually means is unresolved: renunciation of the senses, an internal sixth sense of the heart following Jean Gerson, an allegory of courtly Largesse, or something else, with named scholars on more than one side and no single reading accepted as final. - Whether the popular claim that the six surviving panels themselves were used as horse blankets or floor coverings is accurate, or whether that story properly belongs to other, separate tapestries once at Boussac that were cut up and lost, is not resolved by the primary correspondence available; this record treats it as unverified for the surviving six. - George Sand's 1847 article describes eight tapestries rather than the six now known; whether this was an error, a reference to two further, now-lost panels of the same hanging, or something else, is not addressed in the sources consulted. - The precise weaving location within the southern Netherlands has not been established in the sources reviewed; the region is agreed, the city or workshop is not. - Whether the 25,000-gold-franc price paid in 1882 reflected an ordinary market valuation or a below-market municipal sale to secure state conservation is not addressed in the sources consulted. - The exact proportion of each panel's surviving textile that is original 1500 weaving versus nineteenth-century reweaving has not been published as a settled figure; a CNRS-led hyperspectral study is actively measuring this panel by panel as of the most recent published material found. ## Sources - [1] Ministere de la Culture (France), base Joconde, notice 'Tenture de la Dame a la Licorne', official catalogue record giving inventory numbers Cl. 10831 to Cl. 10836, materials, dating, acquisition date of 17 July 1882 and documented presence at Chateau de Boussac by 1814. - [2] Wikipedia, 'The Lady and the Unicorn'. Tertiary source, used here for panel dimensions and general description; flagged for replacement with the museum's own published dimensions where they can be obtained directly. - [3] Wikipedia (French), 'La Dame a la licorne'. Tertiary source, but the richest single source found for the provenance chain, the Le Viste attribution debate and its citations to Carmen Decu Teodorescu (2010), Jean-Bernard de Vaivre (2015), Jean-Patrice Boudet (2000), Marie-Elisabeth Bruel (2014), Jules Guiffrey (1886) and Prosper Merimee's published correspondence. Flagged for replacement with those primary academic publications directly. - [4] Art Gallery of New South Wales, museum education resource, 'The Lady and the Unicorn: who were they made for?', on the Le Viste commission and the two competing patron theories. - [5] Legendart.fr, 'George Sand et la Dame a la Licorne', on Sand's specific publications (Jeanne 1844, L'Illustration 1847, Journal d'un voyageur 1870-71) and Merimee's July 1841 visit. - [6] Medieval Histories (medieval.eu), 'Lady and the Unicorn', on the 2012-2013 restoration campaign, the dyes identified (madder, woad, weld, orcein), and Rilke's connection to the tapestries. - [7] Archeosciences Bordeaux (CNRS), project page, 'Les tapisseries de la Dame a la Licorne (XVe siecle): la couleur, l'esprit, le temps', on the ongoing hyperspectral and colorimetric study of original versus restored dye, led by Aurelie Mounier with the Musee de Cluny and the Manufacture des Gobelins. - [8] France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine (franceinfo regional), 'Elles servaient de tapis de sol! L'incroyable destin d'une des plus celebres series de tapisseries au chateau de Boussac'. Regional press account repeating the floor-covering and horse-blanket story; consulted via search summary only, full article text not independently retrieved (403 on direct fetch), so treated cautiously and flagged for direct verification. - [9] Rainer Maria Rilke, Les Cahiers de Malte Laurids Brigge (Paris, 1939 edition), pp. 117-121 and 185-190, the passage describing the six tapestries at length, consulted via secondary quotation rather than the original edition directly. --- 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.