Artefact

At the Museu das Artes Decoratives, once the collection of a member of the Espirito Sancto family, obnoxiously located in the Largo das Portas do Sol, there is a strange tapestry, Tournai, 16th century, says the legend, with well preserved colors and an odd theme. The illustration shows a procession of 5 giraffes, upon whose backs, in kind of boats, ride little people. The giraffes are accompanied by a strange retinue of musicians (fifes, drums, trumpets), some of whom are gigantic, all of whom have weird, twisted faces, some with African features. The necks of the giraffes are hung with ropes up which scramble tiny men, as if the necks were masts of galleons. In the foreground, a giantess holds up a bowl of what looks like gruel out of which with little red spoons eat the little people in a boat on the back of a giraffe. The drawing is ungainly, which only adds to the oddness of the whole experience. The catalog says that there was a fashion in 16th century Portugal to commission tapestries with pictures of strange oriental processions. Oh? Somehow, I am left feeling underinformed.

(A friend says, sight unseen, that it could be part of a larger illustration of the famous Manoeline embassy to Rome in which various exotic wild animals have been sent, including the Durer hippopotamus -- which, see above).