Lot 1187: A Flemish Tapestry of "La Pirouette ', after a poem by Henri Baude,

first quarter of the 16th Century, the panel centred by an altar covered with a cloth inscribed with the poem "La Pirouette": Ie qui tourne soulz aultruy main Nay seurete ne soire ne main Car cil soulz quelle main ie tourne si soudainement sen retourne Quil natent ne hui ne demain, a hand issuing from the sky reaching for a small top, other tops on the patterned ground, houses in the upper right and left corners, a narrow section of millefleur decoration on the lower ground, 5 ft. 6 in. by 6 ft. 21/2 in. (1.68 by 1.89 m.). Related Literature: H. Baude, La Pirouette: Dictz moraulx pour faire tapisserie, ed. critique A. Scoumanne, Geneve-Paris 1959, p. 129, no. XLIII. Anne-Marie Lecoq, "La Pirouette: un embleme baroque au debut du XVI siecle" in Revue de L 'Art, 75, 1987, pp. 56-57 (illus.). P. Vandenbroeck, Jheronimus Bosch. Tussen volksleven en stadscultuur, Berchem 1987, p. 220 and p. 450, no. 169, fig. 46 (illustrating another tapestry incorporating this proverb). Henri Baude, poet and rhetoritition, was a contemporary of Louis XI and Charles VII and was well-known in France and in the lowlands around 1500. His works appear in a number of collected manuscripts of proverbs and fables from the Renaissance period; the original manuscript for "La Pirouette" can be found in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. The poem was made for the Robertet family who were avid poetry lovers and particular fans of Baude 's work, as well as subjects of the Bourbon King, as was Baude. "La Pirouette" is a moral tale which was employed on tapestries of the period. It is recited by the "Pirouette ' or the "top ' which says: I spin beneath the hand of another and am safe neither in the morning nor the evening because he who is beneath the hand that turns the top may disappear from one day to the next. Lecoq in her article concerning Baude and this poem discusses the morality represented in the work. The two distinct parts of the world are illustrated, the sky above and the earth below. The tiled floor and the lines of the central altar lead to the all-controlling hand issuing from the clouds above. The clouds are of a stylized type seen frequently in 15th Century French manuscript illuminations; the cuff and rings on the hand appear to be those of a woman. The proverb illustrates the duality in relationships; there are those who have lost all control over own their own destiny and are nothing more than toys in hands of others. The top is the symbol of the victims. Lecoq explains that the morality could allude to both desperate lovers and the lives of valets and courtisans who are strictly tied to their master. In the age of Baude, this teaching would have echoed the life of the bourgeois class. As a general symbol, the hand represents that of fortune or an all powerful god who controls us and makes us spin and then allows us to fall. Although another example of the poem employed on a tapestry is noted above; extant examples from this period are rare.