CONDE CONTEMPORAY: GALLERY RECEPTION & LECTURE

The Valois Tapestries are one of the most precious and celebrated tapestry series of the Uffizi Gallery collection and depict major figures in Catherine de Medici’s French court against scenes of fetes, jousts and mock battles of the magnificent entertainments hosted by Catherine from 1564 to 1573. The series is composed of eight precious tapestries, woven with wool, silk, gold and silver thread, datable around 1575 from an unidentified Brussels’ manufacturer, after designs by Antoine Caron (Beauvais 1521 ca. – Paris 1599) from cartons by Lucas de Heere (Gent. 1534 – 1584). Most notable in all of the tapestries are the particularly rich margins decorated with grotesques, flowers, fruit and putti.
Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France, probably commissioned the tapestries for political reasons to honor the family of her husband King Henry II, and her granddaughter Christina of Lorraine brought them to Florence in 1589 as dowry to his betrothed Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici. The tapestries value recorded in the Medici inventory of that year amounts to 3,520 scudi, about one million US dollars today.”