Pierre Sala, who likely commissioned the set, is portrayed as the richly attired central figure offering a bouquet, a symbol of knowledge, to Éléonore, his daughter. Éléonore is pregnant, revealed by her upturned skirt and the persimmon in her husband Hector’s hand. Hector’s mother, Marguerite, in dark attire, will wed the widowed Sala in 1519. They appear in front of the royal chateau of Blois. The figures at the right convey Sala’s advice to his children. Time (the old man with the staff) with Clio, the Muse of History, standing on his shoulders, is being attacked by a Herculean youth wielding a stick. With this allegory, Sala is explaining that youth is ignorant of the complexities of life and time. The small unicorn at the far right represents the soul. The verse in Old French at the top refers to changing time: One sees Time adorned with green foliage, Sometimes as pleasant as an angel, Then suddenly change and become quite strange. Never does Time persist in one state.
Date
1512
date QS:P571,+1512-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium
Silk and wool; tapestry weave
Dimensions
Overall: 326.6 x 434.1 cm (128 9/16 x 170 7/8 in.)
The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.enCC0Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedicationfalsefalse