The lady and the unicorn

today i took myself on a bit of an adventure. I rose before the sun and caught the train to Sydney.

My main destination was the art gallery of NSW. I have been to the art gallery several times before. But this time i was heading for a special exhibition.

as you can see in the images it was a beautiful sunny Australian day

not a cloud to be seen, but still i couldn't wait to be inside

The art gallery of NSW is currently exhibiting the 500 year old French Tapestries titled 

The Lady and the Unicorn

they created this fabulous entry for us to walk through and the fabric was of course Millefleur

the six tapestries were all hung all together in a semi circle, interestingly they were different sizes which is possibly due to the fact that they were custom made to fit a particular space.

interestingly they don't know whom they were made for or even exactly where the were made, but they suspect they were made in a famous tapestry workshop in Paris in around 1500

there are many theory's about the symbolism within the tapestries and the art gallery did an amazing job of explaining what each element of the tapestries represented in a 30 min video that was available in a seperate room 

the details were just magnificent

small amounts of silk were used  in the tapestries to emphasise the lustre of the lady's gown or in her hair but predominately they are made of wool. there was about thirty different colours used and the dyes were all natural, using such things as lichen, madder root  and woad ( a yellow flower)

In each of the colours used there were three shades, light medium and dark

i just adored this monkey, he probably looks a bit like the way i looked as i studied the tapestries. the longer i sat the more i could see.


of course i couldn't sit in the art gallery all day
and a trip to Sydney would be complete without 

all in all a huge day but soo soo 

lovely

if you get the opportunity the exhibition continues until the 

24th of June

until next time

Ciao

Googy Girl

"Life is like a cup of tea, it s all in how you make it"