I will make the admission that my first design attempt was based on the Unicorn in Captivity tapestry. I used curly left over thread for the tail and I placed it against a background of Virgin Ground, a joke that is wasted on practically everyone. (Tradition has it that a unicorn can only be captured by a virgin.) However, I really messed up the border, so I don't display it. Having satisfied the requirement of "Lace content" I will add that the Unicorn Tapestries in the Cloisters were the property of the La Rochefoucauld family, hanging in the chateau of Verteuil during the time of the Revolution. They were looted by peasants who used them to cover vegetables in the field to protect them from freezing. In the 1850's Count Hippolyte de La Rochefoucauld and his wife Countess Elizabeth went about trying to buy back the things that had disappeared from the chateau. A peasant's wife informed the countess that her husband had some old "curtains" covering vegetables in the barn that might be of interest to her. They were the unicorn tapestries. In the 1920's they were purchased by John D. Rockefeller and hung in his house. Mrs. Rockefeller entertained the Needle & Bobbin Club in her home and shared them with this august lace club. (Perhaps the account is among the N&B Club Bulletins on the Professor's web site.) When the Cloisters, a pet project of Rockefeller, was established,clever James Rorimer, then head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art which owns the Cloisters, designed in a Tapestry room for them and presented the design to Rockefeller to approve. Rockefeller obligingly gave the tapestries to the Museum. I am interested to see that there is a La Roche family involved in the French Unicorn tapestries. I wonder if there is any relationship between the two families and if they had a special thing for unicorns. Devon who has an entire shelf of unicorn tapestry books, all professing to explain the symbology, but none agreeing.
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