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Tapestry: Zeus and Danae (Probably from the series The Story of Perseus)

about 1525–50
Object PlaceProbably Brussels, Flanders
Medium/TechniqueTapestry; wool warp; wool and silk wefts
Dimensions415 x 465 cm (163 3/8 x 183 1/16 in.)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Solomon R. Guggenheim
Accession number50.2627
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsTextiles
ProvenancePossibly as early as the eighteenth century, the Chateau de Mailloc, near Caen, Calvados, France [see note 1]; 1925, sold by the comte de Colbert-Laplace to Edouard Jonas (b. 1883 - d. 1961), Paris and New York; 1926, sold by Jonas to Mr. and Mrs. Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York; 1950, gift of Irene Rothschild (Mrs. Solomon R.) Guggenheim to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 8, 1950)

NOTES:
[1] At the time of its sale, Edouard Jonas attested that the tapestry had hung in the Chateau de Mailloc for over 200 years. It was certainly there by 1870, when it was lent to the Exposition Rétrospective, Lisieux (August, 1870). A fire destroyed the chateau and its contents three weeks after the tapestry was sold by its owner, the comte de Colbert-Laplace, in 1925; contemporary news accounts erroneously stated that it had been lost in the fire.