Information from the museum’s website, 29 April 2015
This exhibition brings to life the splendor of monumental tapestries displayed to celebrate important events at Renaissance courts. It showcases a medium that functioned as the ideal symbol of wealth and power. Almost all of the tapestries on show were once in the imperial collection; they and the unique canopy also on show here were designed by the period’s leading artists.
The exhibition documents the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s exceptional holdings of tapestries that cannot be permanently displayed for conservation reasons. A selection of sixteen exhibits will showcase tapestry production in the first half of the 16th century. Contemporary works by Margret Eicher and Nives Widauer forge a bridge to the present day and remind us of tapestries’ former meaning.