Cleveland Museum of Art

Four Seasons

Gobelins Manufactory

Date

designed c. 1535, woven mid- to late 1600s

Medium

Wool, silk, and gold filé; tapestry weave

Culture

France

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Each of these tapestries depict rustic activities appropriate to the season: fishing and gardening for spring, harvesting of grain in summer, wine making for autumn, and ice skating for winter. As tapestries fell out of vogue in the 1700s and 1800s many were burned so their metal threads could be harvested to mint new coins. Before coming to the Cleveland Museum of Art, these tapestries hung in the family home of Frank H. Ginn and Cornelia Root Ginn in Gates Mills, Ohio. Their children donated the tapestries to the museum in 1952. At the time of the Four Seasons 's production, weavers at the Gobelins Manufactory in Paris were paid on a wage-scale based on the difficulty of the weaving; those who wove heads and flesh tones were paid the most.

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