Cleveland Museum of Art

Autumn: Vintage Scene

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

In 16th-century Europe, the grape harvest took place in autumn, a tradition that persists among vintners to this day. Here, men and women gather grapes in buckets and drop them into an enormous wood vat. Two men stomp on the ripe grapes, squeezing out the juice. A man on the far right pours the juice into barrels, where it will ferment into wine. Children sleep or play in the foreground; one mischievous toddler presses grape juice into the mouth of another small child. In the distance four couples dance to music provided by a bagpiper, who is perched in a tree. Originally green, the plants were woven using yarn first dyed blue and then dyed yellow; over time the yellow dye has faded so that today the plants appear blue.

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