Featured Old silk embroidery/tapestry

The reds must have been quite a bit darker originally.







Would like a better look at this:

 

It is beautiful, bluumz, I can see why you keep looking at it.
I'm with Bronwen, it is German. I can also discern 'gelobt', praised, and at the end is the word 'machen', to make.
Looking at the rest of the text has made me dizzy, so I will leave that to someone else.

 

This is quite fabulous!

The writing is of no use to me as I really can't see it well enough to google it, but my first thought was the same as @clutteredcloset49

But I cannot make sense of the "chicken foot" implement.

There is much to be examined. But why, oh why, do sellers provide such sorry photos?

 

I also don't think Henry was the sort to stand next to another dude wearing a crown.

 

And to think these are excellent compared to most.

 

Oh yes, they are quite good in many ways. I just get so frustrated with the inability to take photos straight on. And I'm certain that issue is almost always to avoid the cast shadow of the photographer. And I want to scream FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, BUY ANOTHER LIGHT SOURCE.

But enough of that rant.

I find this following piece of interest for several reasons, not the least of which it's easy to see how the scepter could end up "chicken-footed".

The Queen of Sheba before Solomon, miniature from the Grimani Breviary, manuscript, Italy 15th Century. - stock illustration

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/...on-miniature-from-the-stock-graphic/142454099

 

Of course, the ancient chicken foot scepter!

 

It's beyond my patience to determine if the script in the following piece has any insights to offer, but it is at the Met and highly zoomable.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/465954

 

Here's another Queen of Sheba/two riddles tapestry, also Upper Rhenish, with similar ribbon.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions...ropean-decorative-arts-caramoor-center-n09464

 

Just so it's straight up and down........

 

The scroll/ribbon text seems to be a very Upper Rhenish feature.

In other news, talk about your "ancient chicken foot scepter":

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/70060/picture-depicting-the-queen-of-sheba-before-king-solomon

 

I had the impression bluumz took the photos. Was just waiting for jivvy to fall into this one. And no, I don't think it is Henry, but similarity is clue to time scene is taking place. To be clear, does not say anything about the age of the hanging other than it is no older than that. Machen was the only other word clear to me too.

 

Bronwen speaks a language unto herself!

 

Without really doing the work needed to confirm, I think you may have hit it. Explains why the woman looks like she is being treated with respect, if not exactly honor, & also looks a bit under threat.

Found this interest in the Met's description:

'the girl will catch the apple in the lap of her dress'

There's a place in Huckleberry Finn where he is trying to disguise himself as a girl & the canny woman who has taken him in tosses something over to his lap, scissors I think, & he confirms her suspicions by the way he catches them.

 

I saw one of those in Monty Python!

 

As a recently Certified Internet Expert (I quickly skimmed the requisite number of dubious references), I'm pretty convinced.

 

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpu...heba_the_metropolitan_museum_journal_v_6_1972


Paper has a different answer to the riddle about telling males from females: females kneel.

I did not know about this extensive tradition of the riddles. Really interesting. Some of the answers given are more puzzling to a modern reader than the questions. Many could not readily be turned into pictures.

 

Doing a funny walk?

 

Make that bell go, "ding." The original Sheba and Solomon window from which this was done is in Cologne Cathedral, I believe:




Funny - my initial impression of the tapestry was the Martyrdom of Saint Agnes - even down to her iconography.

@Jivvy - I hereby dub you Double Super Extra Certified Internet Expert.
.

 

Obviously not if Solomon & Sheba.