Historic Scotland

The Unicorn Tapestries by Caron Penney, Head of Studio, West Dean.

In 2001 West Dean weavers began a new and unusual project, recreating a set of seven tapestries for Historic Scotland (the government agency that safeguards ancient monuments and historic buildings across Scotland).

The tapestries being recreated are the Hunt of the Unicorn (1495 – 1505) series from the Cloisters Museum in New York. Work is underway on two sites: at the Tapestry Studio in West Dean, West Sussex and at Stirling Castle in Scotland. The team in Scotland are making a tapestry in full view of the general public, demonstrating how tapestry is made and to open this medium up to a wider audience.

This is a very unique project and it is taking the team of weavers twelve years to make. Most tapestry projects in the Studio normally take between eight and twelve months to complete. Due to the number of tapestries being made and the fine quality of the work each tapestry is taking between two and four years to construct, of which there is six months of research and preparation for each tapestry. The techniques that are being used in West Dean’s tapestries are almost the same as those used 500 years ago.

To obtain the research material essential to recreating this set of tapestries the team needed to study the colour palette, techniques and materials used to make these tapestries.

The yarns being used in this set are mainly wool and cotton with small quantities of gold thread. The original set used wool, silk and gilt thread. The changes that have been made in these tapestries are purely due to durability and availability.

One of the most involved parts of this project was to colour match the original tapestries. Currently there are around 260 colours in our palette, although for any one tapestry in the series we only use around 150 per tapestry. This palette is recorded at the Cloisters Museum.

There have been a number of areas in the original tapestries that have needed some form of reconstruction or re-drawing, due to either the deterioration of the original fabric, cuts or damage to the tapestries and in some cases restoration. When it is necessary to make changes they are researched thoroughly, however most alterations are minimal.

To ensure that any changes have the same characteristics of the original set the weavers make sample tapestries. At this point we also checked that the colour palette and techniques are sympathetic to the originals whilst maintaining a balanced palette. Very often it is not until something is woven that the team can assess whether or not it is looking right. It is the objective of the team to produce tapestries that are faithful to the originals, this involves understanding how they were originally made, the type of yarns and techniques used and also seeing beyond what the original tapestries look like today.

In the early 16th century, tapestries of this type would have shone from the dimly light walls of castles, palaces and stately homes. The colour palette would most likely have been seen as vibrant today. Therefore some of our research has involved studying images of the backs of the original tapestries. This can only be achieved through looking at the digital mapping that the conservators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art have taken. These images are extremely informative and very useful in our pursuit to understand the set.

Each tapestry in the set has three weavers working on it and we have now worked with a team of 16 weavers over the 6 years that we have been making these tapestries. This has included weavers from the USA, Sweden, Australia, Japan, Scotland, Isle of Man and England.

To date the weavers have completed four of the tapestries, The Start of the Hunt, The Unicorn is Found, The Unicorn is killed and taken to the Castle, and the Unicorn in Captivity and they are now hanging in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle - a temporary location until the Palace is restored.

The team of weavers at Stirling are weaving the Unicorn at Bay tapestry which will be completed in 2011 and West Dean weavers are working on the 'Unicorn Leaps from the Stream' which will be completed in 2012.

All images relating to the Historic Scotland project used in this website are © Crown copyright courtesy of Historic Scotland.