The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access · Public Domain
Unicorn Tapestry: History, Meaning, and Famous Sets
Start here for the history of unicorn tapestries: the two famous cycles, how historic tapestry was made, where to see the works, and how to read them carefully.
- Main topic
- The Hunt of the Unicorn and The Lady and the Unicorn
- Period
- Around 1500
- Materials
- Primarily wool and silk
- Museum homes
- The Met in New York and the Musée de Cluny in Paris
This is the site’s main introduction to historic unicorn tapestries. Start here if you want the basic facts before choosing a panel, a museum visit, a symbolism question, or a guide to a modern reproduction.
The phrase “unicorn tapestry” often causes confusion because it usually refers to two separate groups of works made around 1500: The Hunt of the Unicorn and The Lady and the Unicorn. They share an animal, a late-medieval setting, expensive materials, and dense decorative detail. They do not share one story, one museum, or one settled meaning.
The two famous tapestry cycles
The Hunt of the Unicorn
The Hunt is a group of surviving hangings and fragments associated with The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Its familiar modern sequence follows hunters as they search for, pursue, attack, and carry away a unicorn. The famous garden image shows the animal alive again under a pomegranate tree, inside a low fence.
This cycle is about action, pursuit, animals, landscape, and the uneasy idea of possession. Its scenes are useful for studying hunting culture, storytelling across a series, and the way a woven image can direct the eye through movement.
Explore the Hunt scene by scene →
The Lady and the Unicorn
The Lady cycle is held by the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Its six tapestries show a lady with a lion and a unicorn on a red field scattered with plants and animals. Five scenes are conventionally linked to sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The sixth, À mon seul désir, has no universally accepted explanation.
This cycle is less concerned with plot than with objects, gestures, clothing, animals, and the five senses. It is useful for studying courtly display, textile detail, heraldry, and the difference between seeing a symbol and proving a meaning.
Explore the Lady and the Unicorn →
A tapestry is woven, not painted
Historic tapestry is made on a loom. Vertical structural threads form the warp. Coloured threads pass across them as the weft, building the visible picture area by area. Because the image is woven into the cloth, colour, texture, and surface are part of the artwork rather than added afterwards.
Wool made durable fields of colour. Silk could create finer detail and changes in sheen. Some luxury works also used metal-wrapped threads. The result was expensive, portable, and practical: a tapestry could decorate a large room, soften drafts, and be moved between residences.
Learn how medieval tapestries were made →
How to look at a unicorn tapestry
Start with what is visible before looking for a hidden message.
- Identify the action. Is the unicorn being hunted, resting, looking into a mirror, or standing beside a lady?
- Identify the setting. Is the scene a forest, fountain, enclosed garden, or patterned field of flowers?
- Identify the objects. Weapons, dogs, fences, mirrors, musical instruments, banners, and caskets all shape the scene.
- Notice the materials. Look for changes between broad wool areas and bright silk details, where visible in museum images or in person.
- Separate evidence from interpretation. A chain is visible; what that chain means is a question that needs context.
This method works better than treating each flower or animal as a code with one answer.
Millefleurs, animals, and visual density
Both cycles are known for detail. The plant-filled grounds are often described as millefleurs, meaning “a thousand flowers.” They are not ordinary landscapes. Small plants and animals fill the surface, making the imagery feel both close-up and expansive.
These details can suggest cultivation, status, season, natural variety, or the technical skill of the workshop. They also help control the composition: flowers create space around figures, animals supply visual pauses, and repeated colours hold separate parts of a large hanging together.
Study symbols and details in the Hunt tapestries →
Medieval, Renaissance, or both?
The famous unicorn cycles were made around the transition between the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is reasonable to call them late-medieval tapestries because of their courtly imagery, millefleurs grounds, heraldic interests, and symbolic traditions. It is also useful to place them within the growing tapestry industry of the Low Countries around 1500.
The labels matter less than the explanation. These works belong to an art world in which designers, dyers, weavers, merchants, and patrons all contributed to a large and costly object.
Where the tapestries are held
The Hunt of the Unicorn belongs to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is associated with The Met Cloisters in northern Manhattan. The Lady and the Unicorn belongs to the Musée de Cluny–Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris. Textile displays can change because light-sensitive works require careful conservation, so confirm current display information with the museums before travelling.
Choose the next page
- Want a specific scene? Use the Scene-by-Scene Index.
- Want to compare the two cycles? Read Lady and the Unicorn vs. Hunt of the Unicorn.
- Want help with school research? Open the Student Research Guide.
- Want historical symbolism? Read What Did the Unicorn Symbolize in Medieval Art?.
- Want a reproduction for your home? Read How to Choose a Modern Unicorn Wall Hanging.
Questions curious readers ask
What is a unicorn tapestry?
It is a woven wall hanging featuring a unicorn. The phrase often refers to The Hunt of the Unicorn and The Lady and the Unicorn, two separate late-medieval tapestry cycles.
Are the Hunt and Lady tapestries the same set?
No. The Hunt is a group of hunting scenes associated with The Met in New York, while The Lady and the Unicorn is a six-tapestry cycle held by the Musée de Cluny in Paris.
What were historic tapestries made from?
They were usually woven from wool and silk. Some expensive works also used metal-wrapped thread for highlights.
Where can the famous unicorn tapestries be seen?
The Hunt of the Unicorn belongs to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is associated with The Met Cloisters. The Lady and the Unicorn is held by the Musée de Cluny–Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris.
Do unicorn tapestries have one fixed meaning?
No. Their meaning depends on the scene, objects, action, original setting, and historical context. Good interpretation separates observation from speculation.