19th c. Aubusson Tapestry

Palms and a peach tree lean over a little pagoda on the rocks while a long-legged bird wades below, an imagined faraway world woven for a French wall. Handwoven in Aubusson in the 19th century, it works the whole scene in soft greens and golds inside a bound border. Aubusson has woven tapestries in central France since the 1300s, was made a Royal Manufactory under Louis XIV in 1665, and its craft is now protected by UNESCO, six centuries of weavers standing behind a single panel like this. Sylvie hangs it on a big wall or behind a bed, a whole invented landscape to fall into.