Tapestry - Bellême

There is a stretch of the Perche where the forest of Bellême runs deep and old, and this tapestry is a scene from it, the trees closing overhead and a pond glinting somewhere in the middle. Handwoven in the 20th century and found in Belgium, it is worked in deep blues and greens and golds, a dense wood opening onto water inside a wide border of flowers and fruit. Tapestries like this are called verdure, from the French for greenery, the kind the weavers of Flanders made for centuries to bring the forest indoors, whole walls of leaves where the trees are the subject. Sylvie hangs it behind the bed in place of a headboard, so the last thing you see at night and the first in the morning is Bellême.