page_title: Pieter Coecke van Aelst
section_title: Tapestry designs
hierarchical_section_title: Pieter Coecke van Aelst / Work / Tapestry designs
caption_attribution_description: English: The Burning of the Books at Ephesus (detail)
context_page_description: Pieter Coecke van Aelst or Pieter Coecke van Aelst the Elder was a Flemish painter, sculptor, architect, author and designer of woodcuts, goldsmith's work, stained glass and tapestries. His principal subjects were Christian religious themes. He worked in Antwerp and Brussels and was appointed court painter to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
  Coecke van Aelst was a polyglot. He published translations into Flemish, French and German of Ancient Roman and modern Italian architectural treatises. These publications played a pivotal role in the dissemination of Renaissance ideas in Northern Europe. They contributed to the transition in Northern Europe from the late Gothic style then prevalent towards a modern 'antique-oriented' architecture.
context_section_description: Pieter Coecke van Aelst was renowned for his tapestry designs which were executed by the Brussels tapestry workshops. These designs were typically small-scale drawings in black-and-white.  His cartoon for the Martyrdom of St. Peter (Brussels Town Hall) is in grisaille with touches of green and red while the names of the other colors, such as gold or blue, are written in.
  The patrons for the tapestries included Emperor Charles V, Francis I of France, Henry VIII of England and Cosimo de' Medici.   His reputation as a tapestry designer was established through his popular series of the Story of Saint Paul, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Story of Abraham, the Story of Vertumnus and Pomona, the Story of Joshua, the Story of the Creation, Poesia, the Conquest of Tunis and Julius Caesar.
  Between 1545 and 1550 Coecke designed tapestries in which the scenes are placed in architectural or landscape settings as is apparent in the Conquest of Tunis, the Poesia and the Story of the Creation tapestry series.  Mary of Hungary, the Governor General of the Netherlands, appealed to Coecke to assist Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen with the design of the Conquest of Tunis tapestry series. The Conquest of Tunis series was designed around 1546 and recounts Charles V's successful recapture of Tunis from the Turks. The tapestries were designed about 11 years after the events they recount took place. Coecke and Vermeyen collaborated on the cartoons for the tapestries. Vermeyen had reportedly accompanied Charles V on the military expedition to Tunis and had made sketches of the people, events and landscapes that he observed during the campaign.  The Conquest of Tunis tapestries were extensively used for propagandistic purposes by the Habsburg dynasty.  They were displayed at all court festivities, state events and religious ceremonies and had pride of place in the principal reception rooms of the Brussels palace and later in the Alcázar palace.
  The Poesia series was inspired by the stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Only one set of the tapestries was ever woven after they were designed around 1547–1548.  King Phillip II of Spain acquired the set in 1556.  The Story of the Creation was designed around 1548 and acquired by Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici and his spouse Eleanor of Toledo.
caption: The Story of Saint Paul: The Burning of the Books at Ephesus (detail)
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