Millefleur

Mille Fleurs ( international parlance), from Fr. mille fleurs = thousand flowers, in German also scattered flowers is the name of a characteristic ornamental decorations, ie for the tapestries of the late Gothic period, has been designed at the turn of the 16th century 15. The main factory for the Mille Fleurs rugs is suspected in Tournai, which belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy and then culturally leading was an important center of the cloth trade and the production of high-quality textiles. Even the Loire region is attributed to an important Mille Fleurs production.

In Mille Fleurs Decor is a secular or religious allegorical scene with a variety of plants, mostly flowers, filled. As an outstanding example of this is true of the six-part tapestry The Lady and the Unicorn in the Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris. Even with other pictorial representations as in panel painting or illustrations of manuscripts ( illuminations ) were common during the Gothic ornaments used to divide the perspective not yet developed background. Were applied in addition to stylized plants and vines and rosettes or stars, gold on a red or blue face and vice versa ( see, for example, the French lilies banner). Often, the scenery a Marie motif and a garden ( Maria in the rose garden or in the Garden of Eden ) represents the sampling with flowers then available as Marie symbolism associated with the from the interpretation of the Song of Songs, 4.12 ( " A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride, a garden enclosed, a sealed fountain " ) derived motif of the Hortus conclusus.

Mille Fleurs has found a pattern with many small, evenly or unevenly distributed flowers to other substances ( tapestries, wallpaper ) and objects (ceramics, millefiori glass art of Fratelli Toso ) application. Especially in the second half of the 18th century, the decor was again widespread. Even today offers trading on reproductions of historical Mille Fleurs Tapestries.