Origin : Brussels - Flanders

Period : 17 th century

Provenance :Private Collection

Composition: Wool and silk

Dimension: 4.16 W x 3.37 H

Finely woven Brussels tapestry in wool and silk in the 17th century. It has for register Love of the Gods - Apollo.

This tapestry is surrounded by a beautiful floral border.

Strong point: Fresh colours.

Conversely, as many researchers have pointed out, Apollo is paradoxically perhaps the most Greek of all gods and has a long history in Greece before the classical period.

It is also possible that his origins can be traced to the Dorian people of the Peloponnese, who honoured a god named Apéllôn, protector of flocks and human communities; it seems that the term comes from the Dorian word apélla, meaning "sheepfold" or "assembly". The Dorian Apollo would be a syncretic figure of several local pre-Greek deities, just as the Greek Apollo is the fusion of several models.

Apollo (Latin Apollo) is the Greek god of the arts, singing, music, male beauty, poetry and light. He is the conductor of the nine muses. Apollo is also the god of purification and healing, but can bring plague by his bow; finally, he is one of the main gods capable of divination, consulted, among others, in Delphi, where he returned his oracles through the Pythia of Delphi. He was also honoured by the Romans, who adopted him very quickly without changing his name. As early as the 5th century BC, they adopted him for his healing powers and built temples for him.

Shortly after Apollo's birth, Zeus gave him a chariot drawn by swans and ordered him to go to Delphi. The god did not obey immediately, but flew in his chariot to the land of the Hyperboreans, which, according to some versions, is the homeland of Leto. There lives a sacred people who know neither old age nor sickness; the sun shines there permanently. Apollo stayed there for a year before leaving for Delphi. He returns there every nineteen years, at the end of which the stars have completed a complete revolution (a metric cycle). From the spring equinox to the dawn of the Pleiades, he dances there every night accompanied by the lyre. According to other legends, he spends the winter months there every year, only returning to his place of worship - Delphi or Delos - with spring....