Hunting with a Hawk (from the Hunting Parks Tapestries)

Hunting with a Hawk (from the Hunting Parks Tapestries)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This tapestry belongs to a larger set of four, featuring activities that take place within and around an enclosed hunting park. Here, hawking is the focus. At center, a youth sits astride a rearing horse while he watches his falcon bring down a bird. The folded back wings of the falcon are precisely observed, and capture the bird at the end of its dive. Outside the gated enclosure, one shepherd plays the bagpipes, another drinks, and a third dances with a shepherdess.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hunting with a Hawk (from the Hunting Parks Tapestries)Hunting with a Hawk (from the Hunting Parks Tapestries)Hunting with a Hawk (from the Hunting Parks Tapestries)Hunting with a Hawk (from the Hunting Parks Tapestries)Hunting with a Hawk (from the Hunting Parks Tapestries)

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.