Not only macaws and turkeys. American fauna in the tapestries of Sigismund Augustus
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15633/fhc.32101Keywords:
Wawel tapestries, 16th century, early modern animal art, iconography, American animalsAbstract
This article examines the depictions of American animals on the tapestries of Sigismund Augustus. These tapestries, made around 1560, are quite realistic depictions of fauna from both the Old and New Worlds. The macaws, monkeys, turkeys, and llamas were well-known in Europe at the time and often, though not always realistically, depicted. In this article, I argue that other creatures depicted on the tapestries may also represent American animals. An analysis of the accounts of travellers from the 1500s to 1550s (Columbus, Vespucci, Enciso, and Fernández de Oviedo) shows that the majority of the New World fauna was named after European species. In this article, I aim to identify which tapestries depict American fauna, including animals known in the Netherlands during the 1550s, as well as those only described (e.g., pumas as lions and howler monkeys as long-tailed cats). In this interpretation, the tapestries are an expression of Sigismund Augustus’s dream of the New World.
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