By Luciano Migliaccio
The shield featuring the two Bs (initials of Brussels and Brabant) is the logo of the city of Brussels. The monogram is the brand of Frans van Maelsaeck, whose full name is inscribed on the tapestry border. The repeated signature and the author’s name in full suggest that the artwork was particularly meaningful for the artist. Only a few rare pieces are known to have been produced by the master’s hands. Two tapestries featuring Scenes from the Scipio’s Life are conserved at the Musée Royal d’Art et d’Histoire de Brussels. The first shows the encounter of Scipio, the leader of Roman legions, and Hannibal before the battle at Zama, and the second, the battle of Zama itself. The two tapestries were published by Crick-Kunziger (1953, pp. 13-16). In a letter conserved in museum archives, L. Wuyts, of the Brussels museum, stated that the pieces at the Belgian museum, that of the Masp Collection, and a fourth tapestry put out in 1923 by H. Göbel (pp. 367-368), then property of the company J. Klausner and Sohn, of Berlin, formed a sole set telling the story of Scipio. For this reason, in the Belgian scholar’s interpretation, the São Paulo tapestry features Scipio rescuing his father at the battle on the Ticino River. Actually, extant documents reveal that in 1629 Maelsaeck created two series of eight tapestries each, on this same subject matter. Based on their attributes, the four human figures featured on the borders, with cornucopias, may be identified as Venus, Jupiter, Bacchus, and Flora. The four cartouches, also on the borders, represent animals that may have been inspired by the following Aesopian fables: The Wolf and the Lamb, The Snake and the Porcupine, The Lion and the Fox, and The Fox and the Eagle. Inspired in the set Raphael designed for Pope Leo X, Giulio Romano designed a series of tapestries depicting Scipio’s life, which Brussels artists produced in their looms. Beginning in 1618, Rubens tried to restore to the Brussels tapestries their original simplicity by focusing on a few large-size figures on the foreground and leaving plenty of space for the sky and the landscape. Rubens also reduced the variety of border decorations by selecting a few figures and architectural elements that judiciously enhanced the compositional structure. The designer of Frans van Maelsaeck’s tapestry motifs remains anonymous. Presumably he was a painter related with Justus Verus van Egmont, himself the original interpreter of Rubens’s maniera who skillfully rendered the master’s monumental style into brilliant, graciously spectacular solutions.

— Luciano Migliaccio, 1998

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