A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn
is Tracy Chevalier's answer to the mystery behind one of the art world's
great masterpieces--a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs
today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction
of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown--until now.
Paris, 1490. A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries
celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic,
arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them.
Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house--mother and daughter,
servant, and lady-in-waiting--before taking his designs north to the
Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master
weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the
tapestries--his finest, most intricate work--on time for his exacting
French client. The results change all their lives--lives that have been
captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look.
In The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier weaves fact and fiction
into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry--an
extraordinary story exquisitely told.