Day 5 Paris continued - the Cluny Museum

The Cluny Museum : The Musée national du Moyen Âge, formerly Musée de Cluny.

On the way back from Versailles, I took the opportunity to stay on the train and go a couple more stops to visit the Cluny Museum located adjacent to the Sorbonne, as it had been closed on Tuesday when I tried to visit. The building itself is considered an exceptional Parisian monument, the late 15th century Gothic mansion Cluny Abbey Hotel is partially constructed on the remains of Gallo-Roman baths dating from the 3rd century, known as the Thermes de Cluny

The museum is filled with many treasures from the medieval times and includes superb religious treasures and an ancient Roman bath house or frigidarium, but the main purpose of my visit was to see the famous tapestries of La Dame à la licorne which are described in minute and fascinating detail by Tracy Chevalier in her historical fiction novel The Lady and the Unicorn - where she created a fascinating story about the people who designed and made the tapestries.

The restored wool and silk tapestries, woven in Flanders in the early 1500s from a French design, occupy all 4 walls of a darkened room, so it is difficult to take clear photos, but the detail is exquisite - the millefiori background is red and covered with thousands of small flowers and animals (rabbits, foxes, unicorn, goats, dogs) and birds (blackbirds, storks) in white, green, brown and black - and is
designed to be a flat background with no perspective.

Five of the tapestries represent the 5 senses - taste, smell, hearing, touch and sight - but the 6th tapestry with its motto on the blue tent  'A mon seul desir' (To my only desire) has puzzled historians for 500 years.