Hunting scenes are a common theme in surviving fifteenth and sixteenth-century tapestries. This example is the second in a series of three that illustrates the events of a rabbit hunt. The activities of the hunt unfold across the three tapestries. The first tapestry, presently in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, shows the peasants preparing for their hunt; the third, today in the collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris, depicts the peasants picnicking post-hunt. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s tapestry illustrates what is perhaps the most pivotal scene—the hunt itself. Beginning in the lower left corner, a ferret, wearing a bell, enters a rabbit burrow and chases its inhabitants into the peasants’ waiting nets. The tapestries in this series are unusual in that they feature peasants, rather than aristocrats, as the rabbits’ hunters.

Today, at least 120 such tapestries—featuring scenes of peasants engaged in rural activities, such as shepherding, harvesting, and hunting—remain in existence (Dimitrova 2007, 86). The depiction of the peasants in the Museums’ tapestry may attest to contemporary social tensions between the aristocracy and the lower classes. The peasants’ outfits, particularly of colored cloth and shoes, are typical of affluent peasants living in Northern Europe and suggest a higher social standing. Despite their elevated clothes and accessories, their sharp facial features appear as caricature and may have been intended to convey satire. llc