The collections
The Museum Plantin-Moretus conserves a multiple collections. Old printed books and manuscripts, printing presses and tools, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture and paintings and several archives.
Brussels tapestries
On these Brussels tapestries you follow the story of Tomyris. This queen from the north of Iran took on Cyrus. And won. The courageous queen of a small people defeated the great Persian king.
©LUCID
Courage Pays Off
Stories from ancient Greek mythology or history were highly popular in the full Renaissance of the 16th century. You can find them, among other places, on these Brussels tapestries. Tapestries often carried a moralizing message. In the lower border of one of the hangings, the name 'Thomiris' appears. She was the queen of the Massagetae, a small people who stood up against the mighty Cyrus. Thomiris killed the Persian king. The tapestries depict scenes from her life. The moral of the story? Courage and bravery are rewarded.
These 'gobelins' - originally three large ones and one small - were not commissioned by the Moretus family. One of them acquired them from the original patron, the Losson-van Hove family. In the later-added 17th-century borders, commissioned by an early Moretus, their coat of arms was incorporated, along with the Plantin compass at the top.
©LUCID
