The Invention of Glory: Afonso V and the Pastrana Tapestries

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Catalog of an exhibition held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Sept. 18, 2011-Jan. 8, 2012, and at the Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, Feb. 5-May 13, 2012; previously shown at 5 European venues.

This beautiful exhibition highlights the recently restored Pastrana tapestries, among the finest medieval examples Commissioned in the 1470s most likely by Afonso V, king of Portugal, the Pastrana Tapestries are a group of four towering tapestries memorializing his conquest of the Moroccan cities of Asilah and Tangier, near the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. An impressive rendition in wool and silk woven by Flemish weavers, the tapestries display multicolored scenes of the day: military, royalty, and maritime life. The images are an anomaly in that they portray current experiences and not ancient or Biblical events. Since the seventeenth century the Pastrana tapestries have been the property of the Collegiate Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Pastrana, Spain. The tapestries recently underwent total conservation in Belgium after deterioration and damage. Now entirely restored, they are an outstanding discovery for both scholars and the general public.

Contents:
The Pastrana tapestries, war photojournalism of the fifteenth century / Miguel Ángel Aguilar --
The Pastrana tapestries and Portuguese expansion in North Africa / Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra --
Afonso "the African" and his army : the Pastrana tapestries as a visual encyclopedia for the study of arms and armor / Donald J. La Rocca --
The Pastrana tapestries and the Panels of St Vincent : artistic legacy and symbolic memory of the reign of Afonso V of Portugal / Dalila Rodrigues --
Landing at Ashilah --
Seige of Asilah --
Assault on Asilah --
Fall of Tangier --
The conservation of the tapestries at the collegiate church of Pastrana / Yvan Maes De Wit.