Painted tapestry: an intermedial object between textile and painting

This paper aims to study the display of fictive tapestries in late Renaissance Italy (c. 1520-1650). These “fake” tapestries consist of narrative scenes framed by borders imitating real fabrics curling at the edges. They appear to hang on the walls on which they are actually frescoed. More than a framing device around the narratives, they constitute a new (deceiving) medium for the depicted scenes, with its own medial and communicative properties. This paper will thus explore the specificities of this hybrid medium, imitating textile with pictorial means.