Astrology, Guiding Force of human Life

This tapestry belongs to a set of eight on The Arts and Sciences in the Colección Santander, which must in turn have been part of a larger group of which some are now missing. The different size of the individual tapestries is due to the fact that they were woven for specific locations, forming what was known in Brussels as a chambre en tapisserie.

In this panel a man and a woman raise imploring arms to the sky in which a zodiac can be seen with the signs of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer and Leo. The fact that these symbols are arranged from right to left suggests that they were derived from a printed source, and are hence reversed here. The composition refers to the influence of the zodiacal signs on the life of man and to astrology, the study of these signs.

All the tapestries in the set involve two themes: a moral one relating to the life of man, his virtues and vices, and an exaltation of the Arts, encompassing the Liberal Arts and the so-called Fine Arts.