Four other 16th-century tapestries, purchased by Helen Clay Frick for the site, hang in the rotunda of the Frick Art Museum at the Frick Art & Historical Center, Point Breeze.

Two ornate French works, done in the Millefleurs ("thousand flowers") style, show a "Lady and Attendants" and "Two Musicians," playing flute and dulcimer, against decorative backgrounds literally filled with botanically identifiable flowers.

The other two tapestries are Flemish, narrative and more naturalistic in presentation and perspective.

The references in "Court of Love" -- a name assigned it by Ms. Frick -- are unknown, but scholars think it could refer to the mythological tale of Atalante and Hippomenes.

While the Frick tapestries exhibit the same adept craftsmanship as those at the Carnegie, they are smaller, in part due to the practice in later years of dividing tapestries. This is most noticeable in the truncated figures at the bottom of "Two Musicians."

The elegant "Rest on the Flight Into Egypt," depicting the Holy Family pausing during their flight from Herod's soldiers, is an intact composition. It is the quietest piece of the four, with the most subdued color and most complex composition.

It was also an expensive work, evidenced by the gold and silver threads.

"In 2000, we had all the tapestries cleaned," said Sarah Hall, Frick director of curatorial affairs. "The woman who cleaned this one rhapsodized over it."

The tapestry, woven following a cartoon, as was typical, combines Italian Renaissance and Northern Renaissance styles. "It has the North's obsession with minutiae," Hall said. "The landscape goes back into deep space, evocative of painting. It's even framed [by its border]."

"The family has stopped. Joseph's purse and his staff lie nearby." In the background, a farmer harvesting grain refers to a traditional story, Hall said. When the family passed by the farmer, he asked what he should tell soldiers in pursuit. Tell them we passed when you were sowing, Joseph answered, which was the truth. Then the grain miraculously matured overnight, so that the farmer did not have to lie, but the soldiers deduced that the child had traveled through long before.

Hall pointed to details, such as two ducks, one of which is diving for food alongside a stream that also harbors a frog and heron; the donkey chomping on a mouth full of grass; the faithful rendition of the fig tree under which the family sits.

And then she added, with a smile, "In the midst of all this naturalism these putti [small angels] in the tree, a meld of realism and religious fantasy."

The tapestry has all of the characteristics that we identify with Renaissance painting, Hall said. "The humanism, the emotion. The angels could represent the babies that were not spared, were killed by Herod."

Whether the intent was allegorical, religious, historical or purely decorative, the tapestries continue to speak across time.

For information, call 412-371-0600 or visit www.TheFrickPittsburgh.org.

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