Why Does the Black Family Appear on a
Tapestry?
CONSIDERING J. K. ROWLING’S INVENTIONS include
moving photographs and talking paintings, some readers of Phoenix may guess Rowling created the Black family
tapestry at Grimmauld Place entirely from her imagination. But
ornate storytelling tapestries have existed for thousands of years,
going back to early Egypt and Asia. In Europe all the great
medieval castles had tapestries, which were needed to help keep out
drafts and to keep in heat. Naturally, wealthier people had more
decorative tapestries, and the wealthiest had versions specially
designed to show a family crest or a scene from family history.
Churches also had them.
Some tapestries were woven from designs drawn by
famous artists. Raphael (1483-1520), one of the greatest artists of
the Renaissance, was asked by Pope Leo X to design tapestries for
the Vatican showing scenes from the Bible.
Right: a detail from the Bayeux Tapestry
Tapestries were also designed to celebrate military victories. The
Bayeux Tapestry, perhaps the most famous of all, tells the story of
King William’s conquest of England in 1066. Blenheim Palace in
Oxfordshire, England, has a tapestry that shows the 1st Duke of
Marlborough’s victory over the French at the Battle of Blenheim in
1704 (for which he was given the land and the funds for the
palace). Many, however, are symbolic. The complexity of the Unicorn
Tapestries, seven works that portray a hunt for a unicorn, have
prompted countless theories about what the artist had in
mind.
“Toujours Pur,” the Black
family motto, means “Always Pure” in French. Of course it refers to
pure wizard blood, the obsession of so many generations of Blacks
before Sirius.
The art of telling stories with tapestries never
disappeared. Artist William Morris designed some in the 1800s. More
recently, the Bayeux Tapestry inspired the Overlord Embroidery in
Portsmouth, England. It shows the Second World War effort to send
armies back across the English Channel that William I crossed in
1066.
Right: a detail from the Bayeux Tapestry
