The Lady and the Unicorn

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is a writer. She has published several novels (“Paris London Dachau”, “Dla mnie to samo”, “Teraz”, “Nieszpory”) and collected interviews (two conducted along with Anna Dziewit: “Głośniej! Rozmowy z pisarkami” and “Teoria trutnia i inne”; and two by herself: “Jeszcze dzisiaj nie usiadłam” and “Piano rysuje sufit”). Agnieszka also published “Dusza światowa” – an extended interview with Dorota Masłowska. Together with Ewa Kuryluk, she wrote a book in the form of a conversation (“Manhattan i Mała Wenecja”), for which they received the Warsaw Literary Premiere Award.

The best place to get lost would be among the tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Agnieszka Drotkiewicz takes us on an extraordinary journey in the footsteps of George Sand (and others).

George Sand’s muddy shoes

The red is saturated and you can see the abundance of plants against it. Some of them are easy to identify, even for a moderately skilled naturalist: lily of the valley or daffodils here, wild strawberries there. Is this what the writer George Sand saw under her feet on a rainy day at Boussac Castle? It is hard to believe that Count de Carbonnière, one of the owners of the castle, would decide to place tapestries on the floor instead of carpets, but who knows?

There are some uncertainties and doubts surrounding the six tapestries depicting a lady and unicorn, exhibited today at the Musée de Cluny (or Musée National du Moyen Âge) in Paris. So perhaps this version is true: Sand, wiping her muddy shoes, looked carefully at the carpet on the floor. At that time, Boussac Castle was the seat of the sub-prefecture, and the writer came to settle official matters related to her house in nearby Nohant. The plant motif on the fabric reminded her of tapestries from the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. She forgot about the official business and asked whether there were any more tapestries. It turned out that yes, there were six – Sand’s notes mention eight tapestries; two of them were lost. Each one depicts a lady, her companion – both in gorgeous dresses – and a unicorn, as well as other animals and plants.

Were the tapestrie

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Agnieszka Drotkiewicz:

is a writer. She has published several novels (“Paris London Dachau”, “Dla mnie to samo”, “Teraz”, “Nieszpory”) and collected interviews (two conducted along with Anna Dziewit: “Głośniej! Rozmowy z pisarkami” and “Teoria trutnia i inne”; and two by herself: “Jeszcze dzisiaj nie usiadłam” and “Piano rysuje sufit”). Agnieszka also published “Dusza światowa” – an extended interview with Dorota Masłowska. Together with Ewa Kuryluk, she wrote a book in the form of a conversation (“Manhattan i Mała Wenecja”), for which they received the Warsaw Literary Premiere Award.

Translation: Joanna Figiel

Publish date: 24.06.2021

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Anna Arno:

is an art historian, essayist and translator. She graduated with a degree in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and is the author of a recently published book entitled “Ten Kraj” [This Country].

In China, the divine tree was the pine. The fig tree brought enlightenment to Buddhists. Olympian deities shared out oaks, cypresses and poplars among themselves. Since time immemorial, people have regarded greenery as a sort of shrine: home to cults, symbols and taboos of all kind.

In late 2020, the University of Cambridge admitted that Charles Darwin’s notebooks were stolen from the university’s library. The 1837 notebook included an invaluable drawing: a diagram which Darwin called ‘The Tree of Life’. The complex graph depicts evolutionary interdependencies between species, just as a family tree represents blood relationships between people. Darwin found the arboreal metaphor so apposite that he used it again, 22 years later, in his On the Origin of Species. The book includes a dramatic image of a tree tousled by conflicting gusts, its branches and sprouts vying for light and water:

The Lady and the Unicorn

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The Tree of Life

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