The Impiety of Niobe

François de la Planche (1573-1627), Marc Comans (1563-1640)
cartoons by Toussaint Doubreil (1558–1602) (Paris, Faubourg Saint-Marcel)
The Impiety of Niobe
tapestry
wool, silk, thread of silver and gilded silver on silk,c. 1607–10
The Room of Tapestries

The tapestry presents Ovid’s version of the myth of the impious Niobe. Proud of her divine origins and still more of her numerous children, Niobe urged the Thebans not to sacrifice to Leto, who had given birth only to Apollo and Diana, and to worship her instead. This is part of a set including two more tapestries in the collection of Palazzo Reale, namely Diana the Huntress (the Room of Tapestries) and Diana with Otus and Ephialtes(the Audience Chamber). As demonstrated also by the marks and the monograms interwoven along the selvage, the three works were produced in Paris at the beginning of the 17th century in the Boutique d’Or, the most important of the workshops in the manufactory founded in 1607 by François de la Planche, originally named Frans van den Planken.