MILLEFLEURS fragment with a UNICORN Around 1500, tapestries were particularly in demand with grounds covered so closely by different flowering plants that there seemed to be a thousand or more. These 'millefleurs' tapestries, often with small animals and birds among the flowers, sometimes featured the owner's coat-of-arms, in which case the animals might be symbolic. The unicorn was associated in legend with chastity and invulnerability, since only a virgin might catch and tame it, and its horn was considered an antidote to poison. FLEMISH; early 16th century Museum number 232-1894 [ca. 2003]