Weaving Power

Gender, Sovereignty, and the Politics of Representation in Renaissance tapestries

Abstrakti

This essay examines how early modern European tapestries operated as a medium through which gendered violence was normalised, while at the same time producing imagery of female sovereignty. A central example is the mythological narrative of Rome, where the rape of the Sabine women became a narrative of heroic and political legitimacy rather than a representation of violence. The scene, depicted in the popular tapestry medium strongly affected and shaped perception within courtly and ecclesiastical interiors. The recent research has suggested that the violence towards women was neutralised through material richness and ornamental framing of the tapestries. Via a feminist re-reading of a tapestry at Kalmar Castle in Sweden, this essay examines how idealised female figures operated in the same violent structures of hierarchy. In this way, the essay demonstrates how materiality and spatiality shape the visual production of power and violence, contributing to research on early modern tapestry and feminist art history.