The Unicorn is Attacked

In the midst of the gilded age, John D Rockefeller Jr. gifted a beautiful tapestry to the Met. He purchased it for approximately one million dollars and had it in his personal collection for over 15 years.  Now it hangs for all to see in the impressive New York City  museum. This specific tapestry is the third in a series of seven tapestries depicting the hunt and eventual capture, of a unicorn, an animal known for its invincibility and described to carry immense healing properties in its twisted horn.  This group of tapestries certainly tug at your heart strings and are a sad representation of man as the innate hunter vs the ultimate trophy of the mythical magical elusive animal.  Melancholy  seeps into your being the longer you stand in front of it.  The piece portrays simple paiges and noblemen alike, in their customary dress of the age, their hounds at the heel, spears drawn, cornering a beguiling looking unicorn, a creature of innocence and naivete. 

Being a patron of such  outstanding works of art with their history and richness is bound to keep you awake at night.  Perhaps Rockefeller found it too disturbing to hang on his walls any longer, waking him in a hot sweat after he sat gazing at it over his fireplace as he sipped his scotch each night.  Maybe it simply clashed with a remodeled interior, or most likely his benefactor nature simply prevailed.  Regardless, there it was, in a small side room of a remote wing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

After being politely ushered out of the museum at closing time a foursome drifts along with the rest of the late day patrons to the magnificent marble front steps of the museum. Here the family pauses to absorb the beauty of what has been seen inside. The tapestry reproduced in a  postcard image gets pulled from the crisp white gift shop paper bag and handed around to each of the individual members of the family.  To the father leaning upon the iconic building’s massive column while manipulating his hand held to find a place for them to all troop towards soon for a meal.  He glances at it, giving it a moment of attention before he passes it across to the son.  Teasingly the son waves it away from his youngest, and only sister.  The kids  jabber on together in a banter of sibling code, a reverse Charlie Brown dialect to the ears of the parents. After making its rounds to all the postcard finally returns to the mother of the clan, who carefully places it back into its protection of the white bag. She absentmindedly slides it into her handbag as she picks back up her day dream she was having earlier on the subway on the way to the museum.  Glancing up at the soft blue sky, noting the cotton ball clouds, she softly closes her eyes and begins to plot through again how to would be to hijack the zamboni she saw earlier that day at the ice rink in Rockefeller Center.  She could finally fulfill her lifelong dream of driving a zamboni.   Her mind spinning and twisting with joy while laying out like a chessboard what her moves would be, concocting the entire scenario in her mind.  The daydream ends with the ultimate satisfaction that is a flight of fancy as she now finds herself on the walk to the restaurant with her family.