The Art Newspaper

Harry Potter and the Unicorn Tapestries

By The Art Newspaper. From In The Frame
Published online: 24 July 2009

As "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" sits comfortably at the top of the box office charts, art savvy fans of the young wizard's adventures may have been surprised to see a rather famous uncredited star appear in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For hanging in front of the mysterious Room of Requirement is none other than the final panel of the Metropolitan Museum's own Unicorn Tapestries, housed in The Cloisters, its Medieval branch far uptown. According to a spokesperson for the museum, the production company approached the Met several years ago to ask permission to use the series of allegorical tapestries, which depict the hunting and capture of a unicorn, in the Harry Potter films, but this is the first installment in which the work has appeared. When asked how it felt to have a Hollywood celebrity in their midst, Peter Barnet, curator in charge of the Medieval Department and The Cloisters, said, "We've always seen the tapestry series as a 'star'."