Lions in Fifteenth Century French Tapestries

I recently had this question e-mailed to me, and I thought I would post both the question and my answer.

Q: "Can anyone tell me why the lion looks so odd in the Sight tapestry. It looks like a monkey...In looking at the series the lion's face is really quite unlike other depictions of lions anywhere else. Is this discussed anywhere? The lion looks most normal in Taste."

A: "The lion in Sight does look peculiar, but not as much when compared with other tapestries of the same era. Artists in the fifteenth century had likely never seen a living lion, but copied other artists' etchings, drawings and other media. This becomes particularly clear when you compare renderings of more common creatures, like stags or dogs, which were more naturalistic because artists were familiar with them. Tapestries were woven with cartoons underneath the loom to guide the weaver, and often the artists who created these cartoons were also etchers, engravers, painters, etc. and would have followed the established visual canon in drawing lions, especially when they are heraldic devices. 
Lions in tapestries in the late fifteenth century share some common characteristics with the ones in The Lady and the Unicorn. They typically have shaggy manes, open mouths, prominent eyes and are sitting in profile. The tapestry The Winged Stags, by Paul Martin for Charles VII, late fifteenth century, is another example of heraldic lions done in this same style. The body of the seven-headed lion in scene 42 of the famous Apocalypse of Angers tapestry, 1377-79, is an early example of this depiction of lions, minus the mane.
So while the lion in Sight looks a little mangy and unlike any actual lion, it is right at home in the world of fifteenth century tapestries!"