ART & GARDENS · AROUND 1500

Unicorn in Captivity

Lemon Balm, Calendula & Sage

An impossible animal. A garden of real flowers.

Bright green leaves, gold petals and a small, savory sage note. The most gently resinous of the floral blends.

Enter the Story

Concept Blend · In Development · Not Yet Available

THE PLANT / THE STORY

Look beneath the impossible creature.

The tapestry

A unicorn rests inside a low fence, surrounded by plants precise enough to name. In the tapestry long known as The Unicorn in Captivity, an impossible animal shares the ground with an ordinary calendula. The Met’s garden researchers identify its gold flowers below the enclosure.

What the museum sees

Woven around 1495–1505, the work is now titled The Unicorn Rests in a Garden. Its meaning remains open to interpretation. The museum reads the enclosure partly as the beloved willingly bound by love; even the red marks on the animal have been interpreted as falling pomegranate juice rather than wounds.

A PRESENT-DAY INTERPRETATION

The modern blend.

We begin with the part of that world that can grow in a Seattle garden. Calendula gives this modern blend its gold. Lemon balm supplies a bright leaf aroma, while a little common sage brings savory depth. Only calendula is claimed here as a plant identified in this particular tapestry.

The blend is our contemporary response to its flower-filled field. It invites a closer look at the real plants beneath an imagined creature, without pretending to recover a medieval drink.

Anonymous hands measuring dried leaves beside separate flower and leaf trays; AI-generated process illustration — Illustrative process image · AI-generated, not a photograph of program participants or sites.

FROM PLANT TO FINISHED GOOD

Proposed Ingredients: Lemon balm leaf · Calendula petals · Garden sage leaf
In the Making: Dried calendula petals and cut leaves, intended for a water infusion. A restrained sage accent is proposed; the final blend will be settled through tasting.
Planned Provenance: Calendula, lemon balm and culinary sage are planned for Columbia City; any food-grade supplements will be identified by batch.

Story Notes & Sources

The product keeps the tapestry’s familiar former title. The Met is the authority for the current title, date and interpretations. Sage illustrated in the museum’s separate sage article belongs to The Unicorn is Found, not this tapestry. Our sage and lemon balm are modern flavor choices. No affiliation with the museum is implied.

The Met · The Unicorn Rests in a Garden, 1495–1505 ↗The Met Cloisters · Calendar Girl ↗

A future product with AI-generated packaging imagery. Ingredients, proportions and brewing directions remain in development. Historical beliefs and uses describe the inspiration; they do not establish effects for this product. No medical or therapeutic claims are made.

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