Cluny Museum, Paris: what is the treasure of 'The Lady and the Unicorn'?

For anyone lost in Paris, searching for what is meaningful and important, a good place to find out is at the Cluny Museum in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.

Why here?
There are six tapestries in the Cluny Museum which were once spotted by the French writer George Sands.  She made the point that these tapestries held an important clue to happiness.  But what exactly is the treasure of the lady in the tapestry?

What's special about them?
The first five describe the beauty of the five senses: one tapestry the theme is taste, another tapestry the theme is smell... etc

But it is the SIXTH tapestry, 'The Lady and the Unicorn' shows a beautiful maiden opening a chest full of gold coins.  Written above this chest of gold is 'my only desire' 

Mon Seul Désir, Cluny Museum, Paris

What does it mean?
I have been thinking a lot about how ART is a good guide on love and desire.  Art is of course the speakings of the HEART, and it often tells of things that people in the past have learnt about this eternal topic of love.

Is it to be rich and have a lot of gold? Is there is a knightly theme to the tapestry, where she is the valuable maiden who is won, like a prize of gold?

Is it a reference to the biblical passage Matthew 6 verse 21
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also"

Which means that what ever makes your heart feel love, it's your path towards abundance.

My feeling is that the sixth sense is the love and desire sense, and that the beloved is the path to your heart.  The beloved opens the way for you. 

Maslow has a pyramid which describes human need.  The bottom of the pyramid is our basic needs, sleep, water, food and shelter.  Above this is friends, family, job. Above this is emotional connections and society and self-esteem.  At the top of the pyramid is 'deeply satisfying human relations'  This one can't happen unless all the other needs have been established.  We are an evolving being, whose lodestar is love.  We all dream of it and want to believe in it.

E.M Forster speaks of this in Room With a View 'This desire to govern a woman - it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it go ether before they shall enter the Garden" The Garden, of course is the box of treasure, the heaven, the view, LOVE.  Love is an amazing view.

 Yet it is not enough just to love the person, there has to be a sort of fight to get them.  Love opens wounds and darkness that needs to be healed.  There is still a long road of healing until it is light... and lovers have a tangled, bramble-filled path.  Kalil Gibran has this to say on love and desire:

When love beckons to you follow him,

      Though his ways are hard and steep.
      And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
      Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him,
      Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
      For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
      Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
      So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
      He threshes you to make you naked.
      He sifts you to free you from your husks.
      He grinds you to whiteness.
      He kneads you until you are pliant;
      And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
      All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
      But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
      Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
      Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
      Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
      Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
      And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
      Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
      But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
      To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
      To know the pain of too much tenderness.
      To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
      And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
      To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
      To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
      To return home at eventide with gratitude;       And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.   


Other relevant posts:

DAVID: Mythical and biblical ways that Michelangelo fought his own Goliath
Renaissance painting: How are we the 'stuff that dreams are made of'
Five ways a George de la Tour develops your psyche