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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/26151-8.txt b/26151-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..639e735 --- /dev/null +++ b/26151-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9474 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tapestry Book, by Helen Churchill Candee + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tapestry Book + +Author: Helen Churchill Candee + +Release Date: July 30, 2008 [EBook #26151] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TAPESTRY BOOK *** + + + + +Produced by Eileen Gormly, Alicia Williams (who did the +scanning, image prep, and OCR), Sam W. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE + TAPESTRY + BOOK + + + BY + + HELEN CHURCHILL CANDEE + + AUTHOR OF "DECORATIVE STYLES AND PERIODS" + + +_WITH FOUR PLATES IN COLOUR AND NINETY-NINE + ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE_ + + + NEW YORK + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + MCMXII + + + + + [Illustration: HERSE AND MERCURY + + Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de Pannemaker, + weaver. + + Collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., New York] + + + + +_Copyright, 1912, +by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign +languages, including the Scandinavian_ + +_October, 1912_ + + + + + TO + TWO CERTAIN BYZANTINE MADONNAS + AND THEIR OWNERS + + + + +AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +Modesty so dominates the staff in art museums that I am requested not +to make mention of those officers who have helped me with friendly +courtesy and efficiency. To the officers and assistants at the +Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, +the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Print Department in the +Library of Congress in Washington, indebtedness is here publicly +acknowledged with the regret that I may not speak of individuals. +Photographs of tapestries are credited to Messrs. A. Giraudon, Paris; +J. Laurent, Madrid; Alinari, Florence; Wm. Baumgarten, and Albert +Herter, New York, and to those private collectors whose names are +mentioned on the plates. + + H. C. C. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I A FOREWORD 1 + + II ANTIQUITY 15 + + III MODERN AWAKENING 25 + + IV FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 15TH CENTURY 32 + + V HIGH GOTHIC 51 + + VI RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE 64 + + VII RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS 72 + + VIII ITALY, 15TH THROUGH 17TH CENTURIES 81 + + IX FRANCE 90 + + X THE GOBELINS FACTORY 105 + + XI THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 117 + + XII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 126 + + XIII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 135 + + XIV BEAUVAIS 145 + + XV AUBUSSON 154 + + XVI SAVONNERIE 159 + + XVII MORTLAKE 163 + + XVIII IDENTIFICATIONS 172 + + XIX IDENTIFICATIONS (_Continued_) 186 + + XX BORDERS 201 + + XXI TAPESTRY MARKS 216 + + XXII HOW IT IS MADE 226 + + XXIII THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY 241 + + XXIV TO-DAY 249 + + BEST PERIODS AND THEIR DATES 265 + + INDEX 267 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + HERSE AND MERCURY (_Coloured Plate_) _Frontispiece_ + Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de + Pannemaker, weaver. Collection of George Blumenthal, + Esq., New York + + FACING PAGE + + CHINESE TAPESTRY 14 + Chien Lung Period + + COPTIC TAPESTRY 15 + About 300 A. D. + + COPTIC TAPESTRY 16 + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + COPTIC TAPESTRY 17 + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU 18 + Date prior to Sixteenth Century + + THE SACRAMENTS (_Coloured Plate_) 34 + Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, + New York + + THE SACRAMENTS 38 + Arras Tapestry, about 1430 + + THE SACRAMENTS 39 + Arras Tapestry, about 1430 + + FIFTEENTH CENTURY, FRENCH TAPESTRY 40 + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + THE LIFE OF CHRIST 41 + Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + LA BAILLÉE DES ROSES 42 + French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, + New York + + FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS 43 + Cathedral of Troyes + + THE LADY AND THE UNICORN 44 + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris + + THE LADY AND THE UNICORN 45 + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris + + THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL) 46 + Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of + Art, New York + + SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS 48 + Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, + Chicago + + HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN 49 + Angers Cathedral + + DAVID AND BATHSHEBA 50 + German Tapestry, about 1450 + + FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500 51 + Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq. + + DAVID AND BATHSHEBA 52 + Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century + + HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN 53 + Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century + + VERDURE 54 + French Gothic Tapestry + + "ECCE HOMO" 55 + Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of + Art, New York + + ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT 56 + Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. + Hoyt, Esq. + + CROSSING THE RED SEA 57 + Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 58 + Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont + Morgan, Esq., New York + + FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY 60 + Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly + in the Spitzer Collection + + THE HOLY FAMILY 61 + Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection + of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the + Spitzer Collection + + CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL) 62 + Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal + Collection at Madrid + + DEATH OF ANANIAS.--FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY RAPHAEL 64 + From the Palace of Madrid + + THE STORY OF REBECCA 65 + Brussels Tapestry, Sixteenth Century. Collection of + Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston + + THE CREATION 66 + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century + + THE ORIGINAL SIN 67 + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century + + MELEAGER AND ATALANTA 68 + Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. + Woven in Paris workshops by Charles de Comans + + PUNIC WAR SERIES 69 + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of + Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston + + EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CÆSAR 70 + Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the + Arazzi, Florence + + WILD BOAR HUNT 71 + Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery + of the Arazzi, Florence + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 72 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 73 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 74 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 75 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED 76 + Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid + + THE STORY OF REBECCA 77 + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of + Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston + + BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 78 + Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago + + MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 79 + Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. + Cartoon attributed to Rubens + + THE ANNUNCIATION (_Coloured Plate_) 82 + Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of + Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago + + ITALIAN TAPESTRY, MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 84 + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher + + ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 85 + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost + + ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 86 + + THE FINDING OF MOSES 90 + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. + The Louvre Museum + + TRIUMPH OF JUNO 91 + Gobelins under Louis XIV + + TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) 94 + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century + + TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) 95 + Gobelins Tapestry + + GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 98 + + CHILDREN GARDENING 99 + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. + Château Henri Quatre, Pau + + CHILDREN GARDENING 102 + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. + Château Henri Quatre, Pau + + GOBELINS GROTESQUE 103 + Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV 104 + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York + + THE VILLAGE FÊTE 105 + Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers + + DESIGN BY RUBENS 110 + + DESIGN BY RUBENS 111 + + DESIGN BY RUBENS 112 + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS 113 + Royal Collection, Madrid + + LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY 114 + Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV 126 + + HUNTS OF LOUIS XV 130 + Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry + + ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES 131 + Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; + G. Audran, weaver + + CUPID AND PSYCHE 132 + Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel + + PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA 133 + Gobelins under Louis XVI. + + CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV 136 + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISÉE. STYLE LOUIS XV 137 + + HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS 146 + Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent + + HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D'ESTRÉES 147 + Design by Vincent + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 148 + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI 149 + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV 150 + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY 152 + + CHAIR COVERING 153 + Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire + + SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV 162 + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York + + VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 163 + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York + + VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 168 + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York + + VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 169 + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York + + THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS (_Coloured Plate_) 170 + + WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO 228 + + SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS 229 + + BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 230 + + BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON 231 + + BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON 234 + + BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 242 + + BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 243 + + BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 244 + + MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION 250 + + MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION 251 + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 252 + Luxembourg, Paris + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 253 + Pantheon, Paris + + THE ADORATION 256 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones + + DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE 257 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist + + TRUTH BLINDFOLDED 258 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist + + THE PASSING OF VENUS 260 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones + + ANGELI LAUDANTES 261 + Merton Abbey Tapestry + + AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC 262 + + DRYADS AND FAUNS 263 + From Herter Looms, New York, 1910 + + + + +THE TAPESTRY BOOK + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A FOREWORD + + +The commercial fact that tapestries have immeasurably increased in +value within the last five years, would have little interest were it +not that this increase is the direct result of America's awakened +appreciation of this form of art. It has come about in these latter +days that tapestries are considered a necessity in the luxurious and +elegant homes which are multiplying all over our land. And the +enormous demand thus made on the supply, has sent the prices for rare +bits into a dizzy altitude, and has made even the less perfect pieces +seem scarce and desirable. + +The opinion of two shrewd men of different types is interesting as +bearing on the subject of tapestries. One with tastes fully cultivated +says impressively, "Buy good old tapestries whenever you see them, for +there are no more." The other says bluffly, "Tapestries? You can't +touch 'em. The prices have gone way out of sight, and are going higher +every day." The latter knows but one view, the commercial, yet both +are right, and these two views are at the bottom of the present keen +interest in tapestries in our country. Outside of this, Europe has +collections which we never can equal, and that thought alone is +enough to make us snatch eagerly at any opportunity to secure a piece. +We may begin with our ambition set on museum treasures, but we can +come happily down to the friendly fragments that fit our private +purses and the wall-space by the inglenook. + +Tapestries are not to be bought lightly, as one buys a summer coat, to +throw aside at the change of taste or circumstance. They demand more +of the buyer than mere money; they demand that loving understanding +and intimate appreciation that exists between human friends. A +profound knowledge of tapestries benefits in two ways, by giving the +keenest pleasure, and by providing the collector--or the purchaser of +a single piece--with a self-protection that is proof against fraud, +unconscious or deliberate. + +The first step toward buying must be a bit of pleasant study which +shall serve in the nature of self-defence. Not by books alone, +however, shall this subject be approached, but by happy jaunts to +sympathetic museums, both at home and abroad, by moments snatched from +the touch-and-go talk of afternoon tea in some friend's salon or +library, or by strolling visits to dealers. These object lessons +supplement the book, as a study of entomology is enlivened by a chase +for butterflies in the flowery meads of June, or as botany is made +endurable by lying on a bank of violets. All work and no play not only +makes Jack a dull boy, but makes dull reading the book he has in hand. + +The tale of tapestry itself carries us back to the unfathomable East +which has a trick at dates, making the Christian Era a modern epoch, +and making of us but a newly-sprung civilisation in the history of the +old grey world. After showing us that the East pre-empted originality +for all time, the history of tapestry lightly lifts us over a few +centuries and throws us into the romance of Gothic days, then trails +us along through increasing European civilisation up to the great +awakening, the Renaissance. Then it loiters in the pleasant ways of +the kings of France during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, +and finally falls upon modern effort, not limited to Europe now, but +nesting also in the New World which is especially our own. + +Tapestry, according to the interpretation of the word used in this +book, is a pictured cloth, woven by an artist or a talented craftsman, +in which the design is an integral part of the fabric, and not an +embroidery stitched on a basic tissue. With this flat statement the +review of tapestries from antiquity until our time may be read without +fear of mistaking the term. + + +THE LOOM + +The looms on which tapestries are made are such as have been known as +long as the history of man is known, but we have come to call them +high-warp and low-warp, or as the French have it, _haute lisse_ and +_basse lisse_. In the celebrated periods of weaving the high loom has +been the one in use, and to it is accredited a power almost +mysterious; yet the work of the two styles of loom are not +distinguishable by the weave alone, and it is true that the low-warp +looms were used in France when the manufacture of tapestries was +permanently established by the Crown about 1600. So difficult is it to +determine the work of the two looms that weavers themselves could not +distinguish without the aid of a red thread which they at one time +wove in the border. Yet because the years of the highest perfection in +tapestries have been when the high loom was in vogue, some peculiar +power is supposed to reside within it. That the high movements of the +fine arts have been contemporary with perfection in tapestries, seems +not to be taken into consideration. + + +NECESSARY FRENCH TERMS + +French terms belong so much to the art of tapestry weaving that it is +hard to find their English equivalent. Tapestries of _verdure_ and of +_personnages_ describe the two general classes, the former being any +charming mass of greenery, from the Gothic _millefleurs_, and curling +leaves with animals beneath, to the lovely landscapes of sophisticated +park and garden which made Beauvais famous in the Eighteenth Century. +_Tapisseries des personnages_ have, as the name implies, the human +figure as the prominent part of the design. The shuttle or bobbin of +the high loom is called a _broche_, and that of the low loom a +_flute_. Weavers throughout Europe, whether in the Low Countries or in +France, were called _tapissiers_, and this term was so liberal as to +need explaining. + + +WORKERS' FUNCTIONS + +The tapestry factory was under the guidance of a director; under him +were the various persons required for the work. Each tapestry woven +had a directing artist, as the design was of primary importance. This +man had the power to select the silks and wools for the work, that +they might suit his eye as to colour. But there was also a _chef +d'atelier_ who was an artist weaver, and he directed this matter and +all others when the artist of the cartoons was not present. Under him +were the tapissiers who did the actual weaving, and under these, +again, were the apprentices, who began as boys and served three years +before being allowed to try their hands at a "'prentice job" or essay +at finished work. + + +WEAVERS + +The word weaver means so little in these days that it is necessary to +consider what were the conditions exacted of the weavers of tapestries +in the time of tapestry's highest perfection. A tapissier was an +artist with whom a loom took place of an easel, and whose brush was a +shuttle, and whose colour-medium was thread instead of paints. This +places him on a higher plane than that of mere weaver, and makes the +term tapissier seem fitter. Much liberty was given him in copying +designs and choosing colours. In the Middle Ages, when the Gothic +style prevailed, the master-weaver needed often no other cartoon for +his work than his own sketches enlarged from the miniatures found in +the luxurious missals of the day. These historic books were the +luxuries of kings, were kept with the plate and jewels, so precious +were considered their exquisitely painted scenes in miniature. From +them the master-weaver drew largely for such designs as _The Seven +Deadly Sins_ and other "morality" subjects. + +Master-weavers were many in the best years of tapestry weaving; +indeed, a man must have attained the dignity and ability of that +position before being able to produce those marvels of skill which +were woven between 1475 and 1575 in Flanders, France and Italy. Their +aids, the apprentices, pique the fancy, as Puck harnessed to labour +might do. They were probably as mischievous, as shirking, as +exasperating as boys have ever known how to be, but those little +unwilling slaves of art in the Middle Ages make an appeal to the +imagination more vivid than that of the shabby lunch-box boy of +to-day. + + +DYERS + +Accessory to the weavers, and almost as important, were the dyers who +prepared the thread for use. The conscientiousness of their work cries +out for recognition when the threads they dyed are almost unaltered in +colour after five hundred years of exposure to their enemies, light +and air. Dye stuffs were precious in those days, and so costly that +even threads of gold and silver (which in general were supplied by the +client ordering the tapestry) hardly exceeded in value certain dyed +wools and silk. All of these workers, from director down to +apprenticed lad, were bound by the guild to do or not do, according to +its infinite code, to the end that the art of tapestry-making be held +to the highest standards. The laws of the guilds make interesting +reading. The guild prevailed all over Europe and regulated all crafts. +In Florence even to-day evidences of its power are on every side, and +the Guildhall in London attests its existence there. Moreover, the +greatest artists belonged to the guilds, uniting themselves usually by +work of the goldsmith, as Benvenuto Cellini so quaintly describes in +his naïve autobiography. + + +GUILDS + +It was these same protective laws of the guilds that in the end +crippled the hand of the weaver. The laws grew too many to comply +with, in justice to talent, and talent with clipped wings could no +longer soar. At the most brilliant period of tapestry production +Flanders was to the fore. All Europe was appreciating and demanding +the unequalled products of her ateliers. It was but human to want to +keep the excellence, to build a wall of restrictions around her +especial craft that would prevent rivals, and at the same time to +press the ateliers to execute all the orders that piled in toward the +middle of the Sixteenth Century. + +But although the guilds could make wise laws and enforce them, it +could not execute in haste and retain the standard of excellence. And +thus came the gradual decay of the art in Brussels, a decay which +guild-laws had no power to arrest. + + +GOTHIC PERIOD + +The first period in tapestries which interests--except the remnants of +Egyptian and aboriginal work--is that of the Middle Ages, the early +Gothic, because that is when the art became a considerable one in +Europe. It is a time of romance, of chivalry, of deep religious +feeling, and yet seems like the childhood of modernity. Is it the +fault of crudity in pictorial art, or the fault of romances that we +look upon those distant people as more elemental than we, and thus +feel for them the indulgent compassion that a child excites? However +it is, theirs is to us a simple time of primitive emotion and romance, +and the tapestries they have left us encourage the whim. + +The time of Gothic perfection in tapestry-making is included in the +few years lying between 1475 and 1520. Life was at that time getting +less difficult, and art had time to develop. It was no longer left to +monks and lonely ladies, in convent and castle, but was the serious +consideration of royalty and nobility. No need to dwell on the story +of modern art, except as it affects the art of tapestry weaving. With +the improvement of drawing that came in these years, a greater +excellence of weave was required to translate properly the meaning of +the artist. The human face which had hitherto been either blank or +distorted in expression, now required a treatment that should convey +its subtlest shades of expression. Gifted weavers rose to the task, +became almost inspired in the use of their medium, and produced such +works of their art as have never been equalled in any age. These are +the tapestries that grip the heart, that cause a _frisson_ of joy to +the beholder. And these are the tapestries we buy, if kind chance +allows. If they cannot be ours to live with, then away to the museum +in all haste and often, to feast upon their beauties. + + +RENAISSANCE + +That great usurper, the Renaissance, came creeping up to the North +where the tapestry looms were weaving fairy webs. Pope Pius X wanted +tapestries, those of the marvellous Flemish weave. But he wanted those +of the new style of drawing, not the sweet restraint and finished +refinement of the Gothic. Raphael's cartoons were sent to Brussels' +workshops, and thus was the North inoculated with the Renaissance, and +thus began the second phase of the supreme excellency of Flemish +tapestries. It was the Renaissance expressing itself in the wondrous +textile art. The weavers were already perfect in their work, no change +of drawing could perplex them. But to their deftness with their medium +was now added the rich invention of the Italian artists of the +Renaissance, at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy +were still dominant notes. + +It was the overworking of the craft that led to its decadence. Toward +the end of the Sixteenth Century the extraordinary period of Brussels +perfection had passed. + +But tapestry played too important a part in the life and luxury of +those far-away centuries for its production to be allowed to languish. +The magnificence of every great man, whether pope, king or dilettante, +was ill-expressed before his fellows if he were not constantly +surrounded by the storied cloths that were the indispensable +accessories of wealth and glory. Palaces and castles were hung with +them, the tents of military encampments were made gorgeous with their +richness, and no joust nor city procession was conceivable without +their colours flaunting in the sun as background to plumed knights and +fair ladies. Venice looked to them to brighten her historic stones on +days of carnival, and Paris spread them to welcome kings. + + +FRANCE + +When, therefore, Brussels no longer supplied the tissues of her former +excellence, opportunity came for some other centre to rise. The next +important producer was Paris, and in Paris the art has consistently +stayed. Other brief periods of perfection have been attained +elsewhere, but Paris once establishing the art, has never let it drop, +not even in our own day--but that is not to be considered at this +moment. + +Divers reigns of divers kings, notably that of Henri IV, fostered the +weaving of tapestry and brought it to an interesting stage of +development, after which Louis XIV established the Gobelins. From that +time on for a hundred years France was without a rival, for the +decadent work of Brussels could not be counted as such. Although the +work of Italy in the Seventeenth Century has its admirers, it is +guilty of the faults of all of Italy's art during the dominance of +Bernini's ideals. + + +AMERICAN INTEREST + +America is too late on the field to enter the game of antiquity. We +have no history of this wonderful textile art to tell. But ours is the +power to acquire the lovely examples of the marvellous historied +hangings of other times and of those nations which were our forebears +before the New World was discovered. And we are acquiring them from +every corner of Europe where they may have been hiding in old château +or forgotten chest. To the museums go the most marvellous examples +given or lent by those altruistic collectors who wish to share their +treasures with a hungry public. But to the mellow atmosphere of +private homes come the greater part of the tapestries. To buy them +wisely, a smattering of their history is a requisite. Within the brief +compass of this book is to be found the points important for the +amateur, but for a profounder study he must turn to those huge volumes +in French which omit no details. + +Not entirely by books can he learn. Association with the objects +loved, counts infinitely more in coming to an understanding. Happy he +who can make of tapestries the _raison d'être_ for a few months' +loitering in Europe, and can ravish the eye and intoxicate the +imagination with the storied cloths found hanging in England, in +France, in Spain, in Italy, in Sweden, and learn from them the +fascinating tales of other men's lives in other men's times. + +Then, when the tour is finished and a modest tapestry is hung at home, +it represents to its instructed owner the concentrated tale of all he +has seen and learned. In the weave he sees the ancient craftsman +sitting at his loom. In the pattern is the drawing of the artist of +the day, in the colours, the dyes most rare and costly; in the metal, +the gold and silver of a duke or prince; and in the tale told by the +figures he reads a romance of chivalry or history, which has the +glamour given by the haze of distant time to human action. + +To enter a house where tapestries abound, is to feel oneself welcomed +even before the host appears. The bending verdure invites, the +animated figures welcome, and at once the atmosphere of elegance and +cordiality envelopes the happy visitor. + +To live in a house abundantly hung with old tapestries, to live there +day by day, makes of labour a pleasure and of leisure a delight. It is +no small satisfaction in our work-a-day life to live amidst beauty, to +be sure that every time the eyes are raised from the labour of writing +or sewing--or of bridge whist, if you like--they encounter something +worthy and lovely. In the big living-room of the home, when the hours +come in which the family gathers, on a rainy morning, or on any +afternoon when the shadows grow grim outside and the afternoon +tea-tray is brought in whispering its discreet tune of friendly +communion, the tapestries on the walls seem to gather closer, to +enfold in loving embrace the sheltered group, to promise protection +and to augment brotherly love. + +In the dining-room the glorious company assembles, so that he who eats +therein, attends a feast on Olympus, even though the dyspeptic's fast +be his lot. If the eyes gaze on Coypel's gracious ladies, under fruit +and roses, with adolescent gods adoring, what matters if the palate is +chastised? In a dining-room soft-hung with piquant scenes, even +buttermilk and dog-biscuit, burnt canvasback and cold Burgundy lose +half their bitterness. + +When night is well started in its flight, perhaps one only, one lover +of the silence and the solitude, loath to give away to soft sleep the +quiet hours, this one remains behind when all the others have flown +bedward, and to him the neighbouring tapestries speak a various +language. From the easy chair he sees the firelight play on the +verdure with the effect of a summer breeze, the gracious foliage all +astir. The figures in this enchanted wood are set in motion and +imagination brings them into the life of the moment, makes of them +sympathetic playmates coaxing one to love, as they do, the land of +romance. Before their imperturbable jocundity what bad humour can +exist? All the old songs of mock pastoral times come singing in the +ears, "It happened on a day, in the merry month of May," "Shepherds +all and maidens fair," "It was a lover and his lass," "Phoebus arise, +and paint the skies," _et cetera_. Animated by the fire, in the +silence of the winter night the loving horde gathers and ministers to +the mind afflicted with much hard practicality and the strain of +keeping up with modern inexorable times. This sweet procession on the +walls, thanks be to lovely art, needs no keeping up with, merely asks +to scatter joy and to soften the asperities of a too arduous day. + +All the way up the staircase in the house of tapestries are dainty +bits of _millefleurs_, that Gothic invention for transferring a block +of the spring woods from under the trees into a man-made edifice. It +may have a deep indigo background or a dull red--like the shades of +moss or like last year's fallen leaves--but over it all is abundantly +sprinkled dainty bluebells, anemones, daisies, all the spring beauties +in joyous self-assertion and happy mingling. With such flowery guides +to mark the way the path to slumberland is followed. Once within the +bedroom, the poppies of the hangings spread drowsy influence, and the +happy sleeper passes into unconsciousness, passes through the flowered +border of the ancient square, into the scene beyond, becomes one of +those storied persons in the enchanted land and lives with them in +jousts and tourneys or in _fêtes champêtres_ at lovely châteaux. The +magic spell of the house of tapestries has fallen like the dew from +heaven to bless the striver in our modern life of exigency and +fatigue. + + [Illustration: CHINESE TAPESTRY + + Chien Lung Period] + + [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY + + About 300 A. D.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ANTIQUITY + + +Egypt and China, India and Persia, seem made to take the conceit from +upstart nations like those of Europe and our own toddling America. +Directly we scratch the surface and look for the beginning of applied +arts, the lead takes us inevitably to the oldest civilisation. It +would seem that in a study of fabrics which are made in modern Europe, +it were enough to find their roots in the mediæval shades of the dark +ages; but no, back we must go to the beginning of history where man +leaped from the ambling dinosaur, which then modestly became extinct, +and looking upon the lands of the Nile and the Yangtsi-kiang found +them good, and proceeded to pre-empt all the ground of applied arts, +so that from that time forward all the nations of the earth were and +are obliged to acknowledge that there is nothing new under the sun. + +In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a bit of tapestry, +Coptic, that period where Greek and Egyptian drawing were intermixed, +a woman's head adorned with much vanity of head-dress, woven two or +three centuries after Christ. (Plate facing page 15.) In the Boston +Museum of Fine Arts are other rare specimens of this same time. +(Plates facing pages 16 and 17.) Looking further back, an ancient +decoration shows Penelope at her high loom, four hundred years before +the Christian era; and one, still older, shows the Egyptians weaving +similarly three thousand years before that epoch. + +It is not altogether thrilling to read that civilised people of +ancient times wove fabrics for dress and decoration, but it certainly +is interesting to learn that they were masters of an art which we +carelessly attribute to Europe of six centuries back, and to find that +the weaving apparatus and the mode of work were almost identical. The +Coptic tapestry of the Third Century is woven in the same manner as +the tapestries that come to us from Europe as the flower of +comparatively recent times, and its dyes and treatment of shading are +identical with the Gothic times. Penelope's loom as pictured on an +ancient vase, is the same in principle as the modern high-warp loom, +although lacking a bit in convenience to the weaver; and so we can +easily imagine the lovely lady at work on her famous web, "playing for +time," during Ulysses' absence, when she sat up o' nights undoing her +lovely stint of the day. + +And the Egyptian loom shown in ancient pictures--that is even more +modern than Penelope's, although it was set up three thousand years +before, a last guide-post on the backward way to the misty land called +prehistoric. + +But as there is really little interest except for the archeologist in +digging so far into the past for an art that has left us but +traditions and museum fragments, let us skim but lightly the surface +of this time, only picking up the glistening facts that attract the +mind's eye, so that we may quickly reach the enchanted land of more +recent times which yet appear antique to the modern. + + [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + + [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + +There are those to whom reading the Bible was a forced task during +childhood, a class which slipped the labour as soon as years gave +liberty of choice. There are others who have always turned as +naturally to its accounts of grand ceremony and terrible battles as to +the accounts of Cæsar, Coeur de Lion, Charlemagne. But in either case, +whatever the reason for the eye to absorb these pages of ancient +Hebrew history, the impression is gained of superb pomp. And always +concerned with it are descriptions of details, lovingly impressed, as +though the chronicler was sure of the interest of his audience. In +this enumeration, decorative textiles always played a part. Such +textiles as they were exceed in extravagance of material any that we +know of European production, for in many cases they were woven +entirely of gold and silver, and even set with jewels. These gorgeous +fabrics shone like suns on the magnificent pomp of priest and ruler, +and declared the wealth and power of the nation. They departed from +the original intention of protecting shivering humanity from chill +draughts or from close and cold association with the stones of +architectural construction, and became a luxury of the eye, a source +of bewilderment to the fancy and a lively intoxication to those +who--irrespective of class, or of century--love to compute display in +coin. + +But, dipping into the history of one ancient country after another, it +is easy to see that the usual fabric for hanging was woven of wool, of +cotton and of silk, and carried the design in the weaving. Babylon +the great, Egypt under the Pharaohs, Greece in its heroic times, Rome +under the Emperors--not omitting China and India of the Far +East--these countries of ancient peoples all knew the arts of dyeing +and weaving, of using the materials that we employ, and of introducing +figures symbolic, geometric, or realistic into the weaving. Beyond a +doubt the high loom has been known to man since prehistoric times. It +may be discouraging to those who like to feel that tapestry properly +belongs to Europe only,--Europe of the last six centuries--to find +that the art has been sifted down through the ages; but in reality it +is but one more link between us and the centuries past, the human +touch that revivifies history, that unites humanity. People of the +past wear a haze about them, are immovable and rigid as their pictured +representations. The Assyrian is to us a huge man of impossible beard, +the Egyptian is a lean angle fixed in posture, the Greek is eternally +posed for the sculptor. + +But once we can find that these people were not forever transfixed to +frieze, but were as simple, as industrious, as human as we, the +kinship is established, and through their veins begins to flow the +stream that is common to all humanity. These people felt the same need +for elegantly covering the walls of their homes that we in this +country of new homes feel, and the craftsmen led much the same lives +as do craftsmen of to-day. Even in the matter of expense, of money +which purchasers were willing to spend for woven decorative fabrics, +we see no novelty in the high prices of to-day, the Twentieth +Century. _The Mantle of Alcisthenes_ is celebrated for having been +bought by the Carthaginians for the equal of a hundred thousand +dollars. + + [Illustration: TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU + + Date prior to Sixteenth Century] + +Thus we connect ourselves with the remote past in making a continuous +history. But as the purpose of this book is to assist the owner of +tapestries to understand the story of his hangings and to enable the +purchaser or collector to identify tapestries on his own knowledge +instead of through the prejudiced statements of the salesman, it is +useless to dwell long upon the fabrics that we can only see through +exercise of the imagination or in disintegrated fragments in museums. + +Then away with Circe and her leisure hours of weaving, with Helen and +her heroic canvas, and the army of grandiose Biblical folk, and let us +come westward into Europe in short review of the textiles called +tapestry which were produced from the early Christian centuries to the +time of the Crusades, and thus will we approach more modern times. + +So far as known, high-warp weaving was not universally used in Europe +in the first part of the Middle Ages. Whether plain or figured, most +of the fabrics of that time that have come down to us for hangings or +for clothing, are woven, with the decorative pattern executed by the +needle on woven cloth. In Persia and neighbouring states, however, the +high-warp loom was used.[1] + +Europe in the Middle Ages was a place so savage, so devastated by war +and by neighbouring malice, that to consider it is to hear the clash +of steel, to feel the pangs of hunger, to experience the fearsome +chill of dungeons or moated castles. It was a time when those who +could huddle in fortresses mayhap died natural deaths, but those who +lived in the world were killed as a matter of course. Man was man's +enemy and to be killed on sight. + +In such gay times of carnage, art is dead. Men there were who drew +designs and executed them, for the _luxe_ of the eye is ever +demanding, but the designs were timid and stunted and came far from +the field of art. Fabrics were made and worn, no doubt, but when looms +were like to be destroyed and the weavers with them, scant attention +was given to refinements. + +By the time the Tenth Century was reached matters had improved. We +come into the light of records. It is positively known that the town +of Saumur, down in the lovely country below Tours, became the +destination of a quantity of wall-hangings, carpets, curtains, and +seat covers woven of wool. This was by order of the third Abbot Robert +of the Monastery of St. Florent, one of those vigorous, progressive +men whose initiative inspires a host. It is recorded that he also +ordered two pieces of tapestry executed, not of wool exclusively, but +with silk introduced, and in these the figures of the designs were the +beasts that were then favourites in decoration and that still showed +the influence of Oriental drawing. + +Before enumerating other authentic examples of early tapestries it is +well to speak of the reason for their being invariably associated with +the church. The impression left by history is that folk of those days +must have been universally religious when not cutting each other in +bits with bloody cutlass. The reason is, of course, that when poor +crushed humanity began to revive from the devastating onslaughts of +fierce Northern barbarians, it was with a timid huddling in +monasteries, for there was found immunity from attack. The lord of the +castle was forced to go to war or to resist attack in his castle, but +the monastery was exempt from whatever conscription the times imposed, +and frocked friars were always on hand were defence needed. Thus it +came about that monasteries became treasure-houses, the only safe +ones, were built strong, were sufficiently manned, and therefore were +the safe-deposit of whatever articles of concentrated value the great +lord of the Middle Ages might accumulate. Many tapestries thus +deposited became gifts to the institution which gave them asylum. + +The arts and crafts of the Middle Ages were in the hands of the +monasteries, monks and friars being the only persons with safety and +leisure. Weaving fell naturally to them to execute as an art. In the +castles, necessary weaving for the family was done by the women, as on +every great lord's domains were artisans for all crafts; and great +ladies emulated Penelope and Helen of old in passing their hours of +patience and anxiety with fabricating gorgeous cloths. But these are +exceptional, and deal with such grand ladies as Queen Matilda, who +with her maidens embroidered (not wove) the Bayeux Tapestry, and with +the Duchess Gonnor, wife of Richard First, who embroidered for the +church of Notre Dame at Rouen a history of the Virgin and Saints.[2] + +To the monasteries must be given the honour of preserving this as +many other arts, and of stimulating the laity which had wealth and +power to present to religious institutions the best products of the +day. The subjects executed inside the monastery were perforce +religious, many revelling in the horrors of martyrology, and those +intended as gifts or those ordered by the clergy were religious in +subject for the sake of appropriateness. It is interesting to note the +sweet childlike attitude of all lower Europe toward the church in +these years, a sort of infantile way of leaving everything in its +hands, all knowledge, all wisdom, all power. It was not even necessary +to read or write, as the clergy conveniently concerned themselves with +literacy. As late as the beginning of the Fifteenth Century Philip the +Hardy, the great Duke of Burgundy, in ordering a tapestry, signed the +order, not with his autograph, for he could not, but with his mark, +for he, too, left pen-work to the clerks of the church. + +That pile of concentrated royal history, the old abbey of St. Denis, +received, late in the Tenth Century, one of the evidences of royal +patronage that every abbey must have envied. It was a woven +representation of the world, as scientists of that day imagined our +half-discovered planet, and was presented by Queen Adelaide, the wife +of Hugh Capet, whose descendants reigned for three hundred years.[3] + +While dealing with records rather than with objects on which the eye +can gaze and the hand can rest, note must be made of an order of a +Count of Poitou, William V, to a factory for tapestries then existing +in Poitiers, showing that the art of weaving had in that spot jumped +the monastery walls in 1025.[4] The order was for a large hanging with +subjects taken from the Scriptures, but given the then modern touch by +introducing portraits of kings and emperors and their favourite +animals transfixed in ways peculiar to the nature of the day. + +A century later, another Abbot of St. Florent in Saumur had hangings +made important enough to be recorded. One of these represented the +four and twenty elders of the Apocalypse with musical instruments, and +other subjects taken from the Revelation of John. This subject was one +of unending interest to the artists of that time who seemed to find in +its depicting a serving of both God and imagination. + +Among the few tapestries of this period, those of the Cathedral at +Halberstadt must be mentioned, partly by way of conscientious +chronicling, partly that the interested traveller may, as he travels, +know where to find the rare specimens of the hobby he is pursuing. +This is a high-warp tapestry which authorities variously place as the +product of the Eleventh or the Twelfth Centuries. Entirely regardless +of its age, it has for us the charm of the craft of hands long +vanished, and of primitive art in all its simplicity of artifice. The +subject is religious--could hardly have been otherwise in those +monastic days--and for church decoration, and to fit the space they +were woven to occupy, each of the two parts was but three and a half +feet high although more than fourteen yards long. + +Each important event recorded in history has its expression in the +material product of its time, and this is one of the charms of +studying the liberal arts. Tapestry more than almost any other +handicraft has left us a pictured history of events in a time when +records were scarce. The effect of the Crusades was noticeable in the +impetus it gave to tapestry, not only by bringing Europe into fresh +contact with Oriental design but by increasing the desire for +luxurious stuffs. The returning crusaders--what traveller's tales did +they not tell of the fabrics of the great Oriental sovereigns and +their subjects, the soft rugs, the tent coverings, the gorgeous +raiment; and these tales they illustrated with what fragments they +could port in their travellers' packs. Here lay inspiration for a +continent. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Eugene Müntz, "History of Tapestry." + +[2] Jubinal, "Recherches," Vol. I. + +[3] F. Michel, "Recherches." + +[4] Jubinal, "Recherches." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MODERN AWAKENING + + +In the Fourteenth Century, tapestry, the high-warp product, began to +play an important part in the refinements of the day. We have seen the +tendency of the past time to embellish and soften churches and +monastic institutions with hangings. Records mostly in clerical Latin, +speak of these as curtains for doorways, dossers for covering seats, +and the backs of benches, and baldachins, as well as carpets for use +on the floor. Subjects were ecclesiastic, as the favourite Apocalypse; +or classic, like that of the Quedlimburg hanging which fantastically +represents the marriage of Mercury and Philology. + +But in the Thirteenth Century the political situation had improved and +men no longer slept in armour and women no longer were prepared to +thrust all household valuables into a coffer on notice that the enemy +was approaching over the plains or up the rocks. Therefore, homes +began to be a little less rude in their comforts. Stone walls were +very much the rule inside as well as out, but it became convenient +then to cover their grim asperities with the woven draperies, the +remains of which so interest us to-day, and which we in our accession +of luxuriousness would add to the already gently finished apartments. +To put ourselves back into one of those castle homes we are to +imagine a room of stone walls, fitted with big iron hooks, on which +hung pictured tapestry which reached all around, even covering the +doors in its completeness. To admit of passing in and out the door a +slit was made, or two tapestries joined at this spot. Set Gothic +furniture scantily about such a room, a coffer or two, some +high-backed chairs, a generous table, and there is a room which the +art of to-day with its multiple ingenuity cannot surpass for beauty +and repose. + +But such a room gave opportunity for other matters in the Thirteenth +Century. Customs were less polite and morals more primitive. Important +people desiring important information were given to the spying and +eavesdropping which now has passed out of polite fashion. And those +ancient rooms favoured the intriguer, for the hangings were suspended +a foot or two away from the wall, and a man or a woman, for that +matter, might easily slip behind and witness conversations to which +the listener had not been invited. So it was customary on occasions of +intimate and secret converse lightly to thrust a sharpened blade +behind the curtains. If, as in the case in "Hamlet," the sword pierced +a human quarry, so much the worse for the listener who thus gained +death and lost its dignity. + +Before leaving this ancient chamber it is well to impress ourselves +with the interesting fact that tapestries were originally meant to be +suspended loosely, liberally, from the upper edge only, and to fall in +folds or gentle undulations, thus gaining in decorative value and +elegance. This practice had an important effect on the design, and +also gave an appearance of movement to human figures and to foliage, +as each swayed in light folds. + +When considering tapestries of the Thirteenth Century we are only +contemplating the stones of history, for the actual products of the +looms of that time are not for us; they are all gathered into museums, +public or ecclesiastic. The same might be said of tapestries of the +Fourteenth Century, and almost of the Fifteenth. But those old times +are so full of romance, that their history is worth our toying with. +It adds infinite joy to the possessing of old tapestries, and converts +museum visits into a keen chase for the elusive but fascinating +figures of the past. + +Let us then absorb willingly one or two dry facts. High-warp tapestry +we have traced lightly from Egypt through Greece and Rome and, almost +losing the thread in the Middle Ages, have seen it rising a virile +industry, nursed in monasteries. It was when the stirrings of artistic +life were commencing under the Van Eycks in the North and under Giotto +and the Tuscans in the South that the weaving of tapestries reached a +high standard of production and from that time until the Nineteenth +Century has been an important artistic craft. The Thirteenth Century +saw it started, the Fourteenth saw the beginnings of important +factories, and the Fifteenth bloomed into full productions and beauty +of the style we call Gothic. + +In these early times of the close of the Thirteenth Century and the +beginning of the Fourteenth, the best known high-warp factories were +centred in northern and midland provinces of France and Flanders, +Paris and Arras being the towns most famed for their productions. As +these were able to supply the rest of Europe, the skilled technique +was lost otherwheres, so that later, when Italy, Germany and England +wished to catch up again their ancient work, they were obliged to ask +instruction of the Franco-Flemish high-warp workers.[5] + +It is not possible in the light of history for either Paris or Arras +to claim the invention of so nearly a prehistoric art as that of +high-warp tapestry, and there is much discussion as to which of these +cities should be given the honour of superiority and priority in the +work of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. + +Factories existed at both places and each had its rules of manufacture +which regulated the workman and stimulated its excellence. The +factories at Paris, however, were more given to producing copies of +carpets brought from the East by returning crusaders, and these were +intended for floors. The craftsmen were sometimes alluded to as +_tapissiers Sarrazinois_, named, as is easily seen, after the Saracens +who played so large a part in the adventurous voyages of the day. But +in Paris in 1302, by instigation of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau, +there were associated with these tapissiers or workmen, ten others, +for the purpose of making high-warp tapestry, and these were bound +with all sorts of oaths not to depart from the strict manner of +proceeding in this valued handicraft. + +Indeed, the Articles of Faith, nor the Vows of the Rosicrucians, +could not be more inviolable than the promises demanded of the early +tapestry workers. In some cases--notably a factory of Brussels, +Brabant, in the Sixteenth Century--there were frightful penalties +attendant upon the breaking of these vows, like the loss of an ear or +even of a hand. + +The records of the undertaking of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau in +introducing the high-warp (_haute lisse_) workers into the factory +where Sarrazinois and other fabrics were produced, means only that the +improvement had begun, but not that Paris had never before practised +an art so ancient. + +The name of Nicolas Bataille is one of the earliest which we can +surround with those props of records that please the searcher for +exact detail.[6] He was both manufacturer and merchant and was a man +of Paris in the reign of Charles VI, a king who patronised him so well +that the workshops of Paris benefited largely. The king's brother +becoming envious, tried to equal him in personal magnificence and gave +orders almost as large as those of the king. Philip the Hardy, uncle +of the king, also employed this designer whose importance has not +lessened in the descent of the centuries. + +What makes Bataille of special interest to us is that we cannot only +read of him in fascinating chronicles as well as dry histories, but we +can ourselves see his wondrous works. In the cathedral at Angers hangs +a tapestry executed by him; it is a part of the _Apocalypse_ +(favourite subject) drawn by Dourdin, who was artist of the cartoons +as well as artist to Charles V. + +In those days the weaver occupied much the same place in relation to +the cartoonist as the etcher does now to the painter. That is to say, +that because the drawing was his inspiration, the weaver was none the +less an artist of originality and talent. + +These celebrated hangings at Angers, although commenced in 1376 for +Louis of Anjou, were not completed in all the series until 1490, +therefore Bataille's work was on the first ones, finished on +Christmas, 1379. The design includes imposing figures, each seated on +a Gothic throne reading and meditating. The larger scenes are topped +with charming figures of angels in primitive skies of the "twisted +ribbon" style of cloud, angels whose duty and whose joy is to trump +eternally and float in defiance of natural laws of gravitation. + +The museum at the Gobelins factory in Paris shows to wondering eyes +the other authentic example of late Fourteenth Century high-warp +tapestry, as woven in the early Paris workshops. It portrays with a +lovely naïve simplicity _The Presentation in the Temple_. This with +the pieces of the _Apocalypse_ at Angers are all that are positively +known to have come from the Paris workshops of the late Fourteenth +Century. + +History steps in with an event that crushed the industry in Paris. +Just when design and execution were at their highest excellence, and +production was prolific, political events began to annihilate the +trade. The English King, Henry V, crossed the Channel and occupied +Paris in 1422. Thus, under the oppression of the invaders, the art of +tapestry was discouraged and fell by the way, not to rise lustily +again in Paris for two hundred years. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Eugene Müntz, "La Tapisserie." + +[6] For extensive reading see Guiffrey, "Nicolas Bataille, tapissier +parisien," and "L'Histoire General de la Tapisserie," the section +called "Les Tapisseries Francaises." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS + + +Whether Arras began as early as Paris is a question better left +unsettled if only for the sake of furnishing a subject of happy +controversy between the champions of the two opinions. But certain it +is that with fewer distractions to disturb her craftsmen, and under +the stimulus of certain ducal and royal patrons, Arras succeeded in +advancing the art more than did her celebrated neighbour. It was +Arras, too, that gave the name to the fabric, a name which appears in +England as arras and in Italy as arazzo, as though there was no other +parent-region for the much-needed and much-prized stuffs than the busy +Flemish town. + +Among the early records is found proof that in 1311, a countess of the +province of Artois, of which Arras was the capital, bought a figured +cloth in that city, and two years later ordered various works in high +warp.[7] It is she who became ruler of the province. To patronise the +busy town of her own domains, Arras, she ordered from there the +hangings that were its specialty. Paris also shared her patronage. She +took as husband Otho, Count of Burgundy, and set his great family the +fashion in the way of patronising the tapestry looms. + +It was in the time of Charles V of France, that the Burgundian duke +Philip, called the Hardy, began to patronise conspicuously the Arras +factories. In 1393, as de Barante delightfully chronicles, the +gorgeous equipments of this duke were more than amazing when he went +to arrange peace with the English at Lelingien.[8] + +The town chosen for the pourparlers, wherein assembled the English +dukes, Lancaster and Gloucester and their attendants, as well as the +cortége attending the Duke of Burgundy, was a poor little village +ruined by wars. The conferences were held by these superb old fighters +and statesmen in an ancient thatched chapel. To make it presentable +and worthy of the nobles, it was covered with tapestries which +entirely hid the ruined walls. The subject of the superb pieces was a +series of battles, which made the Duke of Lancaster whimsically +critical of a subject ill-chosen for a peace conference, he suggesting +that it were better to have represented "_la Passion de notre +Seigneur_." + +Not satisfied with having the meeting place a gorgeous and luxurious +temple, this Philip, Duke of Burgundy, demonstrated his magnificence +in his own tent, which was made of wooden planks entirely covered with +"toiles peintes" (authorities state that tapestries with personages +were thus described), and was in form of a château flanked with +towers. As a means of pleasing the English dukes and the principal +envoys, Philip gave to them superb gifts of tapestries, the beautiful +tapestries of Flanders such as were made only in the territory of the +duke. It is interesting to note this authentic account of the +importation of certain Arras tapestries into England. + +Subjects at this time introduced, besides Bible people, figures of +Clovis and of Charlemagne. Two hangings represented, the one _The +Seven Cardinal Vices_, with their conspicuous royal exponents in the +shape of seven vicious kings and emperors; the other, _The Seven +Cardinal Virtues_, with the royalties who had been their notable +exponents. Here is a frank criticism on the lives of kings which +smacks of latter-day democracy. All these tapestries were enriched +with gold of Cyprus, as gold threads were called. + +This same magnificent Philip the Hardy, had other treaties to make +later on, and seeing how much his tapestries were appreciated, +continued to make presents of them. One time it was the Duke of +Brittany who had to be propitiated, all in the interests of peace, +peace being a quality much sought and but little experienced at this +time in France. Perhaps this especial Burgundian duke had a bit of +self-interest in his desire for amity with the English, for he was +lord of the Comité of Artois (including Arras) and this was a district +which, because of its heavy commerce with England, might favour that +country. A large part of that commerce was wool for tapestry weaving, +wool which came from the _prés salés_ of Kent, where to-day are seen +the same meadows, salt with ocean spray and breezes, whereon flocks +are grazing now as of old--but this time more for mutton chops than +for tapestry wools. + + [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS + + Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + +The history of the Dukes of Burgundy, because their patronage was +so stimulating to the factories of Flanders, leads us to recall the +horrors of the war with Bajazet, the terrible Sultan of Turkey, and +the way in which this cool monster bartered human lives for human +luxuries. It was when the flower of France (1396) invaded his country +and was in the power of his hand, that he had the brave company of +nobles pass in review before his royal couch that he might see them +mutilated to the death. Three or four only he retained alive, then +sent one of these, the Sire de Helly, back to his France with _parole +d'honneur_ to return--to amass, first, as big a ransom as could be +raised; this, if in the Turk's demanding eyes it appeared sufficient, +he would accept in exchange for the remaining unhappy nobles. + +Added to the money which de Helly was able to collect, were superb +tapestries of Arras contributed by the Burgundian duke, Philip the +Hardy. It was argued that of these luxurious hangings, Bajazet had +none, for the looms of his country had not the craft to make +tapestries of personages. Cloth of gold and of silver, considered an +extreme elegance in France, they argued was no rarity to the terrible +Turk, for it was from Damascus in his part of the world that this +precious fabric came most plentifully. So de Helly took Arras +tapestries into Turkey, a suite representing the history of Alexander +the Great, and the avaricious monarch was persuaded by reason of this +and other ransom to let his prisoners free.[9] + +After the death of Philip the Hardy in 1404, his accumulated luxuries +had to be sold to help pay his fabulous debts. To this end his son +sold, among other things, his superb tapestries, and thus they became +distributed in Paris. And yet John without Fear, who succeeded Philip, +continued to stimulate the Arras weavers. In 1409 he ordered five big +hangings representing his victories of Liége, all battle subjects.[10] + +Philip the Good was the next head of the Burgundian house, and he it +was who assisted in the sumptuous preparations for the entry of the +king, Louis XI, into Paris. The king himself could scarcely equal in +magnificence this much-jewelled duke, whose splendour was a matter of +excitement to the populace. People ran to see him in the streets or to +the church, to feast their eyes on his cortége, his mounted escort of +a hundred knights who were themselves dukes, princes and other nobles. + +His house, in the old quarter of Paris, where we are wont to wander +with a Baedeker veiled, was the wonder of all who were permitted to +view its interior. Here he had brought his magnificent Arras +tapestries and among them the set of the _History of Gideon_, which he +had had made in honour of the order of the Golden Fleece founded by +him at Bruges, in 1429, for, he said, the tale of Gideon was more +appropriate to the Fleece than the tale of Jason, who had not kept his +trust--a bit of unconventionalism appreciable even at this distance of +time. + +Charles le Téméraire--the Bold or rather the foolhardy--how he used +and lost his tapestries is of interest to us, because his possessions +fell into a place where we can see them by taking a little trouble. +Some of them are among the treasures in the museum at Nancy and at +Berne in Switzerland. How they got there is in itself a matter of +history, the history of a war between Burgundy and Switzerland. + +Like all the line of these half-barbaric, picturesque dukes, Charles +could not disassociate himself from magnificence, which in those days +took the place of comfort. When making war, he endeavoured to have his +camp lodgment as near as possible reproduce the elegance of his home. +In his campaign against Switzerland, his tent was entirely hung with +the most magnificent of tapestries. After foolhardy onslaughts on a +people whose strength he miscalculated, he lost his battles, his +life--and his tapestries. And this is how certain Burgundian +tapestries hang in the cathedral at Berne, and in the museums at +Nancy.[11] + +The simple Swiss mountaineers, accustomed more to expediency than to +luxury, are said to have been entirely ignorant of the value of their +spoils of war. Tapestries they had never seen, nor had they the +experienced eye to discern their beauties; but cloth, thick woollen +cloth, that would protect shivering man from the cold, was a commodity +most useful; so, many of the fine products of the high-warp looms that +had augmented the pride of their noble possessor, found their way into +shops and were sold to the Swiss populace in any desired length, +according to bourgeois household needs, a length for a warm bed-cover, +or a square for a table; and thus disappeared so many that we are +thankful for the few whole hangings of that time which are ours to +inspect, and which represent the best work of the day both from Arras +and from Brussels, which was then (about 1476) beginning to produce. + +There is a special and local reason why we should be interested in the +products of the high-warp tapestries in the time of the greatest power +of the Dukes of Burgundy. It is that we can have the happy experience +of studying, in our own country, a set of these hangings, and this +without going farther than to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New +York, where repose the set called _The Sacraments_. (Plates facing +pages 34, 38 and 39.) There are in all seven pieces, although the +grounds are well taken that the set originally included one more. They +represent the four Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Confirmation and +Extreme Unction, first by a series of ideal representations, then by +the everyday ceremonies of the time--the time of Joan of Arc. Thus we +have the early Fifteenth Century folk unveiled to us in their ideals +and in their practicality. The one shows them to be religionists of a +high order, the other reveals a sumptuous and elegant scale of living +belonging to the nobility who made resplendent those early times. + + [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS + + Arras Tapestry, about 1430] + + [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS + + Arras Tapestry, about 1430] + +The drawing is full of simplicity and honesty, the composition limited +to a few individuals, each one having its place of importance. In +this, the early work differed from the later, which multiplied figures +until whole groups counted no more than individuals. The background is +a field of conventionalised fleur-de-lis of so large a pattern as not +to interfere with the details thrown against it. Scenes are divided +by slender Gothic columns, and other architectural features are +tessellated floors and a sketchy sort of brick-work that appears +wherever a limit-line is needed. It is the charming naïveté of its +drawing that delights. Border there is none, but its lack is never +felt, for the pictures are of such interest that the eye needs no +barrier to keep it from wandering. Whatever border is found is a +varying structure of architecture and of lettering and of the happy +flowers of Gothic times which thrust their charm into all possible and +impossible places. + +The dress, in the suite of ideals, is created by the imagining of the +artist, admixed with the fashion of the day; but in scenes portraying +life of the moment, we are given an interesting idea of how a bride à +la mode was arrayed, in what manner a gay young lord dressed himself +on his wedding morning, and how a young mother draped her proud +brocade. The colouring is that of ancient stained glass, simple, rich, +the gamut of colours limited, but the manner of their combining is +infinite in its power to please. The conscientiousness of the ancient +dyer lives after him through the centuries, and the fresh ruby-colour, +the golden yellow of the large-figured brocades, glow almost as richly +now as they did when the Burgundian dukes were marching up and down +the land from the Mediterranean, east of France, to the coast of +Flanders, carrying with them the woven pictures of their ideals, their +religion and their conquests. The weave is smooth and even, speaking +for the work of the tapissier or weaver, although time has distorted +the faces beyond the lines of absolute beauty; and hatching +accomplishes the shading. + +The repairer has been at work on this valuable set, not the +intelligent restorer, but the frank bungler who has not hesitated to +turn certain pieces wrong side out, nor to set in large sections +obviously cut from another tapestry. It is surmised that the set +contained one more piece--it would be regrettable, indeed, if that +missing square had been cut up for repairs. + +The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns these tapestries +through the altruistic generosity of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq. They are +the most interesting primitive work which are on public view in our +country, and awake to enthusiasm even the most insensate dullard, who +has a half hour to stand before them and realise all they mean in art, +in morals and in history. + +To the lives of the Prophets and Saints we can always turn; from the +romance of men and women we can never turn away. And so when a Gothic +tapestry is found that frankly omits Biblical folk and gives us a true +picture of men and women of the almost impenetrable time back of the +fifteen hundreds, tells us what they wore, in what manner they +comported themselves, that tapestry has a sure and peculiar value. The +surviving art of the Middle Ages smacks strong of saints, paints at +full length the people of Moses' time, but unhappily gives only a bust +of their contemporaries. + + [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH TAPESTRY + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + + [Illustration: THE LIFE OF CHRIST + + Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. Boston Museum + of Fine Arts] + +Hangings portraying secular subjects were less often woven than those +of religion and morals, but also the former have less lustily outlived +the centuries, owing to the habit of tearing them from the +suspending hooks and packing them about from château to château, to +soften surroundings for the wandering visitor. Thus it comes that we +have little tapestried record of a time when knights and ladies and +ill-assorted attributes walked hand in hand, a time of chivalry and +cruelty, of roses and war, of sumptuousness and crudity, of privation +and indulgence, of simplicity and deceit. + +If prowling among old books has tempted the hand to take from the +shelves one of those quaint luxuries known as a "Book of Hours," there +before the eye lies the spirit of that age in decoration and design. +There, too, lies much of the old spirit of morality--that, whether +genuine or affected, was bound to be expressed. Morality had a vogue +in those days, was a _sine qua non_ of fashion. That famous amateur +Jean, duc de Berry, uncle of Charles VI of France, had such a book, +"Les Très Riches Heures"; one was possessed by that gifted Milanese +lady whom Ludovico Sforza put out of the line of Lombardy's throne. +The wonderful Gothic ingenuousness lies in their careful paintings, +the ingenuousness where virtue is expressed by beauty, and vice by +ugliness, and where, with delightful seriousness, standing figures +overtop the houses they occupy--the same people, the same battlements, +we have seen on the early tapestries. Weavers must surely have +consulted the lovely books of Gothic miniature, so like is the spirit +of the designs to that in the Gothic fabrics. + +"The beauties of Agnes Sorel were represented on the wool," says +Jubinal, "and she herself gave a superb and magnificent tapestry to +the church at Loches," but this quaint student is doubtful if the +lovely _amante du roi_ actually gave the tapestries that set forth her +own beauties, which beauty all can see in the quiet marble as she lies +sleeping with her spaniel curled up at her lovely feet in the big +château on the Loire. + +By means of a rare set bought by the Rogers Fund for the Metropolitan +Museum of Art in New York, we can see, if not the actual tapestries of +fair Agnes Sorel, at least those of the same epoch and manner. This +set is called _The Baillée des Roses_ and comprises three pieces, +fragments one is inclined to call them, seeing the mutilations of the +ages. (Plate facing page 42.) They were woven probably before 1450, +probably in France, undoubtedly from French drawings, for the hand and +eye of the artist were evidently under the influence of the celebrated +miniaturist, Jean Fouquet of Tours. Childlike is the charm of this +careful artist of olden times, childlike is his simplicity, his +honesty, his care to retain the fundamental virtues of a good little +boy who lives to the tune of Eternal Verities. + +These three tapestries of the Roses illustrate so well so many things +characteristic of their day, that it is not time lost to study them +with an eye to all their points. There is the weave, the wool, the +introduction of metal threads, the colour scale; all these besides the +design and the story it tells. + +The tapestries represent a custom of France in the time when Charles +VII, the Indolent (and likewise through Jeanne d'Arc, the victorious) +had as his favourite the fascinating Agnes Sorel. During the late +spring, when the roses of France are in fullest flower, various +peers of France had as political duty to present to each member of the +Parliament a rose when the members answered in response to roll call. + + [Illustration: LA BAILLÉE DES ROSES + + French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + + [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS + + Cathedral of Troyes] + +The great chamber where the body met was for the occasion transformed +into a bower; vines and sprays of roses covered all the grim walls, as +the straying vines in the tapestry reveal. The host of the day, who +might be a foreign prince or cardinal, or one of the "children of +France," began the day with giving a great breakfast which took place +in the several chambers. During the feast the noble host paid a +courtly visit to each chamber, accompanied by a servitor who bore a +huge salver on which were the flowers and souvenirs to be presented. +The air was sweet with blossoms and pungent herbs, music penetrated +from the halls outside as the man of conspicuous elegance played mock +humility and served all with the dainty tribute of a fragrant tender +rose. This part of the ceremony over, the company moved on to the +great audience chamber, where mass was said. + +Our tapestries show the figures of ladies and gentlemen present at +this pretty ceremony--too pretty to associate with desperate Jeanne +d'Arc, who at that very time was rousing France to war to throw off +the foreign yoke. The ladies fair and masters bold are intensely human +little people, for the most part paired off in couples as men and +women have been wont to pair in gardens since Eden's time. They are +dressed in their best, that is evident, and by their distant, +courteous manners show good society. The faces of the ladies are +childlike, dutiful; those of the men more determined, after the +manner of men. + +But the interest of the set centres in the tableau wherein are but +three figures, those of two men and a woman. Here lies a piquant +romance. Who is she, the grand and gracious lady, bending like a lily +stalk among the roses, with a man on either side? A token is being +exchanged between her and the supplicant at her right. He, wholly +elegant, half afraid, bends the knee and fixes her with a regard into +which his whole soul is thrown. She, fair lady, is inclining, yet +withdrawing, eyes of fear and modesty cast down. Yet whatever of +temerity the faces tell, the hands are carrying out a comedy. Hid in +the shadow of a copious hat, which the gentleman extends, lurks a +rose; proffered by the lady's hand is a token--fair exchange, indeed, +of lover's symbols--provided the strong, hard man to the left of the +lady has himself no right of command over her and her favours. Thus +might one dream on forever over history's sweets and romance's +gallantries. + +It is across the sea, in the sympathetic Museum of Cluny that the +beauty of early French work is exquisitely demonstrated. The set of +_The Lady and the Unicorn_ is one of infinite charm. (Plates facing +pages 44 and 45.) In its enchanted wood lives a noble lady tall and +fair, lithe, young and elegant, with attendant maid and two faithful, +fabulous beasts that uphold the standards of maidenhood. A simple +circle denotes the boundary of the enchanted land wherein she dwells, +a park with noble trees and lovely flowers, among which disport the +little animals that associate themselves with mankind. For four +centuries these hangings have delighted the eye of man, and are +perhaps more than ever appreciated now. Certain it is that the art +student's easel is often set before them for copying the quaint design +and soft colour. + + [Illustration: THE LADY AND THE UNICORN + + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris] + + [Illustration: THE LADY AND THE UNICORN + + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris] + +As the early worker in wools could not forget the beauties of earth, +the foreground of many Gothic tapestries is sprinkled with the loved +common flowers of every day, of the field and wood. This is one of the +charming touches in early tapestry, these little flowers that thrust +themselves with captivating inappropriateness into every sort of +scene. The grave and awesome figures in the _Apocalypse_ find them at +their feet, and in scenes of battle they adorn the sanguinary sod and +twinkle between fierce combatants. + +Occasionally a weaver goes mad about them and refuses to produce +anything else but lily-bells newly sprung in June, cowslips and +daisies pied, rosemary and rue, and all these in decorous courtesy on +a deep, dark background like twilight on a bank or moonlight in a +dell--and lo, we have the marvellous bit of nature-painting called +_millefleurs_. + +A Burgundian tapestry that has come to this country to add to our +increasing riches, is the large hanging known as _The Sack of +Jerusalem_. (Plate facing page 46.) Almost more than any other it +revivifies the ancient times of Philip the Hardy, John without Fear, +and Charles the Bold, when these dukes, who were monarchs in all but +name, were leading lives that make our own Twentieth Century fretting +seem but the unrest of aspens. Such hangings as this, _The Sack of +Jerusalem_, were those that the great Burgundian dukes had hung about +their tents in battle, their castles in peace, their façades and +bridges in fêtes. + +The subject chosen hints religion, but shouts bloodshed and battle. +Those who like to feel the texture of old tapestries would find this +soft and pliable, and in wondrous state of preservation. Its colours +are warm and fresh, adhering to red-browns and brown-reds and a +general mellow tone differing from the sharp stained-glass contrasts +noticed in _The Sacraments_. Costumes show a naïve compromise between +those the artist knew in his own time and those he guessed to +appertain to the year of our Lord 70, when the scene depicted was +actually occurring. The tapestry resembles in many ways the famous +tapestries of the Duke of Devonshire which are known as the Hardwick +Hall tapestries. In drawing it is similar, in massing, in the placing +of spots of interest. This large hanging is a part of the collection +at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. + +The Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibits a primitive hanging which is +probably woven in France, Northern France, at the end of the Fifteenth +Century. (Plate facing page 40.) It represents, in two panels, the +power of the church to drive out demons and to confound the heathen. +Fault can be found with its crudity of drawing and weave, but +tapestries of this epoch can hold a position of interest in spite of +faults. + + [Illustration: THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL) + + Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New + York] + +A fine piece at the same museum is the long, narrow hanging +representing scenes from the life of Christ, with a scene from +Paradise to start the drama. (Plate facing page 41.) This tapestry, +which is of great beauty, is subdivided into four panels by slender +columns suggesting a springing arch which the cloth was too low to +carry. All the pretty Gothic signs are here. The simple flowers +upspringing, the Gothic lettering, the panelling, and a narrow border +of such design as suggests rose-windows or other lace-like carving. +Here is noticeable, too, the sumptuous brocades in figures far too +large for the human form to wear, figures which diminished greatly a +very few decades later. + +The Institute of Art, Chicago, possesses an interesting piece of the +period showing another treatment of a similar subject. (Plate facing +page 48.) In this the columns are omitted, the planes are increased, +and there is an entire absence of the triptych or altar-piece style of +drawing which we associate with the primitive artists in painting. + +We have seen in this slight review that Paris was in a fair way to +cover the castle walls and floors of noble lords with her high loom +and _sarrazinois_ products, when the English occupation ruined the +prosperity of the weaver's guild. Arras supplied the enormous demand +for tapestries through Europe, and made a lasting fame. But this +little city, too, had to go down before the hard conditions of the +Conqueror. Louis XI, in 1477, possessed himself of the town after the +death of the last-famed Burgundian duke, Charles the Bold, and under +his eccentric persecutions the guild of weavers scattered. He saw too +late his mistake. But other towns benefited by it, towns whither the +tapissiers fled with their art. + +There had also been much trouble between the last Duke of Burgundy and +his Flemish cities. His extravagances and expeditions led him to make +extraordinary demands upon one town and another for funds, and even to +make war upon them, as at Liége, the battles of which conflict were +perpetuated in tapestries. Let us trust that no Liégois weaver was +forced to the humiliation of weaving this set. + +This disposition to work to his own ultimate undoing was encouraged in +the duke, wherever possible, by the crafty Louis XI, who had his own +reasons for wishing the downfall of so powerful a neighbour. And thus +it came that Arras, the great tapestry centre, was at first weakened, +then destroyed by the capture of the town by Louis XI immediately +after the tragic death of the duke in 1477. + +Thus everything was favourable to the Brussels factories, which began +to produce those marvels of workmanship that force from the world the +sincerest admiration. It is frankly asserted that toward the end of +the century, or more accurately, during the reigns of Charles VIII and +Louis XII (1483-1515), tapestry attained a degree of perfection which +has never been surpassed. + + [Illustration: SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS + + Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, Chicago] + + [Illustration: HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN + + Angers Cathedral] + +We have a very clear idea of what use to make of tapestries in these +days--to hang them in a part of the house where they will be much seen +and much protected, on an important wall-space where their figures +become the friend of daily life, or the bosky shades of their +verdure invite to revery. They are extended flat against the wall, or +even framed, that not one stroke of the artist's pencil or one flash +of the weaver's shuttle be hid. But, many were their uses and grand +were their purposes in the days when high-warp and low-warp weaving +was the important industry of whole provinces. Palaces and castles +were hung with them, but apart from this was the sumptuous use of a +reserve of hangings for outdoor fêtes and celebrations of all sorts. +These were the great opportunities for all to exhibit their +possessions and to make a street look almost as elegant and habitable +as the grandest chamber of the king. + +On the occasion of the entry of a certain queen into Paris, all the +way from Porte St. Denis to the Cathedral of Notre Dame was hung with +such specimens of the weaver's art as would make the heart of the +modern amateur throb wildly. They were hung from windows, draped +across the fronts of the houses, and fluttered their bright colours in +the face of an illuminating sun that yet had no power to fade the +conscientious work of the craftsman. The high lights of silk in the +weave, and the enrichment of gold and silver in the pattern caught and +held the sunbeams. In all the cavalcade of mounted knights and ladies, +there was the flashing of arms, the gleam of jewelled bridles, the +flaunting of rich stuffs, all with a background of unsurpassed +blending of colour and texture. The bridge over the Seine leading to +Notre Dame, its ramparts were entirely concealed, its asperities +softened, by the tapestries which hung over its sides, making the +passage over the river like the approach to a throne, the luxury of +kings combined with the beauty of the flowing river, the blue sky, the +tender green of the trees. + +Indeed, it was so lovely a sight that the king himself was not content +to see it from his honoured but restricted post, but needs must doff +his crown--monarchs wore them in those fairy days--and fling a leg +over a gentleman's charger, behind its owner, and thus ride double to +see the sights. So great was his eagerness to enjoy all the display +that he got a smart reproof from an officer of ceremonies for +trespassing.[12] + +When Louis XI was the young king, and had not yet developed the taste +for bloodshed and torture that as a crafty fox he used later to the +horror of his nation, he, too, had similar festivals with similar +decorations. On one occasion the Pont des Changes was made the chief +point in the royal progress through the streets of Paris. The bridge +was hung with superb tapestries of great size, from end to end, and +the king rode to it on a white charger, his trappings set with +turquoise, with a gorgeous canopy supported over his head. Just as he +reached the bridge the air became full of the music of singing birds, +twenty-five hundred of them at that moment released, and all +fluttering, darting, singing amid the gorgeous scene to tickle the +fancy of a king. + + [Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA + + German Tapestry, about 1450] + + [Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500 + + Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Canon de Haisnes, "La Tapisserie." + +[8] M. de Barante, "Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne." + +[9] Froissart, manuscript of the library of Dijon. + +[10] De Barante, "Histoire." + +[11] See M. Pinchart, "Roger van der Weyden et les Tapisseries de +Berne." + +[12] Enguerrand de Monstrelet, "Chronicles." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HIGH GOTHIC + + +The wonderful time of the Burgundian dukes is gone; Charles le +Téméraire leaves the world at Nancy, where the pitying have set up a +cross in memory of his unkingly death, and where the lover of things +Gothic may wander down a certain way to the exquisite portico of the +Ducal Palace and, entering, find the Gothic room where the duke's +precious tapestries are hung. In this sympathetic atmosphere one may +dream away hours in sheer joy of association with these shadowy hosts +of the past, the relentless slayers in the battle scenes, relentless +moralists in the religious subjects--for morality plays had a parallel +in the morality tapestry, issuing such rigid warnings to those who +make merry as is seen in _The Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets_, +_The Reward of Virtue_, _The Triumph of Right_, _The Horrors of the +Seven Deadly Sins_, all of which were popular subjects for the weaver. + +With the artists who might be called primitives we have almost +finished in the end of the Fifteenth Century. The simplicity of the +very early weavers passed. They were content with comparatively few +figures, and these so strongly treated that in composition one scarce +took on more importance than another. When Arras and other Flemish +towns, as well as Paris and certain French towns, developed the +industry and employed more ambitious artists, the designs became more +crowded, and the tendency was to multiply figures in an effort to +crowd as many as possible into the space. When architecture appeared +in the design, towers and battlements were crowded with peeping heads +in delightful lack of proportion, and forests of spears springing from +platoons of soldiers, filled almost the entire height of the cloth. +The naïve fashion still existed of dressing the characters of an +ancient Biblical or classic drama in costumes which were the mode of +the weaver's time, disregarding the epoch in which the characters +actually lived. + +An adherence to the childlike drawing of the early workers continues +noticeable in their quaint way of putting many scenes on one tapestry. +Interiors are readily managed, by dividing--as in _The Sacraments_ set +in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York--with slender Gothic +columns, than which nothing could be prettier, especially when framed +in at the top with the Gothic arch. In outdoor scenes the frank +disregard of the probable adds the charm of audacity. Side by side +with a scene of carnage, a field of blood with victims lying prone, is +inserted an island of flowers whereon youths and dogs are pleasantly +sporting; and adjoining that may be another section cunningly +introduced where a martyred woman is enveloped in flames which spring +from the ground around her as naturally as grass in springtime. + + [Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA + + Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century] + + [Illustration: HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN + + Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century] + +And flowers, flowers everywhere. Those little blossoms of the Gothic +with their perennial beauty, they are one of the smiles of that far +time that shed cheer through the centuries. They are not the +grandiose affairs of the Renaissance whose voluptuous development +contains the arrogant assurance of beauty matured. They do not crown a +column or trail themselves in foliated scrolls; but are just as Nature +meant them to be, unaffected bits of colour and grace, upspringing +from the sod. In the cathedral at Berne is a happy example of the use +of these sweet flowers, as they appear at the feet of the sacred +group, and as they carry the eye into the sky by means of the feathery +branches like fern-fronds which tops the scene; but we find them +nearer home, in almost every Gothic tapestry. + +It was about the end of the last Crusade when Italy began to produce +the inspired artists who broke the bonds of Byzantine traditions and +turned back to the inspiration of all art, which is Nature. Giotto, +tending his sheep, began to draw pictures of things as he saw them, +Savonarola awoke the conscience, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio--a string +of names to conjure with--all roused the intellect. The dawn of the +Renaissance flushed Europe with the life of civilisation. But before +the wonderful development of art through the reversion to classic +lines, came a high perfection of the style called Gothic, and with +that we are pleased to deal first. It is so full of beauty to the eye +and interest to the intellect that sometimes we must be dragged away +from it to regard the softer lines of later art, with the ingratitude +and reluctance of childhood when torn from its fairy tales to read of +real people in the commonplace of every day. + +We are now in the time when the perfection of production was reached +in the tapestries we call Gothic. Artists had grown more certain of +their touch in colour and design, and weavers worked with such +conscientious care as is now almost unknown, and produced a quality of +tapestry superior to that of their forebears. The Fifteenth Century +and the first few years of the Sixteenth were spent in perfecting the +style of the preceding century, and so great was the perfection +reached, that it was impossible to develop further on those lines. + +It must not be supposed from their importance that Brussels and Bruges +were the sole towns of weavers. There were many high-warp looms, and +low-warp as well, in many towns in Flanders and France, and there were +also beginnings in Spain, England and Germany. Italy came later. The +superb set in the Cluny Museum in Paris, _The Lady and the Unicorn_, +than which nothing could be lovelier in poetic feeling as well as in +technique, is accorded to French looms. But as it is impossible in a +cursory survey to mention all, the two most important cities are dwelt +upon because it is from them that the greatest amount of the best +product emanated. + +Tapestries could not well decline with the fortunes of a town, for +they were a heavy article of commerce at the time when Louis XI +attacked Arras. Trade was made across the Channel, whence came the +best wool for their manufacture; they were bought by the French +monarchs and nobility; many drifted to Genoa and Italy, to be sold by +the active merchants of the times to whoever could buy. When, +therefore, Arras was crushed, her able workmen flew to other centres +of production, principally in Flanders, notably to Bruges and +Brussels, and helped to bring these places into their high position. + + [Illustration: VERDURE + + French Gothic Tapestry] + + [Illustration: "ECCE HOMO" + + Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New + York] + +Stories of kings and their magnificence breathe ever of romance, but +kings could not be magnificent were it not for the labour of the +conscientious common people, those who go daily to their task, asking +nothing better than to live their little span in humble endeavour. The +weavers, the tapissiers of that far-away time in Flanders are +intensely appealing now when their beautiful work hangs before us +to-day. They send us a friendly message down through the centuries. It +is this makes us inquire a bit into the conditions of their lives, and +so we find them scattered through the country north of France working +with single-hearted devotion toward the perfection of their art. That +they arrived there, we know by such tapestries as are left us of their +time. + +Bruges was the home of a movement in art similar to that occurring in +Italy. Old traditions of painting were being thrown aside--the +revolution even attacking the painter's medium, tempera, which was +criticised, discarded and replaced by oil on the palettes. Memling, +the brothers Van Eyck, were painting things as they saw them, not as +rules prescribed. Bernard Van Orley was at work with bold originality. + +It were strange if this Northern school of painters had not influenced +all art near by. It is to these men that Brussels owes the beauty of +her tapestries in that apogee of Gothic art which immediately preceded +the introduction of the Renaissance from Italy. + +Cartoons or drawings for tapestries took on the rules of composition +of these talented and original men. Easily distinguishable is the +strong influence of the religious feeling, the fidelity to standards +of the church. When a rich townsman wished to express his praise or +gratitude to God, he ordered for the church an altar-piece or dainty +gilded Gothic carving to frame the painted panels of careful +execution. When Jean de Rome executed a cartoon, he treated it in much +the same way; built up an airy Gothic structure and filled the spaces +with pretty pictures. The so-called Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan's +shows this treatment at its best. Unhappily, the atelier of Jean de +Rome or Jan von Room is too sketchily portrayed in the book of the +past; its records are faint and elusive. We only hear now and then an +interested allusion, a suggestion that this or that beautiful specimen +of work has come from his atelier. + +Cartoons at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century were not all +divided into their different scenes by Gothic column and arch. In much +of the fine work there was no division except a natural one, for the +picture began to develop the modern scheme of treating but one scene +in one picture. Although this might be filled with many groups, yet +all formed a harmonious whole. The practice then fell into disuse of +repeating the same individual many times in one picture. + +A good example of the change and improvement in drawing which assisted +in making Brussels' supremacy and in bringing Gothic art to +perfection, is the fine hanging in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. +(Plate facing page 57.) It depicts with beautiful naïveté and much +realism the discomfiture of Pharaoh and his army floundering in the +Red Sea, while the serene and elegant children of Israel contemplate +their distress with well-bred calm from the flowery banks of an +orderly park. + + [Illustration: ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT + + Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.] + + [Illustration: CROSSING THE RED SEA + + Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + +This tapestry illustrates so many of the important features of work +during the first period of Brussels' supremacy that it is to be +lingered over, dissected and tasted like a dessert of nuts and wine. +Should one speak first of the cartoon or of the weave, of the artist +or of the craftsmen? If it is to be the tapissier, then to him all +credit, for in this and similar work he has reached a care in +execution and a talent in translation that are inspired. Such quantity +of detail, so many human faces with their varying expressions, could +only be woven by the most adroit tapissier. + +The drawing shows, first, one scene of many groups but a sole +interest, with none but probable divisions. Much grace and freedom is +shown in the attitudes of the persons on the shore, and strenuous +effort and despair among the engulfed soldiers. Extreme attention to +detail, the making one part as finished as another, even to the least +detail, is noticeable. The exaggerated patterns of the stuffs +observable in earlier work is absent, and a sense of proportion is +displayed in dress ornament. The free movement of men and beasts, and +the variety of facial expression all show the immense strides made in +drawing and the perfection attained in this brilliant period. + +It was a time when the artist perfected the old style and presaged the +new, the years before the Renaissance had left its cradle and marched +over Europe. This perfection of the Gothic ideal has a purity and +simplicity that can never fail to appeal to all who feel that +sincerity is the basic principle of art as it is of character. The +style of Quentin Matsys, of the Van Eycks, was the mode at the end of +the Fifteenth Century and the beginning of the Sixteenth, and after +all this lapse of time it seems to us a sweet and natural expression +of admirable human attributes. + +In the new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the +labels of certain exhibits, purchases and loans allude briefly to +"studio of Jean de Rome." It is an allusion which especially interests +us, as our country now holds examples of this atelier which make us +wish to know more about its master. He was a designer in the +marvellous transition period of about 1500, when art trembled between +the restraint of ecclesiastic Gothic and the voluptuous freedom of the +Renaissance; hesitated between the conventions of religion and the +abandonment to luxury, to indulgence of the senses. It is the fashion +to regard periods of transition as times of decadence, of false +standards of hybrid production, but at least they are full of deepest +interest to the student of design who finds in the tremulous dawn of +the new idea a flush which beautifies the last years of the old +method. + + [Illustration: THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN + + Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, + Esq., New York] + +Attributed to this newly unearthed studio of Jean de Rome hangs a +marvellous tapestry in the new wing alluded to, one which deserves +repeated visits. (Plate facing page 58.) Indeed, to see it once +creates the desire to see it again, so beautiful is it in drawing and +so exquisite in colour and weave. It is suggested that Quentin +Matsys is responsible for the drawing, and it is known that only +Bruges or Brussels could produce such perfection of textile. Indeed, +Jean de Rome is by some authorities spoken of as Jean de Brussels, for +it is there that he worked long and well, assisting to produce those +wonders of textile art that have never been surpassed, not even by the +Gobelins factory in the Seventeenth Century. The tapestry in the +Metropolitan Museum is now the property of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., +but began life as the treasure of the King and Queen of Spain who, at +the time when Brussels was producing its best, were sitting firmly on +a throne but just wrested from the Saracenic occupancy. Spain, while +unable to establish famous and enduring tapestry factories of her own, +yet was known always as a lavish buyer. Later, Cardinal Mazarin, with +his trained Italian eye, detected at once the value of the tapestry +and became possessed of it, counting it among his best treasures of +art. It is a woven representation of the triptych, so favourite in the +time of the Van Eycks, and is almost as rich with gold as those +ancient altar decorations. The tapestry is variously called _The +Kingdom of Heaven_, and _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ and is +the most beautiful and important of its kind in America. Fortunate +they who can go to the museum to see it--only less fortunate than +those who can go to see it many times. + +In the private collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., of Chicago, are +three examples of great perfection. They belonged to the celebrated +art collection of Baron Spitzer, which fact, apart from their beauty, +gives them renown. The first of these (plate facing page 60) is an +appearance of Christ to the Magdalen after the Entombment, and is +Flemish work of late in the Fifteenth Century. It is woven in silk and +gold with infinite skill. With exquisite patience the weaver has +brought out the crowded detail in the distance; indeed, it is this +background, stretching away to the far sky, past the Tomb, beyond +towns and plains of fruited trees to yet more cities set on a hill, +that constitutes the greatest charm of the picture, and which must +have brought hours of happy toil to the inspired weaver. + +The second tapestry of Mr. Ryerson's three pieces is also Flemish of +the late Fifteenth Century. (Plate facing page 61.) This small group +of the Holy Family shows at its best the conscientious work of the +time, a time wherein man regarded labour as a means of worshipping his +God. The subject is treated by both artist and weaver with that loving +care which approaches religion. The holy three are all engaged in +holding bunches of grapes, while the Child symbolically spills their +juice into a chalice. Other symbols are found in the book and the +cross-surmounted globe. A background of flat drapery throws into +beautiful relief the inspired faces of the group. Behind this +stretches the miniature landscape, but the foreground is unfretted by +detail, abounding in the repose of the simple surfaces of the garments +of Mother and Child. By a subtle trick of line, St. Joseph is +separated from the holier pair. The border is the familiar +well-balanced Gothic composition of flower, fruit, and leaf, all +placed as though by the hand of Nature. The materials used are silk +and gold, but one might well add that the soul of the weaver also +entered into the fabric. + + [Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY + + Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the + Spitzer Collection] + + [Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY + + Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin + A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection] + +The third piece from the Spitzer collection bears all those marks of +exquisite beauty with which Italy was teeming in the Fifteenth +Century. (Colour plate facing page 82.) Weavers from Brussels went +down into Italy and worked under the direction of Italian artists who +drew the designs. Andrea Mantegna was one of these. The patron of the +industry was the powerful Gonzaga family. This tapestry of _The +Annunciation_ which Mr. Ryerson is so fortunate as to hang in his +collection, is decorated with the arms of the Gonzaga family. The +border of veined marble, the altar of mosaics and fine relief, the +architecture of the outlying baptistry, the wreathed angel, all speak +of Italy in that lovely moment when the Gothic had not been entirely +abandoned and the Renaissance was but an opening bud. + +The highest work of painter and weaver--artists both--continued +through thirty or forty years. Pity it is, the time had not been long +enough for more remains of it to have come to us than those that +scantily supply museums. After the Gothic perfection came the great +change made in Flanders by the introduction of the Renaissance. + +It came through the excellence of the weavers. It was not the worth of +the artists that brought Brussels its greatest fame, but the humbler +work of its tapissiers. Their lives, their endeavours counted more in +textile art than did the Flemish school of painting. No such weavers +existed in all the world. They were bound together as a guild, had +restrictions and regulations of their own that would shame a trades +union of to-day, and in change of politics had scant consideration +from new powers. But in the end they were the ones to bring fame to +the Brussels workshops. + +In 1528 they were banded together by organisation, and from that time +on their work is easily followed and identified. It was in that year +that a law was made compelling weavers--and allowing weavers--to +incorporate into the encompassing galloon of the tapestry the Brussels +Brabant mark of two B's with a shield between. And it was about this +time and later that the celebrated family of weavers named Pannemaker +came into prominence through the talent of Wilhelm de Pannemaker, he +who accompanied the Emperor Charles V on his expedition to Tunis. + +This expedition flaunts itself in the set of tapestries now in Madrid. +(Plate facing page 62.) The emperor seems, from our point of view, to +have done it all with dramatic forethought. There was his special +artist on the spot, Jan Vermeyen, to draw the superb cartoons, and +accompanying him was Wilhelm de Pannemaker, the ablest weaver of his +day, to set the loom and thrust the shuttle. Granada was the place +selected for the weaving, and the finest of wool was set aside for it, +besides lavish amounts of silk, and pounds of silver and gold. In +three years, by the help of eighty workmen, Pannemaker completed his +colossal task. Such was the master-weaver of the Sixteenth Century. + + [Illustration: CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL) + + Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal Collection at + Madrid] + +As for Pannemaker's imperial patron, John Addington Symonds +discriminatingly says of him: "Like a gale sweeping across a forest of +trees in blossom, and bearing their fertilising pollen to far distant +trees, the storm of Charles Fifth's army carried far and wide through +Europe the productive energy of the Renaissance." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE + + +Brussels in 1515, with her workmen at the zenith of their perfection, +was given the order to weave the set of the _Acts of the Apostles_ for +the Pope to hang in the Sistine Chapel. (Plate facing page 64.) The +cartoons were by the great Raphael. Not only did he draw the splendid +scenes, but with his exquisite invention elaborated the borders. Thus +was set in the midst of the Brussels ateliers a pattern for the new +art that was to retire the nice perfection of the previous school of +restraint. From that time, all was regulated by new standards. + +Before considering the change that came to designs in tapestry, it is +necessary that both mind and eye should be literally savants in the +Gothic. Without this the greatest point in classifying and +distinguishing is missed. The dainty grace of the verdure and flowers, +the exquisite models of the architectural details, the honest, simple +scheme of colour, all these are distinguishing marks, but to them is +added the still greater one of the figures and their grouping. In the +very early work, these are few in number, all equally accented in size +and finish, but later the laws of perspective are better understood, +and subordinates to the subject are drawn smaller. This gives +opportunity for increase in the number of personages, and for the +introduction of the horses and dogs and little wild animals that cause +a childish thrill of delight wherever they are encountered, so like +are they to the species that haunt childhood's fairyland. + + [Illustration: DEATH OF ANANIAS.--FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY + RAPHAEL + + From the Palace of Madrid] + + [Illustration: THE STORY OF REBECCA + + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor + Carey, Esq., Boston] + +Indeed, the Gothic tapestries more than any other existing pictures +take us back to that epoch of our lives when we lived in romance, when +the Sleeping Beauty hid in just such towers, when the prince rode such +a horse and appeared an elegant young knight. The inscrutable mystery +of those folk of other days is like the inscrutable mystery of that +childhood time, the Mediæval time of the imagination, and those of us +who remember its joys gaze silent and happy in the tapestry room of +the Ducal Palace at Nancy, or in Mary's Chamber at Holyrood, or in any +place whatever where hang the magic pictured cloths. + +When the highest development of a style is reached a change is sure to +come. It may be a degeneration, or it may be the introduction of a new +style through some great artistic impulse either native or introduced +by contact with an outside influence. Fortunately, the Gothic passed +through no pallid process of deterioration. The examples that nest +comfortably in the museums of the world or in the homes of certain +fortunate owners, do not contain marks of decadence--only of +transition. It is a style that was replaced, but not one that died the +death of decadence. + +It is with reluctance that one who loves the Gothic will leave it for +the more recent art of the Renaissance. Its charm is one that embodies +chasteness, grace, and simplicity, one that is so exquisitely +finished, and so individual that the mind and eye rest lovingly upon +its decorative expressions. It is averred that the introduction of the +revived styles of Greece and Rome into France destroyed an art +superior. One is inclined to this opinion in studying a tapestry of +the highest Gothic expression, a finished product of the artist and +the craftsman, both having given to its execution their honest labour +and highest skill. Unhappily it is often, with the tapestry lover, a +case similar to that of the penniless boy before the bakeshop +window--you may look, but you may not have,--for not often are +tapestries such as these for sale. Only among the experienced +dealer-collectors is one fortunate enough to find these rare remnants +of the past which for colour, design and texture are unsurpassed. + +But the Gothic was bound to give way as a fashion in design. Politics +of Europe were at work, and men were more easily moving about from one +country to another. The cities of the various provinces over which the +Burgundian dukes had ruled were prevented by natural causes, from +being united. Arras, Ghent, Liége instead of forming a solidarity, +were separate units of interest. This made the subjugation of one or +the other an easy matter to the tyrant who oppressed. As Arras +declined under the misrule of Charles le Téméraire (whose possessions +at one time outlined the whole northern and eastern border of France) +Brussels came into the highest prominence as a source of the finest +tapestries. + + [Illustration: THE CREATION + + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century] + + [Illustration: THE ORIGINAL SIN + + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century] + +The great change in tapestries that now occurs is the same that +altered all European art and decoration and architecture. Indeed it +cannot be limited to these evidences alone, for it affected +literature, politics, religion, every intellectual evidence. Man was +breaking his bonds and becoming freed for centuries to come. The time +was well-named for the new birth. Like another Birth of long ago, it +occurred in the South, and its influence gradually spread over the +entire civilised world. The Renaissance, starting in Italy, gradually +flushed the whole of Europe with its glory. Artists could not be +restrained. Throbbing with poetry to be expressed, they threw off +design after design of inspired beauty and flooded the world with +them. The legitimate field of painting was not large enough for their +teeming originality which pre-empted also the field of decorative +design as well. Many painters apprenticed themselves to goldsmiths and +silversmiths to become yet more cunning in the art of minute design, +and the guilds of Florence held the names best known in the fine arts. + +Tapestry weaving seems a natural expression in the North, the +impulsive supplying of a local need. Possibly Italy felt no such need +throughout the Middle Ages. However that may be, when her artists +composed designs for woven pictures there were no permanent artisans +at home of sufficient skill to weave them. + +But up in the North, craftsmen were able to produce work of such +brilliant and perfect execution that the great artists of Italy were +inspired to draw cartoons. And so it came, that to make sure of having +their drawings translated into wool and silk with proper artistic +feeling, the cartoons of Raphael were bundled off by trusty carriers +to the ateliers of Flanders. Thus Italy got her tapestries of the +Renaissance, and thus Flanders acquired by inoculation the rich art of +the Renaissance. + +The direct cause of the change in Flemish style of tapestries was in +this way brought about by the Renaissance of Italy. New rules of +drawing were dominating. Changes were slower when travelling was +difficult, and the average of literacy was low; but gradually there +came creeping up to Brussels cartoon after cartoon in the new method, +for her skilled workmen to transpose into wool and silk and metal, +"thread of Arras," and "gold and silver of Cyprus." Italy had the +artists, Brussels had the craftsmen--what happier combination could be +made than the union of these two? Thus was the great change brought +about in tapestries, and this union is the great fact to be borne in +mind about the difference between the Gothic tapestries and those +which so quickly succeeded them. + +From now on the old method is abandoned, not only in Brussels, but +everywhere that the high-warp looms are set up. The "art nouveau" of +that day influenced every brush and pencil. The great crowding of +serried hosts on a single field disappeared, and fewer but perfect +figures played their parts on the woven surface. Wherever +architectural details, such as porticoes or columns, were introduced, +these dropped the old designs of "pointed" style or battlements, and +took on the classic or the high Renaissance that ornaments the façade +of Pavia's Certosa. One by one the wildwood flowers receded before the +advance of civilisation, very much as those in the veritable land +are wont to do, and their place was taken by a verdure as rich as the +South could produce, with heavy foliage and massive blossoms. + + [Illustration: MELEAGER AND ATALANTA + + Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. Woven in Paris + workshops by Charles de Comans] + + [Illustration: PUNIC WAR SERIES + + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor + Carey, Esq., Boston] + +It is impossible to overestimate the importance to Brussels of the +animating experience and distinguished commission of executing the set +of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel after cartoons by Raffaelo +Sanzio. The date is one to tie to (1515) and the influence of the work +was far-reaching. The Gothic method could no longer continue. + +The Renaissance spread its influence, established its standards and +introduced that wave of productiveness which always followed its +introduction. There are many who doubt the superiority of the +voluptuous art of the high Renaissance. There are those who prefer +(perhaps for reasons of sentiment) the early Gothic, and many more who +love far better the sweet purity of the early Renaissance. Before us +Raphael presents his full figures replete with action, rich with +broad, open curves in nudity, and magnificent with lines of flowing +drapery. To him be accorded all due honour; but, if it is the +privilege of the artist's spirit to wander still on earth, he must +find his particular post-mortem punishment in viewing the deplorable +school of exaggeration which his example founded. Who would not prefer +one of the chaste tapestries of perfected Gothic to one of those which +followed Raphael, imitating none of his virtues, exaggerating his +faults? It is these followers, the virilities of whose false art is as +that of weeds, who have come almost to our own day and who have +succeeded in spoiling the historical aspect of the New Testament for +many an imaginative Sunday-school attendant by giving us Bible folk in +swarthy undress, in lunatic beards and in unwearable drapings. These +terrible persons, descendants of Raphael's art, can never stir a human +sympathy. + +Just here a word must be said of the workmen, the weavers of Brussels. +For them certain fixed rules were made, but also they were allowed +much liberty in execution. The artist might draw the big cartoons and +thus become the governing influence, but much of the choice of colour +and thread was left to the weaver. This made of him a more important +factor in the composition than a mere artisan; he was, in fact, an +artist, must needs be, to execute a work of such sublimity as the +Raphael set. + +And as a weaver, his patience was without limit. Thread by thread, the +warp was set, and thread by thread the woof was woven and coerced into +place by the relentless comb of the weaver. Perhaps a man might make a +square foot, by a week of close application; but "how much" mattered +nothing--it was "how well" that counted. Haste is disassociable from +labour of our day; we might produce--or reproduce--tapestries as good +as the old, but some one is in haste for the hanging, and excellency +goes by the board. The weaver of those days of perfection was content +to be a weaver, felt his ambition gratified if his work was good. + + [Illustration: EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CÆSAR + + Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, + Florence] + + [Illustration: WILD BOAR HUNT + + Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the + Arazzi, Florence] + +Peter van Aelst was the master chosen to execute the Raphael +tapestries, and the pieces were finished in three or four years. Those +who think present-day prices high, should think on the fact that Pope +Leo X paid $130,000 for the execution of the tapestries, which in +1515 counted for more than now. Raphael received $1,000 each for the +cartoons, almost all of which are now guarded in England. The +tapestries after a varied history are resting safely in the Vatican, a +wonder to the visitor. + +When Van Aelst had finished his magnificent work, the tapestries were +sent to Rome. Those who go now to the Sistine Chapel to gaze upon +Michael Angelo's painted ceiling, and the panelled sidewalls of +Botticelli and other cotemporary artists, are more than intoxicated +with the feast. But fancy what the scene must have been when Pope Leo +X summoned his gorgeous guard and cardinals around him in this chapel +enriched also with the splendour of these unparalleled hangings. + +And thus it came that Italy held the first place--almost the only +place--in design, and Brussels led in manufacture. + +In 1528 appeared a mark on Brussels' tapestries which distinguished +them from that time on. Prior to that their works, except in certain +authenticated instances, are not always distinguishable from those of +other looms--of which many existed in many towns. The mark alluded to +is the famous one of two large B's on either side of a shield or +scutcheon. This was woven into a plain band on the border, and the +penalty for its misuse was the no small one of the loss of the right +hand--the death of the culprit as a weaver. This mark and its laws +were intended to discourage fraud, to promote perfection and to +conserve a high reputation for weavers as well as for dealers. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS + + +When the Raphael cartoons first came to Brussels the new method was a +little difficult for the tapissier. His hand had been accustomed to +another manner. He had, too, been allowed much liberty in his +translations--if one may so call the art of reproducing a painted +model on the loom. He might change at will the colour of a drapery, +even the position of a figure, and, most interesting fact, he had on +hand a supply of stock figures that he might use at will, making for +himself suitable combination. The figures of Adam and Eve gave a +certain cachet to hangings not entirely secular and these were slipped +in when a space needed filling. There were also certain lovely ladies +who might at one time play the rôle of attendant at a feast _al +fresco_, at another time a character in an allegory. The weaver's hand +was a little conventional when he began to execute the Raphael +cartoons, but during the three years required for their execution he +lost all restriction and was ready for the freer manner. + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + +It must not be supposed the Flemish artists were content to let the +Italians entirely usurp them in the drawing of cartoons. The lovely +refinement of the Bruges school having been thrust aside, the Fleming +tried his hand at the freer method, not imitating its classicism but +giving his themes a broader treatment. The Northern temperament +failed to grasp the spirit of the South, and figures grew gross and +loose in the exaggerated drawing. Borders, however, show no such +deterioration; the attention to detail to which the old school was +accustomed was here continued and with good effect. No stronger +evidence is needed than some of these half savage portrayals of life +in the Sixteenth Century to declare the classic method an exotic in +Flanders. + +But with the passing of the old Gothic method, there was little need +for other cartoonists than the Italian, so infinitely able and +prolific were they. Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Giulio +Romano, these are among the artists whose work went up to Brussels +workshops and to other able looms of the day. We can fancy the fair +face of Andrea's wife being lovingly caressed by the weaver's fingers +in his work; we can imagine the beauties of Titian, the sumptuousness +of Veronese's feasts, and the fat materialism of Giulio Romano's heavy +cherubs, all contributing to the most beautiful of textile arts. + +Still earlier, Mantegna supplied a series of idealised Pompeian +figures exquisitely composed, set in a lacy fancy of airy +architectural detail, in which he idealised all the gods of Olympus. +Each fair young goddess, each strong and perfect god, stood in its +particular niche and indicated its _penchant_ by a tripod, a peacock, +an apple or a caduceus, as clue to the proper name. Such airy beauty, +such dainty conception, makes of the gods rulers of æsthetics, if not +of fate. This series of Mantegna was the inspiration two centuries +later of the _Triumphs of the Gods_, and similar hangings of the +newly-formed Gobelins. + +Giulio Romano drew, among other cartoons, a set of _Children Playing_, +which were the inspiration later at the Gobelins for Lebrun's _Enfants +Jardiniers_. + +As classic treatment was the mode in the Sixteenth Century, so classic +subject most appealed. The loves and adventures of gods and heroes +gave stories for an infinite number of sets. As it was the fashion to +fill a room with a series, not with miscellaneous and contrasting +bits, several tapestries similar in subject and treatment were a +necessity. The gods were carried through their adventures in varying +composition, but the borders in all the set were uniform in style and +measurement. + +In those prolific days, when ideas were crowding fast for expression, +the border gave just the outlet necessary for the superfluous designs +of the artist. He was wont to plot it off into squares with such +architectonic fineness as Mina da Fiesole might have used, and to make +of each of these a picture or a figure so perfect that in itself it +would have sufficient composition for an entire tapestry. All honour +to such artists, but let us never once forget that without the skill +and talent of the master-weaver these beauties would never have come +down to us. + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + +The collection of George Blumenthal, Esquire, of New York, contains as +beautiful examples of Sixteenth Century composition and weaving as +could be imagined. Two of these were found in Spain--the country +which has ever hoarded her stores of marvellous tapestries. They +represent the story of _Mercury_. (Frontispiece.) The cartoon is +Italian, and so perfect is its drawing, so rich in invention is the +exquisite border, that the name of Raphael is half-breathed by the +thrilled observer. But if the artist is not yet certainly identified, +the name of the weaver is certain, for on the galloon he has left his +sign. It is none other than the celebrated Wilhelm de Pannemaker. + +In addition to this is the shield and double B of the Brussels +workshop, which after 1528 was a requirement on all tapestries beyond +a certain small size. In 1544 the Emperor Charles V made a law that +the mark or name of the weaver and the mark of his town must be put in +the border. It was this same Pannemaker of the Blumenthal tapestries +who wove in Spain the _Conquest of Tunis_ for Charles V. (Plate facing +page 62.) + +Mr. Blumenthal's tapestries must have carried with them some such +contract for fine materials as that which attended the execution of +the _Tunis_ set, so superb are they in quality. Indeed, gold is so +lavishly used that the border seems entirely made of it, except for +the delicate figures resting thereon. It is used, too, in an unusual +manner, four threads being thrown together to make more resplendent +the weave. + +The beauty of the cartoon as a picture, the decorative value of the +broad surfaces of figured stuffs, the marvellous execution of the +weaver, all make the value of these tapestries incalculable to the +student and the lover of decorative art. Mr. Blumenthal has graciously +placed them on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New +York. Fortunate they who can absorb their beauty. + +That treasure-house in Madrid which belongs to the royal family +contains a set which bears the same ear-marks as the Blumenthal +tapestries. It is the set called _The Loves of Vertumnus and Pomona_. +(Plates facing pages 72, 73, 74 and 75.) Here is the same manner of +dress, the same virility, the same fulness of decoration. Yet the +Mercury is drawn with finer art. + +The delight in perfected detail belonging to the Italian school of +artists resulted in an arrangement of _grotesques_. Who knows that the +goldsmith's trade was not responsible for these tiny fantastics, as so +many artists began as apprentices to workers in gold and silver? This +evidence of talented invention must be observed, for it set the +fashion for many a later tapestry, notably the _Grotesque Months_ of +the Seventeenth Century. Mingled with verdure and fruit, it is seen in +work of the Eighteenth Century. But in its original expression is it +the most talented. There we find that intellectual plan of design, +that building of a perfect whole from a subtle combination of +absolutely irreconcilable and even fabulous objects. Yet all is done +with such beguiling art that both mind and eye are piqued and pleased +with the impossible blending of realism and imagination. + +Bacchiacca drew a filigree of attenuated fancies, threw them on a +ground of single delicate colour, and sent them for weave to the +celebrated masters, John Rost and Nicholas Karcher. (Plates facing +pages 84 and 85.) These men at that time (1550) had set their +Flemish looms in Italy. + + [Illustration: TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED + + Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid] + + [Illustration: THE STORY OF REBECCA + + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor + Carey, Esq., Boston] + +And so it came that the Renaissance swept all before it in the world +of tapestry. More than that, with the increase of culture and of +wealth, with the increased mingling of the peoples of Europe after the +raid of Charles V into Italy, the demand for tapestries enormously +increased. They were wanted for furnishing of homes, they were wanted +as gifts--to brides, to monarchs, to ambassadors. And they were wanted +for splendid decoration in public festivals. They had passed beyond +the stage of rarity and had become almost as much a matter of course +as clothing. + +Brussels being in the ascendency as a producer, the world looked to +her for their supply, and thereby came trouble. More orders came than +it was possible to fill. The temptation was not resisted to accept +more work than could be executed, for commercialism has ever a hold. +The result was a driving haste. The director of the ateliers forced +his weavers to quick production. This could mean but one thing, the +lessening of care in every department. + +Gradually it came about that expedition in a tapissier, the ability to +weave quickly, was as great a desideratum as fine work. Various other +expedients were resorted to beside the Sixteenth Century equivalent of +"Step lively." Large tapestries were not set on a single loom, but +were woven in sections, cunningly united when finished. In this manner +more men could be impressed into the manufacture of a single piece. A +wicked practice was introduced of painting or dyeing certain woven +parts in which the colours had been ill-selected. + +All these things resulted in constantly increasing restrictions by the +guild of tapissiers and by order of royal patrons. But fraud is hard +to suppress when the animus of the perpetrator is wrong. Laws were +made to stop one fault after another, until in the end the weavers +were so hampered by regulations that work was robbed of all enthusiasm +or originality. + +It was at this time that Brussels adopted the low-warp loom. In other +words, after a brilliant period of prolific and beautiful production, +Brussels began to show signs of deterioration. Her hour of triumph was +past. It had been more brilliant than any preceding, and later times +were never able to touch the same note of purity coupled with +perfection. The reason for the decline is known, but reasons are of +scant interest in the face of the deplorable fact of decadence. + +The Italian method of drawing cartoons was adopted by the Flemish +cartoonists at this time, but as it was an adoption and not a natural +expression of inborn talent, it fell short of the high standard of the +Renaissance. But that is not to say that we of to-day are not ready to +worship the fruit of the Italian graft on Flemish talent. A tapestry +belonging to the Institute of Art in Chicago well represents this +hybrid expression of drawing. (Plate facing page 78.) The principal +figures are inspired by such as are seen in the _Mercury_ of Mr. +Blumenthal's collection, or the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ series, but +there the artist stopped and wandered off into his traditional +Flemish landscape with proper Flemings in the background dressed in +the fashion of the artist's day. + + [Illustration: BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY + + Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago] + + [Illustration: MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA + + Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon + attributed to Rubens] + +The border was evidently inspired by Raphael's classic figures and +arabesques, but the column of design is naïvely broken by the far +perspective of a formal garden. The Italian cartoonist would have +built his border, figure and arabesque, one above another like a +fantastic column (_vide_ Mr. Blumenthal's _Mercury_ border). The +Fleming saw the intricacy, the multiplied detail, but missed the +intellectual harmony. But, such trifles apart, the Flemish examples of +this style that have come to us are thrilling in their beauty of +colour, and borders such as this are an infinite joy. This tapestry +was woven about the last quarter of the Sixteenth Century by a weaver +named Jacques Geubels of Brussels, who was employed by Carlier, a +merchant of Antwerp. + +As the fruit of the Renaissance graft on Flanders coarsened and +deteriorated, a new influence arose in the Low Countries, one that was +bound to submerge all others. Rubens appeared and spread his great +decorative surfaces before eyes that were tired of hybrid design. This +great scene-painter introduced into all Europe a new method in his +voluptuous, vigorous work, a method especially adapted to tapestry +weaving. It is not for us to quarrel with the art of so great a +master. The critics of painting scarce do that; but in the lesser art +of tapestry the change brought about by his cartoons was not a happy +one. + +His great dramatic scenes required to be copied directly from the +canvas, no liberty of line or colour could be allowed the weaver. In +times past, the tapissier--with talent almost as great as that of the +cartoonist--altered at his discretion. Even he to whom the Raphael +cartoons were entrusted changed here and there the work of the master. + +But now he was expected to copy without license for change. In other +words, the time was arriving when tapestries were changing from +decorative fabrics into paintings in wool. It takes courage to avow a +distaste for the newer method, seeing what rare and beautiful hangings +it has produced. But after a study of the purely decorative hangings +of Gothic and Renaissance work, how forced and false seem the later +gods. The value of the tapestries is enormous, they are the work of +eminent men--but the heart turns away from them and revels again in +the Primitives and the Italians of the Cinque Cento. + +Repining is of little avail. The mode changes and tastes must change +with it. If the gradual decadence after the Renaissance was +deplorable, it was well that a Rubens rose in vigour to set a new and +vital copy. To meet new needs, more tones of colour and yet more, were +required by the weaver, and thus came about the making of woven +pictures. + +As one picture is worth many pages of description, it were well to +observe the examples given (plate facing page 79) of the superb set of +_Antony and Cleopatra_, a series of designs attributed to Rubens, +executed in Brussels by Gerard van den Strecken. This set is in the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ITALY + +FIFTEENTH THROUGH SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES + + +The history of tapestry in Italy is the story of the great families, +their romances and achievements. These families were those which +furnished rulers of provinces--kings, almost--which supplied popes as +well, and folk who thought a powerful man's pleasurable duty was to +interest himself seriously in the arts. + +With the fine arts all held within her hand, it was but logical that +Italy should herself begin to produce the tapestries she was importing +from the land of the barbarians as those beyond her northern borders +were arrogantly called. First among the records is found the name of +the Gonzaga family which called important Flemish weavers down to +Mantua, and there wove designs of Mantegna, in the highest day of +their factory's production, about 1450. + +Duke Frederick of Urbino is one of the early Italian patrons of +tapestry whose name is made unforgettable in this connexion by the +product of the factory he established toward the end of the Fifteenth +Century, at his court in the little duchy which included only the +space reaching from the Apennines to the Adriatic and from Rimini to +Ancona. The chief work of this factory was the _History of Troy_ which +cost the generous and enthusiastic duke a hundred thousand dollars. + +The great d'Este family was one to follow persistently the art, +possibly because it habited the northern part of the peninsula and was +therefore nearer Flanders, but more probably because the great Duke of +Ferrara was animated by that superb pride of race that chafes at +rivalry; this, added to a wish to encourage art, and the lust of +possession which characterised the great men of that day. + +It was the middle of the Sixteenth Century that Ercole II, the head of +the d'Este family, revived at Ferrara the factory of his family which +had suffered from the wars. The master-weavers were brought from +Flanders, not only to produce tapestries almost unequalled for +technical perfection, but to instruct local weavers. These two +important weavers were Nicholas and John Karcher or Carcher as it is +sometimes spelled, names of great renown--for a weaver might be almost +as well known and as highly esteemed as the artist of the cartoons in +those days when artisan's labour had not been despised by even the +great Leonardo. The foremost artist of the Ferrara works was chosen +from that city, Battista Dosso, but also active as designer was the +Fleming, Lucas Cornelisz. In Dosso's work is seen that exquisite and +dainty touch that characterises the artists of Northern Italy in their +most perfect period, before voluptuous masses and heavy scroll-like +curves prevailed even in the drawing of the human figure. + + [Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION + + Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. + Ryerson, Esq., Chicago] + +The House of Este had a part to play in the visit of the Emperor +Charles V when he elected to be crowned with Lombardy's Iron Crown, in +1530, at Bologna instead of in the cathedral at Monza where the relic +has its home. "Crowns run after me; I do not run after them," he +said, with the arrogance of success. At this reception at Bologna +we catch a glimpse of the brilliant Isabella d'Este amid all the +magnificence of the occasion. It takes very little imagination to +picture the effect of the public square at Bologna--the same buildings +that stand to-day--the square of the Palazzo Publico and the +Cathedral--to fancy these all hung with the immense woven pictures +with high lights of silk and gold glowing in the sun, and through this +magnificent scene the procession of mounted guards, of beautiful +ladies, of church dignitaries, with Charles V as the central object of +pomp, wearing as a clasp to the cope of state the great diamond found +on the field of Marat after the defeat of the Duke of Burgundy. The +members of the House of Este were there with their courts and their +protégés, their artists and their literati, as well as with their +display of riches and gaiety. + +The manufactory at Ferrara was now allowed to sell to the public, so +great was its success, and to it is owed the first impetus given to +the weaving in Italy and the production of some of the finest hangings +which time has left for us to enjoy to-day. It is a sad commentary on +man's lust of novelty that the factory at Ferrara was ultimately +abandoned by reason of the introduction into the country of the +brilliant metal-illuminated leathers of Cordova. The factory's life +was comprised within the space of the years 1534 to 1597, the years in +which lived Ercole II and Alfonso II, the two dukes of the House of +Este who established and continued it. + +It was but little wonder that the great family of the Medici looked +with envious eyes on any innovation or success which distinguished a +family which so nearly approached in importance its own. When Ercole +d'Este had fully proved the perfection of his new industry, the +weaving of tapestry, one of the Medici established for himself a +factory whereby he, too, might produce this form of art, not only for +the furtherance of the art, but to supply his own insatiable desires +for possession. + +The _Arazzeria Medicea_ was the direct result of the jealousy of +Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1537-1574. It was established in +Florence with a success to be anticipated under such powerful +protection, and it endured until that patronage was removed by the +extinction of the family in 1737. + +It was to be expected that the artists employed were those of note, +yet in the general result, outside of delicate grotesques, the drawing +is more or less the far-away echo of greater masters whose faults are +reproduced, but whose inspiration is not obtainable. After Michael +Angelo, came a passion for over-delineation of over-developed muscles; +after Raphael--came the debased followers of his favourite pupil, +Giulio Romano, who had himself seized all there was of the carnal in +Raphael's genius. But if there is something to be desired in the +composition and line of the cartoons of the Florentine factory, there +is nothing lacking in the consummate skill of the weavers. + + [Illustration: ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY + + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher] + + [Illustration: ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY + + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost] + +The same Nicholas Karcher who set the standard in the d'Este works, +gave of his wonderful skill to the Florentines, and with him was +associated John Rost. These were both from Flanders, and although +trade regulations for tapestry workers did not exist in Italy, Duke +Cosimo granted each of these men a sufficient salary, a habitat, as +well as permission to work for outsiders, and in addition paid them +for all work executed for himself. + +The subjects for the set of tapestries had entirely left the old +method of pious interpretation and of mediæval allegory and revelled +in pictured tales of the Scriptures and of the gods and heroes of +mystical Parnassus and of bellicose Greece, not forgetting those +dainty exquisite impossibilities called grotesques. It was about the +time of the death of Cosimo I (1574), the founder of the Medicean +factory, that a new and unfortunate influence came into the +directorship of the designs. This was the appointment of Stradano or +Johan van der Straaten, to give his Flemish name, as dominating +artist. + +He was a man without fine artistic feeling, one of those whose eye +delighted in the exaggerations of decadence rather than in the +restraint of perfect art. He was inspired, not by past perfection of +the Italians among whom he came to live, but by those of the decline, +and on this he grafted a bit of Northern philistinism. His brush was +unfortunately prolific, and at this time the fine examples of weaving +set by Rost and Karcher had been replaced by quicker methods so that +after 1600 the tapestries poured out were lamentably inferior. +Florentine tapestry had at this time much pretence, much vulgar +display in its drawing, missing the fine virtues of the time when +Cosimo I dictated its taste, the fine virtues of "grace, gaiety and +reflectiveness." + +Leo X, the great Medicean pope, was elected in 1513, he who ordered +the great Raphael set of the _Acts of the Apostles_, but it was before +the establishment of important looms in Italy, so to Flanders and Van +Aelst are due the glory of first producing this series which afterward +was repeated many times, in the great looms of Europe. Leo X emulated +in the patronage of the arts his father Lorenzo, well-named +Magnificent. What Lorenzo did in Florence, Leo X endeavoured to do in +Rome; make of his time and of his city the highest expression of +culture. His record, however, is so mixed with the corruption of the +time that its golden glory is half-dimmed. It was from the +licentiousness of cardinals and the wanton revels of the Vatican in +Leo's time that young Luther the "barbarian" fled with horror to nail +up his theses on the doors of the churches in Wittenberg. + +The history of tapestry in Italy at the Seventeenth Century was all in +the hands of the great families. Italy was not united under a single +royal head, but was a heterogeneous mass of dukedoms, of foreign +invaders, with the popes as the head of all. But Italy had experienced +a time of papal corruption, which had, as its effect, wars of +disintegration, the retarding of that unity of state which has only +recently been accomplished. State patronage for the factories was not +known, that steady beneficent influence, changeless through changing +reigns. Popes and great families regulated art in all its +manifestations, and who shall say that envy and rivalry did not act +for its advancement. + + [Illustration: ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] + +The desire to imitate the cultivation and elegance of Italy was +what made returning invaders carry the Renaissance into the rest of +Europe; and in a lesser degree the process was reversed when, in the +Seventeenth Century, a cardinal of the House of Barberini visited +France and, on viewing in the royal residences a superb display of +tapestries, his envy and ambition were aroused to the extent of +emulation. He could not, with all his power, possess himself of the +hangings that he saw, but he could, and did, arrange to supply himself +generously from another source. He was the powerful Francesco +Barberini, the son of the pope's brother (Pope Urban VIII, 1623-1644), +and it was he who established the Barberini Library and built from the +ruins of Rome's amphitheatres and baths the great palace which to-day +still dominates the street winding up to its aristocratic elegance. It +was to adorn this palace that Cardinal Francesco established ateliers +and looms and set artists and weavers to work. This tapestry factory +is of especial interest to America, for some of its chief hangings +have come to rest with us. _The Mysteries of the Life and Death of +Jesus Christ_, one set is called, and is the property of the Cathedral +of St. John, the Divine, in New York, donated by Mrs. Clarke. + +Cardinal Francesco Barberini chose as his artists those of the school +of Pietro di Cortona with Giovanni Francesco Romanelli as the head +master. The director of the factory was Giacomo della Riviera allied +with M. Wauters, the Fleming.[13] The former was especially concerned +with the pieces now owned by the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, +in New York, and which are signed with his name. Romanelli was the +artist of the cartoons, and his fame is almost too well known to dwell +upon. His portrait, in tapestry, hangs in the Louvre, for in Paris he +gained much fame at the Court of Louis XIV, where he painted portraits +of the Grand Monarch, who never wearied of seeing his own magnificence +fixed on canvas. + +It was the hard fate of the Barberini family to lose power and wealth +after the death of their powerful member, Pope Urban VIII, in 1644. +Their wealth and influence were the shining mark for the arrows of +envy, so it was to be expected that when the next pope, Innocent X, +was elected, they were robbed of riches and driven out of the country +into France. This ended for a time the work of the tapestry factory, +but later the family returned and work was resumed to the extent of +weaving a superb series picturing scenes especially connected with the +glory of the family, and entitled _History of Urban VIII_. + +Although Italy is growing daily in power and riches under her new +policy of political unity, there were dreary years of heavy expense +and light income for many of her famous families, and it was during +such an era that the Barberini family consented to let their +tapestries pass out from the doors of the palace they were woven to +decorate. In 1889, the late Charles M. Ffoulke, Esq., became the +possessor of all the Barberini hangings, and added them to his famous +collection. Thus through the enterprise and the fine artistic +appreciation of Mr. Ffoulke, is America able to enjoy the best +expression of Italian tapestry of the Seventeenth Century. + +The part that Venice ever played in the history of tapestry is the +splendid one of consumer. In her Oriental magnificence she exhibited +in palace and pageant the superb products of labour which others had +executed. Without tapestries her big stone palaces would have lacked +the note of soft luxury, without coloured hangings her balconies would +have been but dull settings for languid ladies, and her water-parades +would have missed the wondrous colour that the Venetian loves. Yet to +her rich market flowed the product of Europe in such exhaustless +stream that she became connoisseur-consumer only, nor felt the need of +serious producing. Workshops there were, from time to time, but they +were as easily abandoned as they were initiated, and they have left +little either to history or to museums. Venice was, in the Sixteenth +Century, not only a buyer of tapestries for her own use, but one of +the largest markets for the sale of hangings to all Europe. Men and +monarchs from all Christendom went there to purchase. The same may be +said of Genoa, so that although these two cities had occasional +unimportant looms, their position was that of middleman--vendors of +the works of others. In addition to this they were repairers and had +ateliers for restoring, even in those days. + + +FOOTNOTE: + +[13] E. Müntz, "La Tapisserie." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +FRANCE + +WORKING UP TO GOBELINS FACTORY + + +In following the great sweep of tapestry production we arrive now in +France, there to stay until the Revolution. The early beginnings were +there, briefly rivalling Arras, but Arras, as we have seen, caught up +the industry with greater zeal and became the ever-famous leader of +the Fifteenth Century, ceding to Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, +whence the high point of perfection was carried to Paris and caused +the establishment of the Gobelins. The English development under James +I, we defer for a later considering. + +Francis I stands, an over-dressed, ever ambitious figure, at the +beginning of things modern in French art. He still smacks of the +Middle Ages in many a custom, many a habit of thought; his men clank +in armour, in his châteaux lurk the suggestion of the fortress, and +his common people are sunk in a dark and hopeless oppression. Yet he +himself darts about Europe with a springing gait and an elegant +manner, the type of the strong aristocrat dispensing alike arts of war +and arts of the Renaissance. + +Was it his visits, bellicose though they were, to Italy and Spain, +that turned his observant eye to the luxury of woven story and made +him desire that France should produce the same? The Sforza Castle at +Milan had walls enough of tapestry, the pageants of Leonardo da +Vinci, organised at royal command of the lovely Beatrice d'Este, +displayed the wealth of woven beauty over which Francis had time to +deliberate in those bad hours after the battle at Milan's noted +neighbour, Pavia. + + [Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES + + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. The Louvre + Museum] + + [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF JUNO + + Gobelins under Louis XIV.] + +The attention of Francis was also turned much to Spain through envy of +that extraordinary man of luck and ability, the Emperor Charles V, and +from whom he made abortive and sullen efforts to wrest Germany, Italy, +anything he could get. In his imprisonment in Madrid, Francis had time +in plenty on which to think of many things, and why not on the +wonderful tapestries of which Spain has always had a collection to +make envious the rest of Europe. He might forget his two poor little +boys who were left as hostages on his release, but he forgot not +whatever contributes to the pleasure of life. That peculiarity was one +which was yielding luscious fruit, however, for Francis was the bearer +of the torch of the Renaissance which was to illumine France with the +same fire that flashed and glowed over Italy. This is a fact to +remember in regard to the class of designs of his own and succeeding +periods in France. + +How he got his ideas we can reasonably trace, and the result of them +was that he established a royal tapestry factory in beautiful +Fontainebleau, which lies hid in grateful shade, stretching to +flowered fields but a reasonable distance from the distractions of +Paris. + +It pleased Francis--and perhaps the beautiful Diane de Poitiers and +Duchesse d'Étampes--to critique plays in that tiny gem of a theatre at +the palace, or to feed the carp in the pool; but also it gave him +pleasure to wander into the rooms where the high-warp looms lifted +their utilitarian lengths and artists played at magic with the wools. + +Alas, one cannot dress this patronage of art with too much of +disinterestedness, for these marvellous weavings were for the +adornment of the apartments of the very persons who caused their +productions. + +The grand idea of state ateliers had not yet come to bless the +industry. For this reason the factory at Fontainebleau outlasted the +reign of its founder, Francis I, but a short time. + +Nevertheless, examples of its works are still to be seen and are of +great beauty, notably those at the Museum of the Gobelins in Paris. +That a series called the _History of Diana_ was produced is but +natural, considering the puissance at court of the famous Diane de +Poitiers. + +When Francis' son, Henri II, enfeebled in constitution by the Spanish +confinement, inherited the throne, it was but natural that he should +neglect the indulgences of his father and prefer those of his own. The +Fontainebleau factory strung its looms and copied its cartoons and +produced, too, certain hangings for Henri's wife, the terrible +Catherine de Medici, on which her vicious eyes rested in forming her +horrid plots; but Henri had ambitions of his own, small ambitions +beside those which had to do with jealousy of Charles Quint. He let +the factory of Francis I languish, but carried on the art under his +own name and fame. + +To give his infant industry a home he looked about Paris and decided +upon the Hôpital de la Trinité, an institution where asylum was found +for the orphans of the city who seem, in the light of the general +brutality of the time, to have been even in more need of a home than +the parentless child of modern civilisation. A part of the scheme was +to employ in the works such children as were sufficiently mature and +clever to work and to learn at least the auxiliary details of a craft +that is also an art. + +In this way the sixty or so of the orphans of La Trinité were given a +means of earning a livelihood. Among them was one whose name became +renowned. This was Maurice du Bourg, whose tapestries surpassed all +others of his time in this factory--an important factory, as being one +of the group that later was merged into the Gobelins. + +It must be remembered in identifying French tapestries of this kind +that things Gothic had been vanquished by the new fashion of things +Renaissance, and that all models were Italian. Giulio Romano and his +school of followers were the mode in France, not only in drawing, but +in the revival of classic subject. This condition in the art world +found expression in a set of tapestries from the factory of La Trinité +that are sufficiently celebrated to be set down in the memory with an +underscoring. This set was composed of fifteen pieces illustrating in +sweeping design and gorgeous colouring the _History of Mausolus and +Artemisia_. Intense local and personal interest was given to the set +by making an open secret of the fact that by Artemisia, the Queen of +Halicarnassus, was meant the widowed Queen of France, Catherine de +Medici, who adored posing as the most famous of widows and adding +ancient glory to her living importance. To this _History_ French +writers accord the important place of inspirer of a distinctively +French Renaissance. + +The weaver being Maurice du Bourg, the chief of the factory of La +Trinité, the artists were Henri Lerambert and Antoine Carron, but the +set has been many times copied in various factories, and Artemisia has +symbolised in turn two other widowed queens of France. + +Into the throne of France climbed wearily a feeble youth always under +the influence of his mother, Catherine de Medici; and then it was +filled by two other incapable and final Orleans monarchs, until at +last by virtue of inheritance and sword, it became the seat of that +grand and faulty Henri IV, King of Navarre. By fighting he got his +place, and the habit being strong upon him, he was in eternal +conflict. Some there be who are developed by sympathy, but Henri IV +was developed by opposition, and thus it was that although opposed in +the matter by his Prime Minister, Sully, he established factories for +the weaving of tapestries in both high and low warps. + +With the desire to see the arts of peace instead of evidences of war +throughout his kingdom just rescued from conflict, he took all means +to set his people in the ways of pleasing industry. The indefatigable +Sully was plucking the royal sleeve to follow the path of the plough, +to see man's salvation, material and moral, in the ways of +agriculture. But Henri favoured townspeople as well as country +people, and with the Edict of Nantes, releasing from the bondage of +terror a large number of workers, he showed much industry in +encouraging tapestry factories in and near Paris, and as these all +lead to Gobelins we will consider them. + + [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) + + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century] + + [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) + + Gobelins Tapestry] + +Henri IV, notwithstanding his Prime Minister Sully's opposition to +what he considered a favouring of vicious luxury, began to occupy +himself in tapestry factories as early in his reign as his people +could rise from the wounds of war. Taking his movements +chronologically we will begin with his establishment in 1597 (eight +years after this first Bourbon took the throne) of a high-warp +industry in the house of the Jesuits in the Faubourg St. Antoine, +associating here Du Bourg of La Trinité and Laurent, equally renowned, +and the composer of the St. Merri tapestries.[14] + +Flemish workers in Paris were at this same time, about 1601, +encouraged by the king and under protection of his steward. These +Flemings were the nucleus of a great industry, for it was over them +that two famous masters governed, namely, François de la Planche and +Marc Comans or Coomans. In 1607 Henri IV established the looms which +these men were called upon to direct. + +These two Flemings, great in their art, were men of family and of some +means, for their first venture in the manufacture of tapestry was a +private enterprise like any of to-day. They looked to themselves to +produce the money for the support of the industry. Combining +qualities of both the artist and the business man, they took on +apprentices and also established looms in the provinces (notably Tours +and Amiens) where commercialism was as prominent as in modern methods; +that is to say, that by turning off a lot of cheaper work for smaller +purses, a quick and ready market was found which supplied the money +necessary for the production of those finer works of art which are +left to delight us to-day. + +This manner of procedure of De la Planche and Comans has an interest +far deeper than the mere financial venture of the men of the early +Seventeenth Century, because it forces upon us the fact that at that +time, and earlier, no state ateliers existed. It was Henri IV who +first saw the wisdom of using the public purse in advancing this +industry. He established Du Bourg in the Louvre. With Henri Laurent he +was placed in the Tuileries, in 1607, and that atelier lasted until +the ministry of Colbert in the reign of Louis XIV. + +In about 1627 the great De la Planche died and his son, Raphael, +established ateliers of his own in the Faubourg St. Germain, turning +out from his looms productions which were of sufficient excellence to +be confused with those of his father's most profitable factory. +Chronologically this fact belongs later, so we return to the influence +of Henri IV and the master gentleman tapissiers, De la Planche and +Comans. + +The very name of the old palace, Les Tournelles, calls up a crowd of +pictures: the death of Henri II at the tournament in honour of the +marriage of his son with Marie Stuart, the subsequent razing of this +ancient home of kings by Catherine de Medici, and its reconstruction +in its present form by Henri IV. It is here that Richelieu honoured +the brief reign of Louis XIII by a statue, and it is here that Madame +de Sevigné was born. But more to our purpose, it was here that, in +1607, Henri IV cast his kingly eye when establishing a certain +tapestry factory. It was here he placed as directors the celebrated +Comans and De la Planche. It happened in time, that the looms of Les +Tournelles were moved to the Faubourg St. Marceau and these two men +came in time to direct these and all other looms under royal +patronage. + +Examples are not wanting in museums of French work of this time, +showing the development of the art and the progress that France was +making under Henri IV, whose energy without limit, and whose interests +without number, would to-day have given him the epithet of strenuous. + +Under his reign we see the activity that so easily led France up to +the point where all that was needed was the assembling of the +factories under the direction of one great master. The factories +flourishing under Henri IV were La Trinité, the Louvre, the +Savonnerie, the Faubourg St. Marceau and one in the Tuileries. But it +needed the power of Louis XIV to tie all together in the strength of +unity. + +The assassin Ravaillac, fanatically muttering through the streets of +Paris, alternately hiding and swaggering throughout the loveliest +month of May, when he thrust his murderous dagger through the royal +coach, not only gave a death blow to Henri IV, but to many of these +industries that the king had cherished for his people against the +opposition of his prime minister. The tale of tapestry is like a vine +hanging on a frame of history, and frequent allusion therefore must be +made to the tales of kings and their ministers. + +As it is not always a monarch, but often the power behind the throne +that rules, we see the force of Richelieu surging behind the reign of +the suppressed Louis XIII, whose rule followed that of the regretted +Henri IV. The master of the then new Palais-Royal had minor interests +of his own, apart from his generous plots of ruin for the Protestants, +for all the French nobility, and for the House of Austria to which the +queen belonged. Luxurious surroundings were a necessity to this man, +refined in the arts of cruelty and of living. It was no wonder that +under him tapestry weaving was not allowed to die, but was fostered +until that day when the Grand Monarch would organise and perfect. + +In 1643, Louis XIV came to the throne under the guidance of Anne of +Austria, but it was many years before he was able to make his +influence appreciable. Meanwhile, however, others were fostering the +elegant industry. It was as early as 1647 that two celebrated tapestry +weavers came to Paris from Italy. They were Pierre Lefèvre or Lefebvre +and his son Jean. The first of these was the chief of a factory in +Florence, whither he presently returned. Jean Lefebvre stayed in +Paris, won his way all the better for being released from parental +rule, and in time received the great honour of being appointed one +of the directors of the Gobelins, when that factory was finally +organised as an institution of the state. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] + + [Illustration: CHILDREN GARDENING + + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri + Quatre, Pau] + +During the regency of Louis XIV there were also factories outside of +Paris. The high-warp looms of Tours were of such notable importance +that the great Richelieu placed here an order for tapestries of great +splendour with which to soften his hours of ease. Rheims Cathedral +still harbours the fine hangings which were woven for the place they +now adorn, an unusual circumstance in the world of tapestry. These +hangings (_The Story of Christ_) were woven at Rheims, where the +factory existed well known throughout the first half of the +Seventeenth Century. The church had previously ordered tapestries from +another town executed by one Daniel Pepersack, and so highly approved +was his work that he was made director of the Rheims factory.[15] + +A factory which lasted but a few years, yet has for us a special +interest, is that of Maincy, founded in 1658. It is here that we hear +of the great Colbert and of Lebrun, whose names are synonymous with +prosperity of the Gobelins. For the factory at Maincy, Lebrun made +cartoons of great beauty, notably that of _The Hunt of Meleager_, +which now hangs in the Gobelins Museum in Paris. Louis Blamard was the +director of the workmen, who were Flemish, and who were afterwards +called to Paris to operate the looms of the newly-formed Gobelins, and +the reason of the transference forms a part of the history of the +great people of that day. + +Richelieu in dying had passed over his power to Mazarin, who had used +it with every cruelty possible to the day. He had coveted riches and +elegance and had possessed himself of them; had collected in his +palace the most beautiful works of art of his day or those of a +previous time. After Mazarin came Foucquet, the great, the +iconoclastic, the unfortunate. + +It was at Foucquet's estate of Vaux near Maincy that this tapestry +factory of short duration was established and soon destroyed. The +powerful Superintendent of Finance, with his eye for the beautiful and +desire for the luxury of kings, built for himself such a château as +only the magnificence of that time produced. It was situated far +enough from Paris to escape any sort of ennui, and was surrounded by +gardens most marvellous, within a beauteous park. It lay, when +finished, like a jewel on the fair bosom of France. The great +superintendent conceived the idea of pleasing the young king, Louis +XIV, by inviting the court for a wondrous fête in its lovely +enclosure. + +Foucquet was a man of the world, and of the court, knew how to please +man's lighter side, and how to use social position for his own ends. +France calls him a "dilapidateur," but when his power and incidentally +the revenues of state, were laid out to produce a day of pleasure for +king and court, his taste and ability showed such a fête as could +scarce be surpassed even in those days of artistic fêtes champêtres. + +The great gardens were brought into use in all the beauty of flower +and vine, of lawn and bosquet, of terrace and fountain. When the +guests arrived, weary of town life, they were turned loose in the +enchanting place like birds uncaged, and to the beauty of Nature was +added that of folk as gaily dressed as the flowers. The king was +invited to inspect it all for his pleasure, asked to feast in the +gardens, and to repose in the splendid château. + +He was young then, in the early twenties, and luxury was younger then +than now, so he was pleased to spend the time in almost childish +enjoyments. A play _al fresco_ was almost a necessity to a royal +garden party, which was no affair of an hour like ours in the busy +to-day, but extended the livelong day and evening. Molière was ready +with his sparkling satires at the king's caprice, and into the garden +danced the players before an audience to whom vaudeville and _café +chantant_ were exclusively a royal novelty arranged for their +delectation. + +It is easy to see the elegant young king and his court in the setting +of a sophisticated out-of-doors, wandering on grassy paths, lingering +under arches of roses, plucking a flower to nest beside a smiling +face, stopping where servants--obsequious adepts, they were +then--supplied dainty things to eat and drink. Madame de Sevigné was +there, she of the observant eye, an eye much occupied at this time +with the figure of Superintendent Foucquet, the host of this glorious +occasion. This gracious lady lacked none of the appearance of +frivolity, coiffed in curls, draped in lace and soft silks, but her +mind was deeply occupied with the signs of the times. All the elegance +of the château, all the seductive beauty of terrace, garden, and +bosquet, all the piquant surprises of play and pyrotechnics, what were +they? Simply the disinterested effort of a subject to give pleasure +to His Majesty, the King. + +There were those present who had long envied Foucquet, with his +ever-increasing power and wealth, his ability to patronise the arts, +to collect, and even to establish his tapestry looms like a king, for +his own palace and for gifts. This grand fête in the lovely month of +June did more than shower pleasure, more than gratify the lust of the +eye. In effect, it was a gathering of exquisite beauties and charming +men, lost in light-hearted play; in reality, it proved to be an +incitive to envy and malice, and a means to ruin. + +Among the observant guests at this wondrous fête champêtre was +Colbert, young, ambitious, keen. He was not slow to see the holes in +Foucquet's fabric, nor were others. And so, whispers came to the king. +Foucquet's downfall is the old story of envy, man trying to climb by +ruining his superiors, hating those whose magnificence approaches +their own. Foucquet's unequalled entertainment of the king was made to +count as naught. Louis, even before leaving for Paris, had begun to +ask whence came the money that purchased this wide fertile estate +stretching to the vision's limit, the money that built the château of +regal splendour, the money that paid for the prodigal pleasures of +that day of delights? Foucquet thought to have gained the confidence +and admiration of the king. But, on leaving, Louis said coldly, "We +shall scarce dare ask you to our poor palace, seeing the superior +luxury to which you are accustomed." A fearful cut, but only a straw +to the fate which followed, the investigations into the affairs of +Superintendent Foucquet. His arrest and his conviction followed and +then the eighteen dreary years of imprisonment terminating only with +the superintendent's life. Madame de Sevigné saw him in the beginning, +wept for her hero, but after a while she, too, fell away from his +weary years. + + [Illustration: CHILDREN GARDENING + + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri + Quatre, Pau] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS GROTESQUE + + Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris] + +With his arrest came the end of the glories of the Château of Vaux +near Maincy, and so, too, came an end to the factory where so fine +results had been obtained in tapestry weaving. Yet the effort was not +in vain, for some of the tapestries remain and the factory was the +school where certain celebrated men were trained. + +It may easily have been that Louis XIV discovered on that day at Vaux +the excellence of Lebrun whom he made director at the Gobelins in +Paris when they were but newly formed. Foucquet, wasting in prison, +had many hours in which to think on this and on the advancement of the +very man who had been keenest in running him to cover, the great +Colbert. It was well for France, it was well for the artistic industry +whose history occupies our attention, that these things happened; but +we, nevertheless, feel a weakness towards the man of genius and energy +caged and fretted by prison bars, for he had shown initiative and +daring, qualities of which the world has ever need. + +Foucquet's factory lasted three years. It was directed by Louis +Blamard or Blammaert of Oudenarde, and employed a weaver named Jean +Zègre, who came from the works at Enghien, works sufficiently known to +be remarked. Lebrun composed here and fell under the influence of +Rubens, an influence that pervaded the grandiose art of the day. The +earliest works of Lebrun, three pieces, were later used to complete a +set of Rubens' _History of Constantine_. _The Muses_ was a set by +Lebrun, also composed for the Château of Vaux. The charm of this set +is a matter for admiration even now when, alas, all is destroyed but a +few fragments. + +The disgrace of Foucquet was the last determining cause of the +establishment of the Gobelins factory under Louis XIV, an act which +after this brief review of Paris factories (and an allusion to +sporadic cases outside of Paris) we are in position at last to +consider. Pursuit of knowledge in regard to the Gobelins factory leads +us through ways the most flowery and ways the most stormy, through +sunshine and through the dark, right up to our own times. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV + + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York] + + [Illustration: THE VILLAGE FÊTE + + Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] For the facts here cited see E. Müntz, "Histoire de la +Tapisserie," and Jules Guiffrey, "Les Gobelins." + +[15] See Loriquet, "Les Tapisseries de Notre Dame de Rheims." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY, 1662 + + +Colbert saw the wisdom of taking direction for the king, Louis XIV, of +the looms of Foucquet's château. Travel being difficult enough to make +desirable the concentration of points of interest, Colbert transferred +the looms of Vaux to Paris. To do this he had first to find a habitat, +and what so suitable as the Hotel des Gobelins, a collection of +buildings on the edge of Paris by which ran a little brook called the +Bièvre. The Sieur Leleu was then the owner, and the sale of the +buildings was made on June 6, 1662. + +This was the beginning only of the purchase, for Louis XIV added +adjoining houses for the various uses of the large industries he had +in mind, for the development of arts and crafts of all sorts, and for +the lodging of the workers. + +The story of the original occupants of the premises is almost too well +known to recount. The simple tale of the conscientious "dyers in +scarlet" is told on the marble plaque at the present entry into the +collection of buildings still standing, still open to visitors. It is +a tale with a moral, an obvious simple moral with no need of Alice's +Duchess to point it out, and it smacks strong of the honesty of a +labour to which we owe so much. + +Late in the Fifteenth Century the brothers Gobelin came to the city +of Paris to follow their trade, which was dyeing, and their ambition, +which was to produce a scarlet dye like that they had seen flaunting +in the glowing city of Venice. The trick of the trade in those days +was to find a water of such quality that dyes took to it kindly. The +tiny river, or rather brook, called the Bièvre, which ran softly down +towards the Seine had the required qualities, and by its murmuring +descent, Jean and Philibert pitched the tents of their fortune. + +They succeeded, too, so well that we hear of their descendants in +later centuries as having become gentlemen, not of property only, but +of cultivation, and far removed from trades or bartering. Their name +is ever famous, for it tells not only the story of the two original +dyers, but of their subsequent efforts in weaving, and finally it has +come to mean the finest modern product of the hand loom. Just as Arras +gave the name to tapestry in the Fourteenth Century, so the Gobelins +has given it to the time of Louis XIV, even down to our own day--more +especially in Europe, where the word tapestry is far less used than +here. + +The tablet now at the Gobelins--let us re-read it, for in some hasty +visit to the Latin Quarter we may have overlooked it. Translated +freely it reads, "Jean and Philibert Gobelin, merchant dyers in +scarlet, who have left their name to this quarter of Paris and to the +manufacture of tapestries, had here their atelier, on the banks of the +Bièvre, at the end of the Fifteenth Century." + +Another inscription takes a great leap in time, skips over the +centuries when France was not in the lead in this art, and +recommences with the awakening strength under the wise care of Henri +IV. It reads: + +"April 1601. Marc Comans and François de la Planche, Flemish tapestry +weavers, installed their ateliers on the banks of the Bièvre." + +"September 1667, Colbert established in the buildings of the Gobelins +the manufacture of the furniture (_meubles_) of the Crown, under the +direction of Charles Lebrun." + +The tablet omits the date that is fixed in our mind as that of the +beginning of the modern tapestry industry in France, the year 1662, +but that is only because it deals with a date of more general +importance, the time when the Gobelins was made a manufactory of all +sorts of gracious products for the luxury of palaces and châteaux, not +tapestries alone, but superb furniture, and metal work, inlay, +mounting of porcelains and all that goes to furnish the home of +fortunate men. + +In that year of 1667 was instituted the ateliers supported by the +state, not dependent upon the commercialism of the workers. This made +possible the development of such men as Boulle with his superb +furniture, of Riesner with his marquetry, of Caffieri with his marvels +in metal to decorate all _meubles_, even vases, which were then coming +from China in their beauty of solid glaze or eccentric ornament. + +Here lies the great secret of the success of Louis XIV in these +matters, with the coffers of the Crown he rewarded the artists above +the necessity of mere living, and freed each one for the best +expression of his own especial art. The day of individual financial +venture was gone. The tapestry masters of other times had both to work +and to worry. They had to be artists and at the same time commercial +men, a chimerical combination. + +The expense of maintaining a tapestry factory was an incalculable +burden. A man could not set up a loom, a single one, as an artist sets +up an easel, and in solitude produce his woven work of art. Other +matters go to the making of a tapestry than weaving, matters which +have to do with cartoons for the design, dyes, wools, threads, etc.; +so that many hands must be employed, and these must all be paid. The +apprentice system helped much, but even so, the master of the atelier +was responsible for his finances and must look for a market for his +goods. + +What a relief it was when the king took all this responsibility from +the shoulders and said to the artists and artisans, "Art for Art's +sake," or whatever was the equivalent shibboleth of that day. Here was +comfort assured for the worker, with a housing in the Gobelins, or in +that big asylum, the Louvre, where an apartment was the reward of +virtue. And now was a market assured for a man's work, a royal market, +with the king as its chief, and his favourites following close. + +The ateliers scattered about Paris were allied in spirit, were all the +result of the encouragement of preceding monarchs, but it remained for +Le Grand Monarque to gather all together and form a state solidarity. + +Kings must have credit, even though others do the work. It was the +labour of the able Colbert to organise this factory. He was in favour +then. It was after his acuteness had helped in deposing the splendid +brigand Foucquet, and his power was serving France well, so well that +he brought about his head the inevitable jealousy which finally threw +him, too, into unmerited disgrace. + +Colbert, then, although a Minister of State, head of the Army of +France, and a few other things, had the fate of the Gobelins in his +hand. As the ablest is he who chooses best his aids, Colbert looked +among his countrymen for the proper director of the newly-organised +institution. He selected Charles Lebrun. + +The very name seems enough, in itself. It is the concrete expression +of ability, not only as an artist, but as a leader of artists, a +director, an assembler, a blender. He called to the Gobelins, as +addition to those already there, the apprentices from La Trinité, the +weavers from the Faubourg St. Germain, and from the Louvre. He +established three ateliers of high-warp under Jean Jans, Jean Lefebvre +and Henri Laurent; also two ateliers of low-warp under Jean Delacroix +and Jean-Baptiste Mozin. When charged with the decoration of +Versailles he had under his direction fifty artists of differing +scopes, which alone would show his power of assembling and leading, of +blending and ordering. Workers at the Gobelins numbered as many as two +hundred fifty, and apprentices were legion. + +Ten or twelve important artists composed the designs for tapestries, +yet the mind of Lebrun is seen to dominate all; his genius was their +inspiration. It was he whose influence pervaded the decorative art of +the day. More than any others in that grand age he influenced the +tone of the artistic work. We may say it was the king, we may have +styles named for the king, but it was Lebrun who made them what they +were. The spirit of the time was there, monarch and man made that, but +it was Lebrun who had the talent to express it in art. It was a time +when France was fully awake, more fully awake than Italy who had, in +fact, commenced the somnolence of her art; she was strong with that +brutal force that is recently up from savagery, and she took her +grandeur seriously. + +At least that was the attitude of the king. No lightness, no +effervescing cynical humour ever disturbed the heavy splendour of his +pose. And this grand pose of the king, Lebrun expressed in the heavy +sumptuousness of decoration. The tapestries of that time show the mood +of the day in subject, in border and in colour. All is superb, +grandiose. + +Rubens, although not of France, dominated Europe with his magnificence +of style, a style suited to the time, expressing force rather than +refinement, yet with a splendid decorative value in the art we are +considering. Flanders looked to him for inspiration, and his lead was +everywhere followed. His virile work had power to inspire, to transmit +enthusiasm to others, and thus he was responsible for much of the +improvement in decorative art, the re-establishment of that art upon +an intellectual basis. Designs from his hands were full, splendid and +self-assertive; harmony and proportion were there. A study of the +_Antony and Cleopatra_ series and of the plates given in this volume +will establish and verify this. + + [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] + + [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] + +Lebrun's century was the same as that of Rubens, but the former had +the fine feeling for art of the Latin, who knows that its first +province is to please. A comparison between the two men must not be +carried too far, for Rubens was essentially a painter, attacking the +field of decoration only with the overflow of imagination, while +Lebrun's life and talent were wholly directed in the way of +beautifying palaces and châteaux. Yet Rubens' work gave a fresh +impulse to tapestry weaving in Brussels while Lebrun was inspiring it +in France. + +Lebrun had, then, to direct the talent and the labour of an army of +artists and artisans, and to keep them working in harmony. It was no +mean task, for one artist alone was not left to compose an entire +picture, but each was taken for his specialty. One artist drew the +figures, another the animals, another the trees, and another the +architecture; but it was the director, Lebrun, who composed and +harmonised the whole. Thus, although the number of tapestries actually +composed by him is few, it was his great mind that ordered the work of +others. He was the leader of the orchestra, the others were the +instruments he controlled. + +It was while at Vaux that Lebrun had more time for his own +composition. He there produced a series called _Les Renommés_, +masterpieces of pure decorative composition. These were designed as +portières for the Château of Maincy. They came to be models for the +Gobelins, and were woven to hang at royal doors, the doors of Foucquet +being at this time dressed with iron bars. + +The Gobelins wove seventy-two sets after this beautiful model which +had made Lebrun's début as an artist. Foucquet had given him a more +pretentious work; it was to complete a suite, the _History of +Constantine_, after Raphael. Rubens had given a fresh flush of +popularity to this subject, which again became the mode. The _History +of Meleager_ was begun at Vaux and finished at the Gobelins. Later, +Vaux forgotten, or at least a thing of the past, Lebrun's decorative +genius found expression in the series called _The Months_ or _The +Royal Residences_, of which there were twelve hangings. + +In these last the scheme is the perfection of decoration, with the +subject well subdued, yet so subtly placed that notwithstanding its +modesty, the eye promptly seeks it. The castle in the distance, the +motive holding aloft the sign of the Zodiac, are seen even before the +splendid columns and the foliage of the middle-ground. + +Such a hanging has power to play pretty tricks with the imagination of +him who gazes upon it. The columns, smooth and solid, declare him at +once to be in a place of luxury. Beyond the foreground's columns, but +near enough for touching, are trees to make a pleasant shade, and +beyond, in the far distance, is the château set in fair gardens, even +the château where the lovely Louise de la Vallière held her court +until conscience drove her to the convent. + +The set of most renown, woven under Lebrun's generalship, was that +splendid advertisement of the king's magnificence known as the +_History of the King_. Louis demanded above all else that he should +appear splendidly before men. He was jealous of the magnificence of +all kings and emperors, whether living or dead. Even Solomon's +glory was not to typify greater than his. With this end in view, pomp +was his pleasure, ceremony was his gratification. Add to these an +insatiable vanity that knows not the disintegrating assaults of a +sense of humour, and we have a man to be fed on profound adulation. + + [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS + + Royal Collection, Madrid] + +The subjects for the _History of the King_ were chosen from official +solemnities during the first twelve years of his reign. Lebrun's task, +into which he threw his whole soul, was to celebrate the power and the +glory of his master, to show the king in perpetual picture as the +greatest living personage, and to still his fears with regard to long +defunct royal rivals. His life as a man was pictured, his marriage, +his treaties with other nations, and his actions as a soldier in the +various battles or military conquests. In the latter affairs he had +not even been present, but poet's license was given where the +glorification of the king was concerned. The flattery that surrounds a +king thus gave him reason to think that his persecutions in the +Palatinate and his constant warfare were greatly to his glory. + +It is the tapestry in this set that is called _Visit of Louis XIV to +the Gobelins_ that interests us strongly, as being delightfully +pertinent to our subject. The picture shows the king in chary +indulgence standing just within the court of the Royal Factory, while +eager masters of arts and crafts strenuously heap before him their +masterpieces. (Plate facing page 114.) + +The borders of these sumptuous hangings are to be enjoyed when the +original set can be seen, for the borders are Lebrun's special care. +The three pieces added late in the reign are drawn with different +borders, and no stronger example of deteriorating change can be given, +the change in the composition of the border which took place after the +passing of Lebrun. The pieces in the set of the _Life of the King_ +numbered forty; with the addition of the later ones, forty-three. They +were repeated many times in the succeeding years, but on low-warp, +reduced in size, and without the superb decorative border which was +composed by Lebrun's own hand for the original series. + +François de la Meulen was Lebrun's able coadjutor in the direction of +this famous set. Eight artists accustomed to the work were charged +with the cartoons, but Lebrun headed it all. It is interesting to note +that the temptation to sport in the fields of pure decoration, led him +into the personal composition of the border. These borders are the +very acme of perfection in decoration, full of strength, of grace, and +of purity. They suggest the classic, yet are full of the warm blood of +the hour; they are Greek, yet they are French, and they foreshadow the +centuries of beautiful design which France supplies to the world. + +The colouring of these tapestries seems to us strong, but it is not a +strength of tone that offends, rather it adds force to the subject. The +charge is made that in this suite the deplorable change had taken place +which lifted tapestries from their original intent and made of them +paintings in wool. That change certainly did come later, as we shall +see and deplore, but at present the colours kept comparatively low +in number. The proof of this was that only seventy-nine tones were +discoverable when the Gobelins factory in recent years examined this +hanging for the purposes of reproducing it. + + [Illustration: LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY + + Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV] + +Lebrun's task in this series seems to us far more simple in point of +picturesqueness than it did to him, for the affairs of the time were +those depicted. They were the events of the moment, and the personages +taking part in them were given in recognisable portraiture. Figure a +tapestry of to-day depicting the laying of a cornerstone by our +National President, every one in modern dress, every face a portrait, +and Lebrun's task appears in a new light. Yet he was able to +accomplish it in a way which gratified the overfed vanity of Louis and +which more than gratifies the art lover of to-day. + +The set called the _History of Alexander_ is one of Lebrun's famous +works. In subject it departs from the affairs of the time of the Sun +King, to portray the Greek Conqueror, to whom Louis liked to be +compared. For us the classic dress is less piquant than the gorgeous +toilettes of France in the Seventeenth Century, and the battle of the +Granicus is less engaging than scenes from the life of Louis XIV. But +this is a famous set, and paintings of the same may be found in the +Louvre. + +Originally the tapestries were but five, but the larger ones having +been divided into three each, the number is increased. The Gobelins +factory wove several sets, and, the model becoming popular, it was +copied many times in Brussels and elsewhere, often with distressing +alterations in drawing, in border, and in colour. + +There were other suites produced at the Gobelins at this wonderful +time of co-operation between Colbert, the minister, and Lebrun, the +artist. Colbert, in his wisdom of state economy, had repaired the +ravages of the previous ministry, and had the coffers full for the +government's necessities and the king's indulgences. Well for the +liberal arts, that he counted these among the matters to be fostered +in this wonderful time, which rises like a mountain ridge between +feudal savagery and modern civilisation. + +But Colbert, powerful as was his position, had yet to suffer by reason +of the despotism of the absolute monarch who ruled every one within +borders of bleeding France. Louis began, before youth had left him, +the terrible persecution of the people in the name of religion, and +established also an indulgent left-hand court. The prodigious +expenditures for these were bound to be liquidated by Colbert. +Faithful to his master, he produced the money. + +The charm of royalty surrounded Louis, he was idealised by a people +proud of his position as the most magnificent monarch of Europe; but +Colbert was denounced as a tax collector and a persecutor, yet +suffered in silence, if he might protect his king. Before he died, +Louvois had undermined his credit even with the king, and his funeral +at night, to avoid a mob, was a pathetic fact. France has now +reinstated him, say modern men--but that is the irony of fate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) + + +Colbert died most inopportunely in 1684 and was succeeded by his +enemy, and for that matter, the enemy of France, the man of jealousy +and cruelty, Louvois. He had long hated Colbert for his success, +counting as an affront to himself Colbert's marvellous establishment +of a navy which he felt rivalled in importance the army, over which +the direction was his own. + +On finding Colbert's baton in his hand, it was but human to strike +with it as much as to direct, and one of his blows fell upon the head +of the Gobelins, Lebrun. Thus history is woven into tapestry. Lebrun +was not at once deposed; first his magnificent wings were clipped, so +that his flights into artistic originality were curtailed. This petty +persecution had a benumbing effect. New models were not encouraged. +Strangely enough, the scenes that glorified the king were no longer +reproduced, nor those of antique kings like Alexander, whose greatness +Louis was supposed to rival. + +It is not possible to tell the story of tapestry without telling the +story of the times, for the lesser acts are but the result of the +greater. There are matters in the life of Louis XIV that are +inseparable from our account. These are the associating of his life +with that of the three women whom he exalted far higher than his +queen, Marie Thérèse, the well-known, much-vaunted mesdames, de la +Vallière, de Montespan and de Maintenon. + +Even before the death of Colbert, Louvois, with his army, had +encouraged the religious persecutions and wars of the king, and +shortly after, the widow of the poet Scarron became the royal spouse. +Relentless, indeed, were the persecutions then. It was in the same +year of the marriage that Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, through +the hand of the weak Le Tellier, an action which gave Louvois ample +excuse for depleting the state coffers. Making military expense an +excuse, he turned his blighting hand toward the Gobelins and +restricted the director, Lebrun, even to denying him the golden +threads so necessary for the production of the sumptuous tapestries. + +And so for a time the productions of the looms lacked their accustomed +elegance. Under Madame de Maintenon, the spirit of a morose religion +pervaded the court. All France was suffering under it, and in its name +unbelievable horrors were perpetrated in every province. Paris was not +too well informed of these to interfere with bourgeois life, but at +court the hypocritical soul of Madame de Maintenon made +self-righteousness a virtue. + +An almost laughable result of this pious rectitude was a certain order +given at the Gobelins. Madame de Maintenon had thrust her leading nose +between the doors of the factory and had scented outraged modesty in +the reproduction there of the tapestries woven from models of Raphael, +Giulio Romano and the classicists, cartoons in great favour after the +hampering of Lebrun's imagination. The naked gods from Olympus must +be clothed, said this pious and modest lady. + +This was very well for her rôle, as her influence over the king lay +deep-rooted in her pose of heavy virtue; but at the Gobelins, the +tapestry-makers must have laughed long and loud at the prudery which +they were set to further by actually weaving pictured garments and +setting them into the hangings where the lithe limbs of Apollo, and +Venus' lovely curves, had been cut away. The hanging called _The +Judgment of Paris_ is one of those altered to suit the refinement of +the times. + +Louvois' dominance lasted as long as Lebrun, so the genius of the +latter never reasserted itself in the factory. Two methods of supply +for designs came in vogue, and mark the time. One was to turn to the +old masters of Italy's high Renaissance for drawings. This brought a +quantity of drawings of fables and myths into use, so that palace +walls were decorated with Greek gods instead of modern ones. Raphael, +as a master in decoration, was carefully copied, also other men of his +school. The second source of cartoons was chosen by Louvois, who +searched among previous works for the most celebrated tapestries and +had them copied without change. + +Thus came the Gobelins to reproduce hangings that had not originated +in their ateliers. All this traces the change that came from the +clipping of Lebrun's wings of genius. Identification marks they are, +when old tapestries come our way. + +Pierre Mignard succeeded Lebrun as director of the Gobelins after the +death of the greatest genius of decoration in modern times. Lebrun +had seen such prosperity of tapestry weaving that eight hundred +workers had scarcely been enough to supply the tapestries ordered. +When Mignard came for his five years of direction, things had mightily +changed, and he did nothing to revive or encourage the work. He owed +his appointment entirely to Louvois, whose protégé he had long been. +The same year, 1691, saw the death of them both. + +Until 1688 the factory was at its best time of productiveness, +reaching the perfection of modern drawing in its cartoons, and, in its +weaving, equalling the manner of Brussels in the early Sixteenth +Century. + +From then on began the decline, for the reasons so forcibly written on +pages of history. The French king's ambition to conquer, his +animosity--jealousy, if you will--toward Holland, his unceasing +conflict with England, added to his fierce attacks on religionists, +especially in the Palatinate--all these things required the most +stupendous expenditures. The Mississippi was now discovered, the +English colonists were in conflict with the French, here in America, +and the New World was becoming too desirable a possession for Louis to +be willing to cede his share without a struggle; and thus came the +expense of fighting the English in that far land which was at least +thirty days' sail away. + +Perhaps Mignard worked against odds too great for even a strong +director. Such drains on the state treasury as were made by the +self-indulgent court, and by the political necessities, demanded not +only depriving the Gobelins of proper expensive materials, but in the +department of furniture and ornaments, demanded also the establishment +of a sinister melting pot, a hungry mouth that devoured the precious +metals already made more precious by the artistic hands of the +gold-working artists. + +Mignard's futile work was finished by his demise in 1695. Such was +then the pitiable conditions at the Gobelins that it was not +considered worth while to fill his place. Thus ended the first period +of that beautiful conception, art sustained by the state, artists +relieved from all care except that of expressing beauty. + +The ateliers were closed; the weavers had to seek other means of +gaining their living. The busy Gobelins, a very Paradise of workers, +an establishment which felt itself the pride of Paris and the pet of +the king, full of merry apprentices and able masters, this happy +solidarity fell under neglect. The courtyards were lonely; the Bièvre +rippled by unused; the buildings were silent and deserted. Some of the +workers were happy enough to be taken in at Beauvais, some returned to +Flanders, but many were at the miserable necessity of dropping their +loved professions and of joining the royal troops, for which the +relentless ambition of the king had such large and terrible use. + +The time when the factory remained inactive were the dolorous years +from 1694 to 1697. It was in the latter year that peace was signed in +the Holland town of Ryswick, which ended at least one of Louis' bloody +oppressions, the fierce attacks in the Palatinate. + +The place of Colbert was never filled, so far as the Gobelins was +concerned. Louvois had not its interests in his hard hands, nor had +his immediate followers in state administrations up to 1708, which +included Mansard (of the roofs) and the flippity courtesan, the Duc +d'Antin. But power was later given to Jules Robert de Cotte to raise +the fallen Gobelins by his own wise direction, assisted by his +father's political co-operation (1699-1735). Once again can we smile +in thinking of the factory where the wares of beauty were produced. Of +course, the artists flocked to the centre, eager to express +themselves. The one most interesting to us was Claude Audran. Others +there were who contributed adorable designs and helped build up the +most exquisite expressions of modern art, but, alas, their modesty was +such that their names are scarce known in connexion with the art they +vivified. + +The aged Louis was ending his forceful reign in increasing weakness, +deserted at the finish by all but the rigid de Maintenon; and +four-year-old Louis, the grandson of the Grand Dauphin, was succeeding +under the direction of the Regent of Orleans. New monarchs, new +styles, the rule was; for the newly-crowned must have his waves of +flattery curling about the foot of the throne. Louis XIV, the Grand +Monarque, lived to his pose of heavy magnificence even in the +furnishing and decorating of the apartments where he ruled as king and +where he lived as man. Sumptuous splendour, expressed in heavy design, +in deep colouring, with much red and gold, these were the order of the +day, and best expressed the reign. + +But with Philip as regent, and the young king but a baby, a gayer mood +must creep into the articles of beauty with which man self-indulgently +decorates his surroundings. Pomp of a heavy sort had no place in the +regent's heart. He saw life lightly, and liked to foster the belief +that a man might make of it a pretty play. + +Thus, given so good excuse for a new school of decoration, Claude +Audran snatched up his talented brush and put down his dainty +inspirations with unfaltering delicacy of touch. He wrote upon his +canvas poems in life, symphonies in colour, created a whole world of +tasteful fancy, a world whose entire intent was to please. He left the +heavy ways of pomp and revelled in a world where roses bloom and +ribbons flutter, where clouds are strong to support the svelte deity +upon them, and where the rudest architecture is but an airy trellis. + +The classic, the Greek, he never forgot. It was ever his inspiration, +his alphabet with which he wrote the spirit of his composition, but it +was a classic thought played upon with the most talented of +variations. Pure Greek was too cold and chaste for the temper of the +time in which he lived and worked and of which he was the creature; +and so his classic foundation was graced with curves, with colour, +with artful abandon, and all the charming fripperies of one of the +most exquisite periods of decoration. Gods and goddesses were a +necessary part of such compositions, and a continual playing among +amorini, but such deities lived not upon Olympus, nor anywhere outside +France of the Eighteenth Century. The heavy human forms made popular +by the inflation of the Seventeenth Century were banished to some dark +haven reserved for by-gone modes, and these new gods were exquisite +as fairies while voluptuous as courtesans. They were all caught young +and set, while still adolescent and slender, in suitable niches of +delicate surroundings. + +The talent of Audran, not content with figures alone, was lavishly +expended on those ingenious decorative designs which formed the frame +and setting of the figures, the airy world in which they lived and in +the borders that confined the whole. + +Only a study of tapestries or their photographs can show the radical +depth of the change from the styles prevailing under the influence of +Madame de Maintenon to those produced by Audran and his school under +the regence. The difference in character of the two dominations is the +very evident cause. It is as though the severe moral pose of de +Maintenon had suppressed a whole Pandora's box of loves and graces +who, when the lid was lifted by the Regent, flew, a happy crew, to fix +themselves in dainty decorative effect, trailing with them their +complement of accessory flowers, butterflies, clouds and tempered +grotesques. + +Philippe d'Orleans, under the influence of the corrupt cleverness of +Cardinal du Bois, celebrated the few years of his regency by +bankrupting France with John Law's financial fallacies (this was the +time of the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi scheme) and by +returning to Spain her princess as unsuited for the boy king's +mate--with war as the natural result of that insult. + +But he also let artists have their way, and the style that they +supplied him, shows a talented invention unsurpassed. Audran we will +place at the top, but only to fix a name, for there was a whole army +of men composing the tapestry designs that so delighted the people of +those days and that have gone on thrilling their beholders for two +hundred years, and which distinguish French designs from all +others--which give them that indefinable quality of grace and softness +that we denominate French. Wizards in design were the artists who +developed it and those who continue it in our own times. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) + + +Audran had in his studio André Watteau, whose very name spells +sophisticated pastorals of exceeding loveliness. Watteau worked with +Audran when he was producing his most inspired set of tapestry, on +which we must dwell for a bit for pure pleasure. This set is called +the _Portières des Dieux_. + +That they were portières, only door-hangings, is a fact too important +to be slipped by. It denotes one of the greatest changes in tapestries +when the size of a hanging comes down from twenty or thirty feet to +the dimensions of a doorway. It speaks a great change in interiors, +and sets tapestries on a new plane. Later on, they are still further +diminished. But the sadness of noting this change is routed by the +thrills of pleasure given by the exquisite design, colour and weave. + +The _Portières of the Gods_ was, then, a series of eight small +hangings, four typifying the seasons and four the elements, with an +appropriate Olympian forming the central point of interest and the +excuse for an entourage of thrilling and graceful versatility. This +set has been copied so many times that even the most expert must fail +in trying to identify the date of reproduction. Two hundred and thirty +times this set is known to have been reproduced, and such talented +weavers were given the task as Jans and Lefebvre. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV] + +In this exquisite period, which might be called the adolescence of +the style Louis XV, Audran and his collaborators produced another +marvellous and inspired set of portières. These were executed for the +Grand Dauphin, to decorate his room in the château at Meudon, and were +called the _Grotesque Months in Bands_. The most self-sufficient of +pens would falter at a description of design so exquisite, which is +arranged in three panels with a deity in each, a composition of +extraordinary grace above and below them, and a bordering band of +losenge or diaper, on which is set the royal double L and the +significant dolphin who gave his name to kings' sons. The exquisite +art of Audran and of the regence cannot be better seen than in this +set of tapestries which was woven but once at the royal factory, +although repeated many times elsewhere with the border altered, +Audran's being too personal for other chambers than that of the prince +for whom it was composed. Recently copies have been made without +border. + +The name of the artist, Charles Coypel, must not be overlooked, for it +was he who composed the celebrated suite of _Don Quixote_. +Twenty-eight pieces composed the series, and they were drawn with that +exquisite combination of romantic scenes and fields of pure decorative +design that characterised the charm of the regence. In the centre of +each piece (small pieces compared to those of Louis XIV) was a scene +like a painting representing an incident from the adventure of the +humorously pathetic Spanish wanderer; and this was surrounded with so +much of refined decoration as to make it appear but a medallion on +the whole surface. This set was so important as to be repeated many +times and occupied the factory of the Gobelins from 1718 to 1794. +Charles Coypel was but twenty when he composed the first design for +this suite. Each year thereafter he added a new design, not supplying +the last one until 1751. But, while all honour is due Coypel, Audran +and Le Maire and their collaborators must be remembered as having +composed the borders, the pure decorative work which expresses the +tender style of transition, the suggestive period of early spring that +later matured into the fulsome Rococo. America is enriched by five of +these exquisite pieces through Mr. Morgan's recent purchase. + +But while artists were producing purity in art, those in political +power were, with ever-increasing effect, plunging morals into the mud. +Philippe, the Regent, died, the corrupt Duke of Bourbon took the place +of minister, and poor Louis XV was still but thirteen years old, and +unavoidably influenced by the lives of those around him. Even the +Gobelins was under the hand of the shallow Duke d'Antin. Yet even when +the king matured and became himself a power for corruption, the +artists of the Gobelins reflected only beauty and light. It is to +their credit. + +It is an ungrateful task to pick flaws with a period so firmly +enthroned in the affections as that of the regence and the early years +of the reign of Louis XV. The beauties of its pure decoration lead us +into Elysian fields that are but reluctantly left behind. But the +designs and tapestry weavers of that time left us two distinct +classes of production, and to be learned in such matters, the amateur +contemplates both. This second style is ungrateful because it trains +us away from art, delicate and ingenious, and plants us before +enormous woven paintings. + +Now it never had been the intention of tapestry to replace painting. +Whenever it leaned that way a deterioration was evident. It was by the +lure of this fallacy that Brussels lost her pre-eminence. It was +through this that the number of tones was increased from the twenty or +more of Arras to the twenty thousand of the Gobelins. It was through +this that the true mission of tapestry was lost, which was the mission +of supplying a soft, undulating lining to the habitat of man, and +flashes of colour for his pageants. + +Under Louis XIV the pictures came thick and fast, as we have seen, but +in deep-toned, simple colour-scheme. Now, with the De Cottes as +directors at the Gobelins, and with a new reign begun, more pictures +were called for. + +The splendid _History of the King_ of Louis XIV could not be +forgotten; the history of his successor must be similarly represented, +and what could this be but a series of woven paintings. The flower of +the time was an exquisitely complicated decoration on a small scale. +The larger expression was not spontaneous. + +Louis XV, poor boy, was not old enough to have had many events outside +the nursery, so it took imagination--perhaps that of the elegant +profligate, Duke d'Antin--to suggest an occasion of appropriate +splendour and significance. The official reception of the Turkish +ambassador in 1721 was the subject chosen, and under the direction of +Charles Parrocel became a superb work, full of court magnificence of +the day and a valuable portrayal to us of the boyhood of the king. + +The same type of big picture was continued in the series of _Hunts of +Louis XV_, lovely forest scenes wherein much unsportsmanlike elegance +displays itself in the persons of noble courtiers. The Duc d'Antin +favoured these and they were reproduced until 1745. + +It is probable that the Bible fell into neglect in those days, too +heavy a volume for pointed, perfumed fingers accustomed to no books at +all. Bossuet, Voltaire, were they not obliged to set to the sonorous +music of their voices the reforming and satirical attacks on manners +and morals of the aristocrats at a time when books lay all unread? But +at the Gobelins ateliers the Bible, wiped clean of dust, was much +consulted for inspiration in cartoons. Charles Coypel dipped into the +Old Testament, and Jouvenet into the New, with the result of several +suites of tapestries of great elegance--all of which might much better +have been painted on canvas and framed. + +Charles Coypel, the talented member of a talented family of painters, +also made popular the heroine _Armide_, who seemed almost to come of +the Bible, since Tasso had set her in his Christian _Jerusalem +Delivered_. The seductive palace and entrancing gardens where Renaud +was kept a prisoner, gave opportunity for fine drawing in this set. + + [Illustration: HUNTS OF LOUIS XV + + Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry] + + [Illustration: ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES + + Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; G. Audran, weaver] + +The Iliad of Homer came in for its share of consideration at the hands +of Antoine and Charles Coypel, who made of it a set of five scenes. It +was Romanelli, the Italian, who painted a similar set, a hundred +years before, for Cardinal Barberini, which set came to America in the +Ffoulke collection. After the death, in 1730, of the Duke d'Antin, +that interesting son of Madame de Montespan, several directors had the +management of the Gobelins in hand, the Count of Vignory and the Count +of Angivillier being the most important prior to the Revolution. These +were men who held the purse-strings of the state, and could thereby +foster or crush a state institution, but the direction of the Gobelins +itself, as a factory, was in the hands of architects, beginning with +the able De Cotte. As the factory had many ateliers, these were each +directed by painters, among whom appear such interesting men of talent +as Oudry, Boucher, Hallé. + +Although d'Antin was dead when it commenced, he is accredited with +having inspired and ordered the important hanging known as the +_History of Esther_. (Plate facing page 131.) The first piece, from +cartoons by Jean François de Troy, was sent to the weavers in 1737, +and the last piece, which was painted in Rome, was finished in 1742. +This set shows as ably as any can, the magnificent style of production +of the period. It had from the beginning an immense popularity and was +copied many times. Even now it is a favourite subject for those whose +perverted taste leads them into the dubious art of copying tapestry in +paints on cloth. + +The serious accusation against this set, which in composition seems +much like the tableaux in grand opera, is that it invades the art of +painting. And that is the fault of woven art at that period. The +decline in tapestry in Paris began when both weavers and painters +struggled for the same results, the weavers quite forgetting the +strength and beauty that were peculiar to their art alone. + +This fault cannot be laid to the weavers only, who numbered such men +as Neilson the able Scot, and Cozette, who, with wondrous touch, wove +the set of _Don Quixote_; nor were the artists at fault, for they +included such men as Audran and Boucher. No, it was the director who +blighted and subverted talent, and the vitiated public taste that +shifted restlessly and demanded novelty. The novelty that came in +large hangings was a suppressing of the delicate subjects that delight +the imagination by their playful grace, their association of human +life with all that is gaily exquisite. The mode was for leaving the +land of idealised mythology, for discarding the flowers, the scrolls, +the happy loves and charming crew that lived among them, and for +plunging into Roman history, real and ugly, enwrapped in drapings too +full, cumbered with forced accessory, or into such mythology as is +represented in _Cupid and Psyche_. (Plate facing page 132.) + +The _History of Esther_ illustrates the loss of imagination sustained +by the border which had come to be a mere woven imitation, in shades +of brown and yellow, of a carved and gilded, wooden frame. At the +close of the reign of Louis XV, borders were frankly abandoned +altogether. Compare this state of things with the days when Audran and +Coypel were producing the sets of _The Seasons_, _The Months_, and +_Don Quixote_. It is aridness compared to talented invention. + + [Illustration: CUPID AND PSYCHE + + Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel] + + [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA + + Gobelins under Louis XVI.] + +The top note of the imitation of painting was struck when the Gobelins +set the task of becoming a portrait maker. (Plate facing page 133.) +The work was done, it was bound to be, as royalty backed the demand. +Portraits were woven of Louis XV (to be seen now at Versailles), and +his queen, of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and others less well +known. A better scheme for limiting the talent of the weaver could not +have been suggested by his most ingenious enemy. He was a man of +talent or his art had not reached so high, and as such must be +untrammelled; but here was given him a work where personal discretion +was not allowed, where he must copy tone for tone, shade by shade, the +myriad indefinite blendings of the brush. + +It is this practice, pursued to its end, that has made of the tapestry +weaver a mere part of a machine, and tapestry-making a lost art, to +remain in obscurity until weavers return to the time before the French +decadence. + +The temper of those who hold in their hands the direction of the +people, these are the determining causes of the products of that age. +If d'Angivillier was responsible for displacing a transcendent art +with a false one, if he routed a dainty mythology and its accessories +with the heavy effort and paraphernalia of the Romans, on whom shall +we place the entirely supportable responsibility of diminishing +tapestries from noble draperies down to mere furniture coverings? + +The result came happily, with much fluttering of fans, dropping of +handkerchiefs, with powder, patches, intrigues, naughty sports, and a +general necessity for a gay company to divide itself into groups of +four or two--a lady and a cavalier, forsooth--the inevitable man and +maid. In the time of the preceding king, Louis XIV, the court lived in +masses. Life was a pageant, a grand one, moving in slow dignity of +gorgeous crowds, but a pageant on which beat the fierce light of a +throne jealous of its grandeur. No chance was here for sweet escape +and no chance for light communing. + +But all that saw a change. The needs of the lighter court and the +lighter people, were for reminders that life is a merry dance in which +partners change often, and sitting-out a figure with one of them is +part of the game. + +Perhaps the huge apartments were not to the taste of Regent Philippe, +and certainly they were not convenient to the life of the king when he +came to man's estate. So, down came the ceiling's height, and closer +drew the walls, until the model of the Petit Trianon was reached and +considered the ideal--if that were not indeed the miniature Swiss +Cottage. + +What place had an acre of tapestry in these little rooms? How could +yards of undulating colour hang over walls that were already overlaid +with the most exquisite low relief in wood that has ever been carved +this side of the Renaissance in Italy? No place for it whatever. So, +out with it--the fashions have changed. + +But there was the furniture. That, too, was smaller than hitherto. But +this was the day of artists skilled in small design, and they must +fill the need. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) + + +And so it came about that tapestry fell from the walls, shrunk like a +pricked balloon and landed in miniature on chairs, sofas and screens. + +How felt the artists about this domesticating of their art? We are not +told of the wry face they made when, with ideals in their souls, they +were set to compose chair-seats for the Pompadour. Her preference was +for Boucher. Perhaps his revenge showed itself by treating the +bourgeoise courtisane to a bit of coarseness now and then, slyly hid +in dainties. + +The artist, Louis Tessier, appeased himself by composing for furniture +a design of simple bouquets of flowers thrown on a damask background; +but, with such surety of hand, such elegance, are these ornaments +designed and composed, that he who but runs past them must feel the +power of their exquisite beauty. + +In this manufacture of small pieces the Gobelins factory unhappily put +itself on the same footing as Beauvais and much confusion of the +products has since resulted. The dignity of the art was lowered when +the size and purpose of tapestries were reduced to mere furniture +coverings. The age of Louis XV, looked at decoratively, was an age of +miniature, and the reign that followed was the same. When small +chambers came into vogue, furniture diminished to suit them, and not +only were walls too small for tapestries to hang on, but chairs, sofas +and screens offered less space than ever before for woven designs, now +preciously fine in quality and minutiæ. + +Tapestry weaving now entered the region of fancy-work for the +drawing-room's idle hour, and we see even the king himself, lounging +idly among his favourite companions, working at a tiny loom, his +latest pretty toy. Compare this trifling with the attitude of Henri IV +and Louis XIV toward tapestry weaving, and we have the situation in a +nutshell. + +Louis XV passed from the scene, likewise the charming bits of +immorality who danced through his reign. However much we may +disapprove their manner of life, we are ever glad that their taste +sanctioned--more than that--urged, the production of a decorative +style almost unsurpassed. To the artists belong the glory, but times +were such that an artist must die of suppression if those in power +refuse to patronise his art. So we are glad that Antoinette Poisson +appreciated art, and that Jeanne Verbernier made of it a serious +consideration, for, what was liked by La Pompadour and Du Barry must +needs be favoured by the king. + +When Louis XVI came to the throne, the return to antiquity for +inspiration had already begun, but did not fully develop until later +on, when David became court painter under Napoleon. Yet the tonic note +of decoration was classic. Designs were still small and details were +from Greek inspiration. As tapestries were still but furniture +coverings, this was not to be regretted, for nothing could be +better suited to small spaces, nor could drawing be more exquisitely +pure and chaste than when copied from Greek detail. + + [Illustration: CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISÉE. STYLE LOUIS XV] + +Count d'Angivillier kept the Gobelins factory from all originality, +sanctioned only the small wares for original work, and forced a +slavish copying of paintings for the larger pieces. It is not deniable +that some beautiful hangings were produced, but the sad result is that +pieces of so many tones lose in value year by year, through the +gentle, inexorable touch of time; and, more deplorable yet, the +ambition and the originality of the master-weavers was deprived of its +very life-blood, and in time was utterly atrophied. + +In the time of Louis XVI, when Marie Antoinette was in the flower of +her inconsiderate elegance, the note of the day was for art to be +small, but perfect; the worth of a work of art was determined by its +size--in inverse ratio. It was a time lively and intellectual and +frivolous, and its art was the reflection of its desire for +concentrated completeness. + +In the reign of Louis XVI ripened, not the art of Louis XIV, but the +political situation whose seeds he had planted. The idea of revolution +which started in the little-considered American colonies, took hold of +the thinkers of France, even to the king of little power. But instead +of being a theory of remedy for important men to discuss, it acted as +a fire-brand thrown among the inflammable, long-oppressed Third +Estate--with results deplorable to the art which occupies our +attention. + +The Gobelins was already suffering at the début of the Revolution. +Its management had been relegated to men more or less incapable; its +art standards had been forced lower and lower. Added to that its +operatives were engaged at lessened rates and often had to whistle for +their pay at that. The contractors asked for nothing better than to be +engaged as masters of ateliers at fixed rates. + +Then came the full force of the Revolution with such deplorable and +tragic results for the Gobelins. In the madness of the time the +workers here were not exempt from the terrible call of Robespierre. +The almoner of the factory was arrested, and at the end of two months +not even a record existed of his execution, which took place among the +daily feasts of La Guillotine. A high-warp weaver named Mangelschot +met the same fate. Jean Audran, once contractor for high-warp, then +placed at the head of the factory, was arrested, but escaped with +imprisonment only. + +During his absence he was replaced as head by Augustin Belle, whose +respect for the Republic and for his head made him curry favour with +the mob in a manner most deplorable. He caused the destruction by fire +of many and many a superb tapestry at the Gobelins, giving as his +reason that they contained emblems of royalty, reminders of the hated +race of kings. The amateur can almost weep in thinking of this +ruthless waste of beauty. + +It was a celebrated bonfire that was built in the courtyard of the +Gobelins when, by order of the Committee on Selection, all things +offensive to an over-sensitive republican irritability were heaped for +the holocaust. As the Gobelins was instituted by a king, patronised by +kings, its works made in the main for palaces and pageants after the +taste of kings, it was only too easy to find tapestries meet for a +fire that had as object the destruction of articles displaying +monarchical power. + +During the four horrid years when terror reigned, the workers at the +Gobelins continued under a constant threat of a cessation of work. Not +only was their pay irregular, but it was often given in paper that had +sadly depreciated in value. Then the decision was made to sell certain +valuable tapestries and pay expenses from this source of revenue. But, +alas, in those troublous times, who had heart or purse to acquire +works of art. A whole skin and food to sustain it, were the serious +objects of life. + +Under the Directory, funds were scarce in bleeding France, and all +sorts of ways were used to raise them. In the past times when Louis +XIV had by relentless extravagance and wars depleted the purse, he +caused the patiently wrought precious metals to be melted into +bullion. Why not now resort to a similar method? So thought a minister +of one of the Two Chambers, and suggested the burning of certain +tapestries of the royal collection in order that the gold and silver +used in their weaving might be converted into metal. + +Sixty pieces, the most superb specimens of a king's collection, were +transported to the court of La Monnaie, and there burned to the last +thread the wondrous work of hundreds of talented artists and artisans. +The very smoke must have rolled out in pictures. The money gained was +considerable, 60,000 livres, showing how richly endowed with metal +threads were these sumptuous hangings. The commission sitting by, +judicial, dispassionate, presided with cold dignity over the +sacrifice, and pronounced it good. + +A hundred workers only remained at the Gobelins which had once been a +happy hive of more than eight times that number, and these were +constrained to follow orders most objectionable and restrictive. +Models to copy were chosen by a jury of art, and such were its +prejudices that but little of interest remained. Ancient religious +suites, and royal ones were disapproved. New orders consisted of +portraits. But if we thought it a prostitution of the art to weave +portraits of Louis XV in royal costume, or Marie Antoinette in the +loveliness of her queenly fripperies, what can be said of the low +estate of a factory which must give out a portrait of Marat or +Lepelletier, even though the great David painted the design to be +copied. The hundred men at the Gobelins must have worked but sadly and +desultorily over such scant and distasteful commissioning. + +There were works upon the looms when the Commission began inspecting +the works of art to see if they were proper stuff for the newly-made +Republic to nurse upon. In September, 1794, they found and condemned +twelve large pieces on the looms unfinished, and on which work was +immediately suspended. Of three hundred and twenty-one models +examined, which were the property of the factory, one hundred and +twenty were rejected. In fact, only twenty were designated as truly +fit for production, not falling under the epithets "anti-republican, +fanatic or insufficient." The latter description was applied to all +those exquisite fantasies of art that make the periods Louis XV and +Louis XVI a source of transcendent delight to the lover of dainty +intellectual design, and include particularly the work of Boucher. + +The mental and moral workings of the commission on art may be tested +by quoting from their own findings on the _Siege of Calais_, a hanging +by Berthélemy, depicting an event of the Fourteenth Century. This is +what the temper of the times induced the Commission--among whom were +artists too--to say: "Subject regarded as contrary to republican +ideas; the pardon accorded to the people of Calais was given by a +tyrant through the tears and supplications of the queen and child of a +despot. Rejected. In consequence the tapestry will be arrested in its +execution." + +The models allowed in this benumbing period were those of hunting +scenes, and antique groups such as the _Muses_, or scenes from the +life of Achilles. + +A vicious system of pay was added to the vicious system of art +restriction. And so fell the Gobelins, to revive in such small manner +as was accorded it in the Nineteenth Century. + +Its great work was done. It had lifted up an art which through +inflation or barrenness Brussels had let train on the ground like a +fallen flag, and it had given to France the glory of acquiring the +highest period of perfection. + +To France came the inspiration of gathering the industry under the +paternal care of the government, of relieving it from the exigencies +of private enterprise which must of necessity fluctuate, of keeping +the art in dignified prosperity, and of devoting to its uses the +highest talent of both art and industry. + +The Revolution and the Directory both hesitated to kill an institution +that had brought such glory to France, that had placed her above all +the world in tapestry producing. But what deliberate intent did not +accomplish, came near being a fact through scant rations. Operators at +the Gobelins were irregularly paid, and the public purse found onerous +the burden of support. + +But with the coming of Napoleon the personal note was struck again. A +man was at the head, a man whose ambition invaded even the field of +decoration. The Emperor would not be in the least degree inferior in +splendour to the most magnificent of the hereditary kings of France. +The Gobelins had been their glory, it should add to his. + +Louis David was the painter of the court, he whose head was ever +turned over his shoulder toward ancient Greece and Rome, who not only +preferred that source of inspiration, but who realised the flattery +implied to the Emperor by using the designs of the countries he had +conquered. It was a graceful reminder of the trophies of war. + +So David not only painted Josephine as a lady of Pompeii elongated on +a Greek lounge, but he set the classic style for the Gobelins factory +when Napoleon gave to the looms his imperial patronage. It was David +who had found favour with Revolutionary France by his untiring efforts +to produce a style differing fundamentally from the style of kings, +when kings and their ways were unpopular. Technical exactness, with +classic motives, characterises his decorative work for the Gobelins. + +The Emperor was hot for throne-room fittings that spoke only of +himself and of the empire he had built. David made the designs, +beautiful, chaste, as his invention ever was, and dotted them with the +inevitable bees and eagles. Percier, the artist, helped with the +painting, but the throne itself was David's and shows his talent in +the floating Victory of the back and the conventionalised wreaths of +the seat. The whole set, important enough to mention, embraced eight +arm chairs and six smaller ones, besides two dozen classic seats of a +kingly pattern, and screens for fire and draughts, all with a red +background on which was woven in gold the pattern of wreaths and +branches of laurel and oak. + +The Emperor made the Gobelins his especial care. He committed it to +the discretion of no one, but was himself the director, and allowed no +loom to set up its patterns unsanctioned by his order. Even his +campaigns left this order operative. Is it to his credit as a genius, +or his discredit as a tyrant, that the chiefs of the Gobelins had to +follow him almost into battle to get permission to weave a new +hanging? + +Portraits were woven--but let us not dwell on that. That portraits +were woven at the Gobelins (portraits as such, not the resemblance of +one figure out of a mass to some great personage) brings ever a sigh +of regret. It is like the evidence of senility in some grand statesman +who has outlived his vigour. It is like the portrait of your friend +done in butter, or the White House at Washington done in a paste of +destroyed banknotes. In other words, there is no excuse for it while +paint and canvas exist. + +Napoleon's own portrait was made in full length twice, and in bust ten +times. The Empress was pictured at full length and in bust, and the +young King of Rome came in for one portrait. The summit of bad art +seemed reached when it was proposed to copy in wool a painting of +portrait busts, carved in marble. This work was happily unfinished +when the empire gave place to the next form of government. + +It is unthinkable that Napoleon would not want his reign glorified in +manner like to that of hereditary kings with pictured episodes, the +conquests of his life, dramatic, superb. David the court painter, +supplied his canvas _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, and others followed. +Copying paintings was the order at the Gobelins, remember, and that +kind of work was done with infinite skill. Numbers of grand scenes +were planned, some set up on the looms, but the great part were not +done at all. Napoleon's triumph was full but brief; the years of his +reign were few. He interrupted work on large hangings by his +impatience to have the throne-room furniture ready for the reception +of Europe's kings and ambassadors. And when the time came that another +man received in that room, the big series of hangings which were to +picture his reign, even as the _Life of the King_ pictured that of +Louis XIV, were scarcely begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BEAUVAIS + + +Another name to conjure with, after Gobelins is Beauvais. In general +it means to us squares of beautiful foliage,--foliage graceful, +acceptably coloured, and of a pre-Raphaelite neatness. But it is not +limited to that class of work, nor yet to the chair-coverings for +which the factory of Beauvais is so justly celebrated. This factory +has woven even the magnificent series of Raphael, the designs without +which the Sistine Chapel was considered incomplete. But this is +anticipating, and an inquiry into how these things came about is a +pleasure too great to miss. + +The factory at Beauvais was founded by Colbert, under Louis XIV, in +1664. In that respect it resembles the Gobelins factory, but there +existed an enormous difference which had to do with the entire fate of +the enterprise. The Gobelins was founded for the king; Beauvais was +founded for commerce. The Gobelins was royally conceived as a source +of supply for palaces and châteaux of royalty and royalty's friends. +Beauvais was intended to supply with tapestry any persons who cared to +buy them, to the end that profit (if profit there were) should be to +the good of the country. + +So the factory was founded at Beauvais as being convenient to Paris, +although it was not known as a place where the industry had +flourished hitherto, notwithstanding the old tapestries still in the +cathedral which are accorded a local origin in the first half of the +Sixteenth Century. And the king granted it letters patent, and large +sums of money to start the enterprise, which had to be given a +building, and men to manage it and to work therein, and materials to +work with, in fact, the duplicate in less degree of the appropriations +for the Gobelins, except that the furniture department was omitted. + +The idea was practically the same as that in the mind of the paternal +Henri IV when he united the scattered factories with royal interest +and patronage, but with always the large end in view of benefiting his +people financially, as well as in the province of art. With our modern +republican views we can criticise the disinterestedness of a monarch +who maintains a factory at enormous public expense exclusively for the +indulgence of kings. + +And yet, it seems impossible to make both an artistic and commercial +success of a tapestry factory--at least this is the conclusion to +which one is forced in a study of the Beauvais factory. + +Louis Hinart was the man appointed to construct the buildings and to +stock them, and the royal appropriation therefor, was 60,000 livres. +He was to engage a hundred workers for the first year, more to be +added; and special prizes were temptingly offered for workmen coming +from other countries, and to the contractor for each tapestry sold for +exportation. + + [Illustration: HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS + + Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent] + + [Illustration: HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D'ESTRÉES + + Design by Vincent] + +Thus was trade to be encouraged, and the venture put on its feet +commercially. But alas, the factory was not a success. Tapestries were +woven, hundreds of them, and they delight us now wherever we can find +them, whether low warp or high, whether large pieces with figures or +smaller pieces almost entirely verdure of an entrancing kind. But the +orders for large hangings, the heavy patronage from outside France, +was of the imagination only, and the verdures for home consumption did +not meet the expenses of the factory. After twenty years of struggle, +Hinart was completely ruined and ceded the direction of the factory to +a Fleming of Tournai, Philip Béhagle. As most of the workers were +Flemish, this was probably not disagreeable to them. + +Béhagle, more energetic than Hinart, with a gift for initiative, set +the high-warp looms to work with extraordinary activity. As though he +would rival the great Gobelins itself, he reproduced the most +ambitious of pieces, the Raphael series, _Acts of the Apostles_, and a +long list of ponderous groups wherein oversized gods disport +themselves in a heavy setting of architecture and voluminous +draperies. He also produced some contemporary battle scenes which are +now in the royal collection of Sweden. + +Not content with copying, Béhagle set up a school of design in the +factory, realising that the base of all decorative art was design. Le +Pape was the artist set over it. From this grew many of the lovely +smaller patterns which have made the factory famous. Its garlands have +ever been inspired, and its work on borders is of exquisite conception +and execution. + +It is considered a great fact in the history of the factory that the +king paid it a visit in 1686; that he paraded and rested his important +person under the shade of the living verdure in its garden. But it +seems more to the point that Béhagle made for it a success both +artistic and commercial, and this continued as long as he had breath. + +Also was it a feather in his cap that at the time when the Gobelins +factory was sighing and dying for lack of funds, the provincial +factory of Beauvais not only remained prosperous, but opened its doors +to many of the starving operatives from the Gobelins ateliers, thus +saving them from the horrid fate of joining the Dragonades, as some of +their fellows had done. + +But the followers of the able Béhagle had not his capability. After +his twenty years of prosperity the factory languished under the +direction of his widow and sons, and that of the brothers Filleul, and +Micou, up to the time when the Regent Philip was fumbling the reigns +of government, and when everything but scepticism and Les Precieuses +was sinking into feeble disintegration. The factory became a financial +failure from which the regent had not power to lift it. + +Again we see the name of the son of Madame de Montespan, the Duke +d'Antin, who was at this time director of buildings for the crown and +in this capacity had the power of choosing the directors of both the +Gobelins and Beauvais. The place of director at Beauvais was empty; +d'Antin must have the credit of filling it wisely with the painter +Jean-Baptiste Oudry. He was a man endowed with the sort of energy we +are apt to consider modern and American. He already occupied a high +place in the Gobelins, and retained it, too, while he lifted Beauvais +from the Slough of Despond, and carried it to its most brilliant +flowering. + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY + + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI + + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York] + +It is only as the history of a factory touches us that we are +interested in its changes. The result of Oudry's direction is one that +we see so frequently in a small way that it is agreeable to recognise +its cause. Oudry was pre-eminently a painter of animals. Add to this +the tendency to draw cartoons in suites and the demand for furniture +coverings, and at once we have the _raison d'être_ of the design seen +over and over again nowadays on old tapestried chairs, the designs +picturing the _Fables of La Fontaine_. These were the especial work of +Oudry who composed them, who put into them his best work as animal +painter, and who set them on the looms of Beauvais many times. + +They had a success immediate. They became the fashion of the day, and +the pride of the factory. If the artist had drawn with inspiration, +the weavers copied with a fidelity little short of talent. So it is +not surprising that a set of sofa and chairs on which these tapestries +are displayed brings now an average of a thousand dollars a piece, +even though the furniture frames are not excessively rich. + +Beauvais set the fashion for this suite, but as success has imitators +who hope for success, many factories both in and out of France copied +this series. How shall we know the true from the false? By that sixth +sense that has its origin in a taste at once instinctive and +cultivated. + +Oudry drew hangings for the small panelled spaces of the walls, to +accompany this set of _Fables_. He also painted scenes from Molière's +comedies, which at least show him master of the human figure as well +as of the lines of animals. + +We are now, it must be remembered, in the time of Louis XV, the time +of beautiful gaiety and light sarcasm, of epigramme, and miniature, +and of all that declared itself _multum in parvo_. Therefore it was +that even wall-hangings were reduced in size and polished, so to +speak, to a perfection most admirable. Paintings were copied, actually +copied, on the looms, but however much the fact may be deplored that +tapestry had wandered far from its original days of grand simplicity, +it were unjust not to recognise the exquisite perfection of the manner +in vogue in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, and of the +perfection of the craftsman. + +The pieces of Beauvais that are accessible to us are indeed charming +to live with, especially the verdures of Oudry on which he left the +trace of his talent, never omitting the characteristic fox or dog, or +ducks, or pheasants that give vital interest to a peep into the +enchanted woodland. At the same time the factory of Aubusson, and +looms in Flanders, were throwing upon the market a quantity of +verdures, of which the amateur must beware. Oudry verdures or outdoor +scenes are but few in model, and beautifully woven. + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV] + +In the prosperity of Beauvais, ambition carried Oudry into a gay +rivalry with the Gobelins. Charles Coypel had gained fame by a set of +hangings in which scenes were taken from Don Quixote. Oudry asked +himself why he should not rival them at Beauvais. The result was a +similar series, but composed by Charles Natoire, the artist who had +drawn a set of _Antony and Cleopatra_ for the Gobelins. The same idea +extended to the furniture coverings which ran to this design as well +as to the _Fables_. Thus originated a set familiar to those of us +nowadays who covet and who buy the rare old bits that the niggard hand +of the past accords to the seeker after the ancient. + +Exquisite indeed are the hangings by the great interpreter of the +spirit of his time, François Boucher. His designs broke from the limit +of the Gobelins, and were woven at Beauvais with the care and skill +required for proper interpretation of his land of mythology. Such +flushed skies of light, such clean, soft trees waving against them and +such human elegance and beauty grouped beneath, have seldom been +reproduced in tapestry, and almost make one wonder if, after all, the +weavers of the Eighteenth Century were not right in copying a finished +painting rather than in interpreting a decorative cartoon. But such +thoughts border on heresy and schism; away with them. + +Casanova, Leprince, and a host of others are tacked onto the list of +artists who painted models. We can no longer call them cartoons, so +changed is the mode for Beauvais. But Oudry and Boucher are +pre-eminent. + +To the former, who was director as well as artist, is attributed the +fame of the factory and the resulting commercial success. The factory +had a house for selling its wares under the very nose of the Gobelins; +had another in the enemy's country, Leipzig. And kings were the +patrons of these, as we know through the royal collections in Italy, +and Stockholm, where the King of Sweden was an important collector. + +It was in 1755 that Beauvais found itself without the support of its +leaders. Both Oudry and his partner in business matters, Besnier, had +died. And we are well on toward the time when kingly support was a +feeble and uncertain quantity. The factory lacked the inspiration and +patronage to continue its importance. + +In a few years more fell the blight of the Revolution. The factory was +closed. + +It re-opened again under new conditions, but its brilliant period was +past. Will the conditions recur that can again elevate to its former +state of perfection this factory that has given such keen delight, +whose ancient works are so prized by the amateur? It has given us +thrilling examples of the highly developed taste of tapestry weaving +of the Eighteenth Century, it has left us lovable designs in +miniature. We repulse the thought that these things are all of the +past. The factory still lives. Will not the Twentieth Century see a +restoration of its former prestige? + +If it were only for the reproduction of the sets of furniture of the +style known as Louis XVI, the Beauvais loom would have sufficient +reason for existing at the present day. Scenes from Don Quixote, +however, and the pictured fables of La Fontaine which we see on old +chairs, seem to need age to ripen them. These sets, when made new, +shown in all the freshness and unsoiled colour, and unworn wool, and +unfaded silk do not give pleasure. + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY] + + [Illustration: CHAIR COVERING + + Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire] + +But the familiar garlands and scrolls adapted from the Greek, that +were woven for the court of Marie Antoinette, these are ever old and +ever new, like all things vital. On a background of solid colour, pale +and tawny, is curved the foliated scroll to reach the length of a +sofa, and with this is associated garlands or sprays of flowers that +any flower-lover would worship. Nothing more graceful nor more +tasteful could be conceived, and by such work is the Beauvais factory +best known, and on such lines might it well continue. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AUBUSSON + + +Perhaps because of certain old and elegant carpets lying under-foot in +the glow and shadows of old drawing-rooms that we love, the name of +Aubusson is one of interesting meaning. And yet history of tapestry +weaving at Aubusson lacks the importance that gilds the Gobelins and +Beauvais. + +It just escaped that _sine qua non_, the dower of a king's favour. But +let us be chronological, and not anticipate. + +If antiquity is the thing, Aubusson claims it. There is in the town +this interesting tradition that when the invincible Charles Martel +beat the enemies of Christianity and hammered out the word peace with +his sword-blade, a lot of the subdued Saracens from Spain remained in +the neighbourhood. It was at Poitiers in 732 that the final blow was +given to show the hordes of North Africa that while a part of Spain +might be theirs, they must stop below the Pyrenees. + +When swords are put by, the empty hand turns to its accustomed crafts +of peace. Poitiers is a weary journey from Africa if the land ways are +hostile, and all to be traversed afoot. Rather than return, the +conquered Saracens stayed, so runs the legend of Aubusson, and quite +naturally fell into their home-craft of weaving. They had a pretty +gift indeed to bestow, for at that time, as in ages before, the +world's best fabrics came from the luxurious East. And so the +Saracens, defeated at Poitiers by Charles Martel, wandered to nearby +Aubusson, wove their cloths and gave the town the chance to set its +earliest looms at a date far back in the past. + +The centuries went on, however, without much left in the way of +history-fabric or woven fabric until we approach the time when +tapestry-history begins all over France, like sparse flowers glowing +here and there in the early spring wood. + +When the Great Louis, with Colbert at his sumptuous side, was by way +of patronising magnificently those arts which contributed to his own +splendour, he set his all-seeing eye upon Aubusson, and thought to +make it a royal factory. + +He was far from establishing it--that was more than accomplished +already, not so much by the legendary Saracens as by the busy populace +who had as early as 1637 as many as two thousand workers. Going back a +little farther we find a record of four tapestries woven there for +Rheims. + +It was, perhaps, this very prosperity, this ability to stand alone +that made Louis and Colbert think it worth while to patronise the +works at Aubusson. But it must be said that at this time (1664) the +factory was deteriorating. Tapestry works are as sensitive as the +veriest exotic, and without the proper conditions fail and fade. The +wrong matter here was primarily the cartoons, which were of the +poorest. No artist controlled them, and the workers strayed far from +the copy set long before. Added to that, the wool was of coarse, +harsh quality and the dyeing was badly done. All three faults +remediable, thought the two chief forces in the kingdom. + +So Louis XIV announced to the sixteen hundred weavers of Aubusson that +he would give their works the conspicuous privilege of taking on the +name of the Royal Manufactory at Aubusson. And, moreover, he declared +his wish to send them an artist to draw worthily, and a master of the +important craft of dyeing fast and lovely colours. + +Colbert drew up a series of articles and stipulations, long papers of +rules and restrictions which were considered a necessary part of fine +tapestry weaving. These papers are tiresome to read--the constitution +of many a nation or a state is far less verbose. They give the +impression that the craft of tapestry weaving is beset with every sort +of small deceit, so protection must be the arrangement between master +and worker, and between the factory and the great outside world, lying +in wait to tear with avaricious claws any fabric, woven or written, +that this document leaves unprotected. You get, too, the impression +that weavers took themselves a little too seriously. There must have +been other arts and crafts in the world than theirs, but if so these +men of long documents ignored it. + +Aubusson, then, took heart at the encouragement of the king and his +prime minister, enjoyed their fine new title to flaunt before the +world which lacked it, pored over their new Articles of Faith, and +awaited the new artist and the new alchemist of colours. + +But Louis XIV was a busy man, and Paris presented enough activity to +consume all his hours but the scant group he allowed himself for +sleep. So Aubusson was forgot. Wars and pleasures both ravaged the +royal purse, and no money was left for indulgences to a tapestry +factory lying leagues distant from Paris and the satisfying Gobelins. + +Then came the agitation of religious conflict during which Louis XIV +was persuaded, coerced, nagged into the condition of mind which made +him put pen to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the document +that is ever playing about the fortunes of tapestry weaving. This was +in 1685. Aubusson had struggled along on hope for twenty years, under +its epithet Royal, but now it had to lose its best workers to the +number of two hundred. The Protestants had ever been among the best +workers in Louis' kingdom, and by his prejudice he lost them. Germany +received some of the fugitives, notably, Pierre Mercier. + +Near Aubusson were Felletin and Bellegarde, the three towns forming +the little group of factories of La Marche. When the king's act +brought disaster to Aubusson, her two neighbours suffered equally. + +There was also another reason for a sagging of prosperity. Beauvais +was rapidly gaining in size and importance under the patronage of the +king and the wise rule of its administrators. Beauvais with her +high- and low-warp looms, her artists from Paris and her privilege to +sell in the open market, lured from Aubusson the patronage that might +have kept her strong. + +Thus things went on to the end of the Seventeenth Century and the +first quarter of the Eighteenth. Then in 1731 came deliverers in the +persons of the painters, Jean Joseph du Mons and Pierre de Montezert, +and an able dyer who aided them. Prosperity began anew. Not the +prosperity of the first half of the Seventeenth Century, which was its +best period, but a strong, healthy productiveness which has lasted +ever since. Two articles of faith it adheres to--that the looms shall +be invariably low, and that the threads of the warp shall be of wool +and wool only. + +Large quantities of strong-colour verdures from La Marche and notably +from Aubusson are offered to the buyer throughout France. They are as +easily adapted to the wood panels of a modern dining-room as is stuff +by the yard, the pattern being merely a mass of trees divisible almost +anywhere. The colour scheme is often worked out in blues instead of +greens; a narrow border is on undisturbed pieces, and the reverse of +the tapestry is as full of loose threads as the back of a cashmere +rug. For the most part these fragments are the work of the Eighteenth +Century. Older ones, with warmer colours introduced bring much higher +prices. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SAVONNERIE + + +Those who hold by the letter, leave out the velvety product of La +Savonnerie from the aristocratic society of hangings woven in the +classic stitch of the Gobelins. They have reason. Yet, because the +weave is one we often see in galleries, also on furniture both old and +new, it is as well not to ignore its productions in lofty silence. + +Besides, it is rather interesting, this little branch of an exotic +industry that tried to run along beside the greater and more artistic. +It never has tried to be much higher than a man's feet, has been +content for the most part to soften and brighten floors that before +its coming were left in the cold bareness of tile or parquet. It crept +up to the backs and seats of chairs, and into panelled screens a +little later on, but never has it had much vogue on the walls. + +When we go back to its beginnings we come flat against the Far East, +as is usual. The history of the fabric which is woven with a pile like +that of heavy wool velvet, and which is called Savonnerie, runs +parallel to the long story of tapestry proper, but to make its scant +details one short concrete chronicle it is best to put them all +together. + +From the East, then, came the idea of weaving in that style of which +only the people of the East were masters. Oriental rugs as such were +not attempted in either colour or design, but one of the rug stitches +was copied. + +We have to run back to the time of Henri IV, a pleasing time to turn +to with its demonstration of how much a powerful king loved the +welfare of his people. When he interested himself in tapestry, one of +the three important existing factories was stationed in the Louvre. +This was primarily for the hangings properly called tapestry, but in +the same place were looms for the production of work "after the +fashion of Turkey." Sometimes it was called work of "long wool" +(_longue laine_) and sometimes also "_a la façon de Perse, ou du +Levant_," as well as "of the fashion of Turkey,"--all names giving +credit to the East from whence the stitch came by means of crusades, +invasions and other storied movements of the people of a dim past. + +How long ago this stitch came, is as uncertain as most things in the +Middle Ages. We know how persistently the cultivated venturesome East +overflowed Eastern Europe, and how religious Europe thrust itself into +the East, and on these broad bases we plant our imaginings. + +Away back in Burgundian times there are traces of the use of this +velvet stitch. Tapestries of Germany also woven in the Fifteenth +Century, use this stitch to heighten the effect of details. + +But the formation of an actual industry properly set down in history +and dignified by the name of its directors, comes in the very first +years of the Seventeenth Century when Henri IV of France was living up +to his high ideals. + +Pierre Dupont is the name to remember in this connexion. He is styled +the inventor of the velvet pile in tapestry, but it were better to +call him the adaptor. The name of Savonnerie came from the building in +which the first looms were set up, an old soap factory, and thus the +velvet pile bears the misnomer of the Savonnerie. + +Pierre Dupont (whose book "La Stromaturgie" might be consulted by the +book-lover) was one of the enthusiasts included by Henri IV along with +the best high-and low-warp masters of France at that time. Being +placed under royal patronage, the Savonnerie style of weaving acquired +a dignity which it has ever had trouble in retaining for the simple +reason that the legitimate place for its products seems to be the +floor. + +The Gobelins factory finally absorbed the Savonnerie, but that was +after it had been established in the Louvre. Pierre Dupont who was +director of tapestry works under Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt +the works of French production over those of "La Turquie." The taste +of the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French colour and +drawing than with the designs of the East. + +At any rate, this pretty wool velvet found such favour with kings that +even Louis XIV encouraged its continuance, gathering it under the roof +of the all-embracing Gobelins. + +A large royal order embraced ninety-two pieces, intended to cover the +Grand Galerie of the Louvre. Many of these pieces are preserved to-day +and are conserved by the State. + +If Savonnerie has never produced much that is noteworthy in the line +of art, at least it has given us many pretty bits of an endearing +softness, bits which cover a chair or panel a screen, to the delight +of both eye and touch. The softness of the weave makes it especially +appropriate to furniture of the age of luxurious interiors which is +represented by the styles of Louis XV and Louis XVI. + +Portraits in this style of weave were executed at a time when +portraits were considered improved by translation into wool, but +except as curiosities they are scarcely successful. An example hangs +in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Plate facing page 162.) +In the Gobelins factory of to-day are four looms for the manufacture +of Savonnerie. + + [Illustration: SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV + + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + + [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE + + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MORTLAKE + +1619-1703 + + +The three great epochs of tapestry weaving, with their three +localities which are roughly classed as Arras in the Fifteenth +Century, Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, and Paris in the +Seventeenth, had, as a matter of course, many tributary looms. It is +not supposable that a craft so simple, when it is limited to +unambitious productions, should not be followed by hundreds of modest +people whose highest wish was to earn a living by providing the market +with what was then considered as much a necessity as chairs and +tables. + +To take a little retrospective journey through Europe and linger among +these obscurer weavers would be delectable pastime for the leisurely, +and for the enthusiast. But we are all more or less in a hurry, and +incline toward a courier who will point out the important spots +without having to hunt for them. Artois had not only Arras; Flanders +had not only Brussels; France had not only the State ateliers of Paris +and Beauvais; but all these countries had smaller centres of +production. The tapestries from some of these we are able to identify, +even to weave a little history about them. These products are +recognisable through much study of marks and details and much digging +in learned foreign books, where careful records are kept--a congenial +business for the antiquary. + +But even though we may neglect in the main the lesser factories, there +is one great development which must have full notice. It is the +important English venture known as Mortlake. + +Sully, standing at the elbow of Henri IV of France, called James I of +England the wisest fool in Europe. A part of his wisdom was the +encouraging in his own kingdom the royal craft of tapestry-making. To +this end he followed the example set by that grand Henri of Navarre, +and gave the crown's aid to establish and maintain works for tapestry +production. + +The elegance of the Stuart came to the front, desiring gratification; +but craftiness had a hand in the matter, too. After the introduction +of Italian luxury into England by Henry VIII, and the continuance of +art's revival through the brilliant period of Elizabeth, it is not +supposable that no tapestry looms existed throughout the length and +breadth of the land at the time that James came down from Scotland. + +They were there; documents prove it. But they were not of such +condition as pleased the fastidious son of Marie Stuart, who needs +must import his weavers and his artists. And therein was shown his +craftiness, for he had coaxed secretly from Flanders fifty expert +weavers before the canny Dutch knew their talented material was thus +being filched away. Every weaver was bound to secrecy, lest the Low +Countries, knowing the value of her clever workmen, put a ban upon +their going before the English king had his full quota for the new +venture. + +Wandering about old London, one can identify now the place where the +king's factory had habitat. The buildings stood where now we find +Queen's Court Passage, and near by, at Victoria Terrace, was the house +set aside for the limners or artists who drew and painted for the +works. + +To copy Henri IV in his success was dominant in the mind of James I. +To the able Sir Francis Crane he gave the place of director of the +works, and made with him a contract similar to that made with François +de la Planche and Marc Comans in Paris by their king. + +If to James I is owed the initial establishment, to Crane is owed all +else at that time. It was in 1619 that the works were founded and Sir +Francis took charge. He was a gentleman born, was much seen at Court, +had ambitions of his own, too, and was cultivated in many ways of mind +and taste. Besides all this, he had a head for business and an +enthusiasm rampant, which could meet any discouragement--and needed +this faculty later, too. + +The king then gave him the management of the venture, started him with +the royal favour, which was as good as a fortune, with a building for +the looms, with imported workers who knew the tricks of the trade, and +with a pretty sum of money to boot. + +Prudence was born with the enterprise; so the men from the Low +Countries were advised to become naturalised to make them more likely +to stay, and to bring other workers over, Walloons, malcontents, +religious fugitives, or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful. +Down in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,--those +lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small leaded panes +which we are so keen to restore and live in these days. + +To swell the number of workers, and to have an eye for the future, +there must be apprentices. The king looked about among the city's +"hospitals" and saw many goodly boys living at crown expense, with no +specified occupation during their adolescence. These he put as +apprentices, for a term of seven years, to work under the fifty +Flemish leaders. They were happy if they fell under the care of Philip +de Maecht, he of Flanders, who had wandered down to Paris and served +under De la Planche and Comans, and now had been enticed to the new +Mortlake. He has left his visible mark on tapestries of his +production--his monogram, P.D.M. (Plate facing page 70.) + +A designer for the factory, one who lived there, was an inseparable +part of it. And thus it came that Francis Clein (or Cleyn) was +permanently established. He came from Denmark, but had taken an +enlightening journey to Italy, and had a fine equipment for the work, +which he carried on until 1658. His name is on several tapestries now +existing. + +Even kings tire of their fulfilled wishes. James wanted royal tapestry +works, yet, when they were an established fact, he wearied of the +drafts on his purse for their support. It was the old story of +unfulfilled obligations, of a royal purse plucked at by too many vital +interests to spend freely on art. + +And Sir Francis Crane bore the brunt of the troubles. Contracts with +the king counted but lightly in face of his enthusiasm. He continued +the work, paid his men the best he could, and let the king's debt to +him stand unsued. + +In a few years--a very few, as it was then but 1623--he was obliged to +petition the king. His private fortune was gone by the board, the +workmen were clamouring for wages past due, and the factory trembled. + +Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of his interest in +the tapestries that were demonstrating the artistic enterprise of +England. The Italian taste was the ultimate note in England as well as +elsewhere--the Italy of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had +ordered paintings and drawings. What was more to the purpose at this +hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the crown a bill of seven hundred +pounds, which covered their expense. The king, unwillingly,--for needs +pressed on all sides--paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for moneys +he had expended, but left him struggling against the hard conditions +of a ruined private purse and a thin royal one. + +At this juncture, 1625, James I died, and his son reigned in his +stead. The Prince of Wales was now become that beribboned, +picturesque, French-spirited monarch, whose figure on Whitehall +eternally protests his tragic death. + +As Charles I, he had the power to foster the elegant industry which +now grew and flowered to a degree that brought satisfaction then, and +which yields a harvest of delight in our own times. Sir Francis Crane +was at last to get the reward of enthusiasm and fidelity. Too much +reward, said the envious, who tried in all ways, fair and foul, to +drive him from what was now a lucrative and conspicuous post. The +money he had advanced the factory came back to him, and more also. +Ever a well-known figure at court, he now even aspired to closer +relations with royalty, and built a magnificent country home, which +was large enough to accommodate a visiting court. He even persuaded +the king to visit the Mortlake factory, that the royal presence might +enhance the value of art in the occult way known only to the subjects +of kings. + +Debts from the crown were not always paid in clinking coin, but often +in grants of land, and by these grants Sir Francis Crane became rich. +But the prosperity of Crane was not worth our recording were it not +that it evidenced the prosperity of Mortlake. From the death of James +I in 1625 for a period of ten years, the factory flowered and fruited. +Its productions were of the very finest that have ever been produced +in any country. + +The reasons for this superiority were evident. First of all, Mortlake +was the pet of the king; next, Crane was an able and devoted minister +of its affairs; its artistic inspiration came from the home of the +highest art--Italy--and its weavers were from that locality of sage +and able weavers--Flanders. Add to this, tapestries were the fashion. +Every man of wealth and importance felt them a necessary chattel to +his elegance. And add to this, too, that Mortlake had almost a clean +field. It was nearly without rival in fine tapestry-making at that +time. Brussels had declined, and the Gobelins was not formed in its +inspired combination. + + [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE + + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] + + [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE + + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] + +Besides this, were not the materials for the industry found best +within the confines of the kingdom? What sheep in all the world +produced such even, lustrous wool as the muttons huddling or wandering +on the undulating _prés salés_ of Kent; and was not wool, par +excellence, the ideal material for picture-weaving, better than silk +or glittering gold? + +The hangings made then were superb. Thanks to destiny, we have some +left on which to lavish our enthusiasm. The cartoons preferred came +from Italy's great dead masters. First was Raphael. The Mortlake would +try its hand at nothing less than the great series made to finish and +soften the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. And so the _Acts of the +Apostles_ were woven, and in such manner as was worthy of them. They +can be seen now in the Garde Meuble. Van Dyck, the great Hollander, +made court painter to the king, drew borders for them, and was proud +to do it, too. Van Dyck's other work here was a portrait of Sir +Francis Crane and one of himself. + +Rubens likewise associated his great decorative genius with the +factory and gave to it his suite of six designs for the _Story of +Achilles_. Cleyn, the Mortlake art-director, furnished a _History of +Hero and Leander_, which found home among the marvellous tapestries of +the King of Sweden. + +There were other classic subjects, and the months as well, but of +especial interest to us is the _Story of Vulcan_. Several pieces of +this series have been lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New +York, by their owners, Mrs. von Zedlitz, and Philip Hiss, Esq. Thus, +without going far from home, thousands have been able to see these +delightful examples of the highest period of England's tapestry +production. The series was woven for Charles I when he was Prince of +Wales, from cartoons by Francis Cleyn, and woven by the master, Philip +de Maecht. The borders are especially interesting, and carry the +emblematic three feathers of the prince, as well as his monogram, in +Mrs. von Zedlitz's example, _The Expulsion of Vulcan_. (Coloured plate +facing page 170.) + +It was this same series of _Vulcan_ that was used as a text by Crane's +enemy to prove to the king, in 1630, that Crane was profiting unduly +and dishonestly from the land grants given him in payment for arrears. +The plaintiff speaks of this set as being "the foundation of all good +tapestries in England." We are fortunate in having pieces from it in +America. + +Only by actual contact with the tapestry itself can the beauty of the +colour and the work be known. We well believe the superior quality of +the English wool when it lies before us in smooth expanse of subtle +colour. And as for even weaving, it is there unsurpassed. Every inch +declares the talent and patience of the craftsman. As for colour, it +is on a low scale that makes blues seem like remembrance of the sea, +and reds like faint flushings planned in warm contrast, while over all +is thrown a veil of delicate mist that may be of years, or may have +been done with intent, but is there to give poetic value to the whole +of the artist's scheme. + + [Illustration: THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS] + +Sir Francis Crane died in 1636, and Captain Richard Crane succeeded +him. And then began the decline of a factory which should have lived +to save us deep regret. This second Crane could not carry on the work, +and besought the king to relieve him by taking over the factory, which +was thenceforth known as King's Works. + +But civil wars came on in 1642 and other matters were more urgent than +the production of works of art. So evil days fell upon the weavers. + +Then came the black day when Charles was beheaded. The Commonwealth, +to do it justice, tried to keep alive the industry. They put at its +head a nobleman, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and, to inspire the workers, +brought a new model for design. + +They went to Hampton Court and took from there _The Triumph of Cæsar_, +by Mantegna, to serve as new models. Some hope, too, lay in the +weavers of the hour, clever Hollanders taken prisoners in the war; and +all this while Cleyn directed. + +But there were too many circumstances in the way, too many hard knocks +of fate. People were too poor to buy good tapestries, and loose-woven, +cheaper ones were heavily imported--to the amount of $500,000 +yearly--from France and the Low Countries. Anti-Catholic feeling +displayed hatred toward the able Catholic weavers, who were forced out +of the country by proclamation. + +The sad end of this story is that in 1702 a petition was placed before +the king asking permission to discontinue the Mortlake works. It was +granted in 1703, and thus ended the English royal venture in England. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IDENTIFICATIONS + + +Identifying tapestries is like playing a game, like the solving of a +piquant problem, like pursuing the elusive snark. I know of no keener +pleasure than that of standing before a tapestry for the first time +and giving its name and history from one's own knowledge, and not from +a museum catalogue or a friend's recital. The latter sources of +information may be faulty, but your own you can trust, for by +delightful association with tapestries and their literature you have +become expert. The catalogue is to be read, the friend is to be heard, +in all humility, because these supply points that one may not know; +but, who shall not say that an intensely human gratification is +experienced when the owner of a tapestry with the Brussels mark tells +you that it is a Gobelins, or one with the _History of Alexander_ +tells you it is the only set of that series ever woven, and you know +better. + +The first thing that strikes the eye and the intelligence is the +drawing, the general school to which it belongs. There is matter for +placing the piece in its right class. It might be said to place it in +its right century or quarter century, but that tapestries were so +often repeated in later times, the cartoon having no copyright and +therefore open to all countries in all centuries. Next, then, to fix +it better, comes a study of the border, for therein lies many a +secret of identity, and borders were of the epoch in which the weaving +was done, even though the cartoon for the centre came from an earlier +time. + +Last, as a finishing touch, come the marks in the galloon. This is put +last because so often they are absent, and so often unknown, the sign +of some ancient weaver lost in the mists of years, although a +well-known mark so instantly identifies, that study of other details +is secondary. + +But under these three generalising heads comes all the knowledge of +the savant, for the truth about tapestries is most elusive. Knowledge +is to be gained only by a lover of the objects, a lover willing to +spend long hours in association with his love, prowling among +collections, comparing, handling, studying designs, discerning +colours, searching for details, and indulging withal a nice feeling +for textures, a vision that feels them even without touch of the hand. + +If the study of design has not given a keen scent for the vague +quality which we call "feeling," the eye would better be trained still +further, for herein lies the secret of success in difficult places, +and not only that, but if he have not this sense he is deprived of one +of the most subtile thrills that the arts can excite. + +But this sense is not a matter of untrained intuition. It is the +flower of erudition, the flame from a full heart, or whatever dainty +thing you choose to call it. It has its origin primarily in keen +observation of the various important schools of design that have +interested the world for centuries. We unconsciously augment it even +in following the side-path of history in this modest volume. Our +studies here are but those of a summer morn or a winter eve, yet they +are in vain if they have not set up a measuring standard or two within +the mind. + + +GOTHIC DRAWING + +First, and dearest to the lover of designs, comes the Gothic, the +style practised by those conscientious romantic children-in-art, the +Primitives. Their characteristics in tapestry are much the same as in +painting, as in sculpture; for, weavers, painters, book-makers, +sculptors, were all expressing the same matter, all following the same +fashion. Therefore, to one's help comes any and every work of the +primitive artists. Making allowance for the difference in medium, the +same religious feeling is seen in the Burgundian set of _The +Sacraments_ in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York, as is found +in stone carving of the time which decorated churches and tombs. + +The figures in the Gothic tapestries show a dignified restraint, a +solemnity of pose, recalling the deadly seriousness with which +children play the game of grown-ups. The artists of that day had to +keep to their traditions; to express without over-expression, was +their difficult task (as it is ours), but they had behind them the +rigidity of the Byzantine and Early Christian, so that every free +line, every vigorous pose or energetic action, was forging ahead into +a new country, a voyage of adventure for the daring artist. Quite +another affair was this from modern restraint which consists in +pruning down the voluptuous lines following the too high Renaissance. + +Faces are serious, but not animated. Dress reveals charming matter +concerning stuffs and modes in that far time. But apart from these +characteristics is the one great feature of the arrangement of the +figures, almost without perspective. And therein lies one immense +superiority of the ancient designs of tapestries over the modern as +pure decorative fabric. Men and women are placed with their +accessories of furniture or architecture all in the foreground, and +each man has as many cubits to his stature as his neighbour, not being +dwarfed for perspective, but only for modesty, as in the case of the +Lady's companion in the _Unicorn_ series--but that series is of a +later Gothic time than the early works of Arras. + +A noticeable feature is that the centre of vision is placed high on +the tapestry. The eye must look to the top to find all the strength of +the design. The lower part is covered with the sweeping robes or +finished figures of the folk who are playing their silent parts for +the delight of the eye. This covers well the space with large and +simple motive. No recourse is had to such artifice as distant lands +seen in perspective, nor angles of rooms, but all is flat, brought +frankly into intimate association with the room that is lived in, so +that these people of other days seem really to enter into our very +presence, to thrust vitally their quaint selves into our company. This +feature of simple flatness is in so great contrast to later methods of +drawing that one becomes keenly conscious of it, and deeply satisfied +with its beauty. The purpose of decoration and of furnishing seems to +be most adequately met when the attention is retained within the +chamber and not led out of it by trick of background nor lure of +perspective, no matter how enticing are the distant landscapes or how +noble the far palace of royalty. Thus the Primitives struck a more +intimately human note than the artists of later and more sophisticated +times. + +The more archaic the tapestry, the simpler the motive, is the rule. +The early weavers of Arras and of France were telling stories as +naturally as possible, perhaps because the ways of their times were +simple, and brushed aside all filigree with a directness almost +brutal; but also, perhaps, because technique was not highly developed, +either in him who drew with a pencil or him who copied that drawing in +threads of silk and wool and gold. Whatever the cause, we can but +rejoice at the result, which, alas, is shown to us by but lamentably +few remnants outside of museums. These very archaic simple pieces are, +for the most part, work of the latter part of the Fourteenth Century +and the first part of the Fifteenth, and as the history of tapestry +shows, were almost invariably woven in France or in Flanders. At the +end of the time mentioned, designs, while retaining much the same +characteristics already described, became more ambitious, more +complicated, and introduced many scenes into one piece. This is easily +proved by a comparison of the illustration of _The Baillée des Roses_, +or _The Sacraments_, with _The Sack of Jerusalem_, all in the +Metropolitan Museum. + +The idea in the earliest Gothic cartoons--if the word may be allowed +here, was to make a single picture, a unified group. Into the later +cartoons came the fashion of multiplying these groups on one field, so +that a tapestry had many points of interest, many scenes where +tragedies or comedies were being enacted. Ingenious were the ways of +the early artist to accomplish the separation between the various +scenes, which were sometimes divided merely by their own attitudes, as +folk dispose themselves in groups in a large drawing-room; and +sometimes were divided by natural obstructions, like brooks and trees, +or by columns. + +Later yet, all the antique eccentricities passed away, and the laws of +perspective and balance were fully developed in an art which has an +unspeakable charm. All the things that modern art has decreed as crude +or childish has passed away, and the sweet flower of the Gothic +perfection unfolded its exquisite beauty. This Gothic perfection was +the Golden Age of tapestry. + + +ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL + +The use of architecture in the old Gothic designs makes a pleasing +necessity of fastening our attention upon it. In the very oldest +drawing the sole use is to separate one scene from another, in the +same hanging. For this purpose slender columns are used. It is +intensely interesting to note that these are the same variety of +column that meets us on every delightful prowl among old relics of +North Europe, relics of the days when man's highest and holiest energy +expressed itself at last in the cathedral. Those slender stems of the +northern Gothic are verily the stems of plants or of aspiring young +trees, strong when grouped, dainty when alone, and forming a refined +division for the various scenes in a picture. It must be confessed +that in the medium of aged wool they sometimes totter with the effect +of imminent fall, but that they do not fall, only inspires the +illusion that they belong to the marvellous age of fairy-tale and +fancy. + +The careful observer takes a keen look at these columns as a clue to +dates. The shape of the shaft, whether round or hectagonal, the +ornament on the capitals, are indications. It is not easy to know how +long after a design is adopted its use continues, but it is entirely a +simple matter to know that a tapestry bearing a capital designed in +1500 could not have been made prior to that time. + +The columns, later on, took on a different character. They lifted +slender shafts more ornamented. It is as though the restless men of +Europe had come up from the South and had brought with them +reminiscences of those tender models which shadowed the art of the +Saracens, the art which flavoured so much the art of Southern Europe. +The columns of many a cloister in Italy bear just such lines of +ornament, including the time when the brothers Cosmati were +illuminating the pattern with their rich mosaic. + +Then, later still, the columns burst into the exquisite bloom of the +early Renaissance, their character profoundly different, but their use +the same, that of dividing scenes from one another on the same woven +picture. But as any allusion to the Renaissance seems to thrust us far +out onto a radiant plain, let us scamper back into the mysterious wood +of the Gothic and pick up a few more of its indicative pebbles, even +as did Hans and Gretel of fairyland. + +A use of Gothic architectural detail gives a religious look to +tapestry, quite other than the later introduction of castles. These +castle strongholds of the Middle Ages wasted no daintiness of +construction, nor favoured light ornament, nor dainty hand. They were, +par excellence, places of defence against the frequent enemy; so, in +bastion and tower they were piled in curving masses around the scenes +of the later Gothic tapestries. Even more, they began to play an +important part in the _mise en scène_, and were drawn on tiny scale as +habitations of the actors in the play who thrust heads from windows no +larger than their throats, or who gathered in gigantic groups on +disproportioned tessellated roofs. + +Occasionally a lovely lady in distress is seen in fine raiment praying +high Heaven for deliverance from the top of a feudal pile not half as +high as her stately figure. Laws of proportion are quite lost in this +naïve way of telling a story, and one wonders whether the wise old +artist of other times, with his rigid solemnity was heroically +overcoming difficulties of traditional technique, or whether he was +smiling at the infantile taste of his wealthy patrons. The past +fashion in history was to record only the lives and expressions of +those great in power. The artist is ever the servant of such, but may +he not have had his own private thoughts, unpurchaseable, unsold, and +therefore only for our divining. There must have been a sense of +humour then as now, and twinkling eyes with which to see it. + + +GOTHIC FLOWERS + +Always, in studying a Gothic tapestry, we find flowers. The flowers of +nature, they are, a simple nature at that, and never to be thought of +in the same day as the gorgeous, expansive, proud flowers of the +Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century decoration. Those splendid later +blossoms flaunt their richness with assured swagger and demand of man +his homage, quite forgetting it is the flower's best part to give. + +Botticelli had not outgrown the Gothic flowers when he sprinkled them +on the ambient air and floating robe of his chaste and dreamy _Venus_, +nor when he set them about the elastic tripping feet of the _Spring_. +He knew their simple power, and so do we. Scarce a Gothic tapestry is +complete without them, happily for those bent on identification, for +rarely can one discover them without the same thrill that accompanies +the discovery of the first violets and snowdrops in the awakening +woods. + +The old weavers set them low in the picture, used them as +space-fillers wherever space lay happily before them, and they never +exaggerated their size, a virtue of which the full Renaissance cannot +boast. They are the simplest sort of flowers, the corolla of petals +turning as frankly toward the observer as the sunflower turns toward +her god, and little bells hanging as regularly as a chime. These are +their characteristics, easily recognisable and expressing the +unsophisticated charm of the creations of honest childish hands. +Irrelevancy is theirs, too. They spring from stones or pavement as +well as from turf or garden, and thus express the more ardently their +love for man and for close association with him. When they are seen +after this manner, it is sure that the early men have set them, just +as Shakespeare, at the same epoch, set violets blue and daisies pied, +cowslip, rosemary "for remembrance," and other familiar dainties, in +the grim foundation stones of his tragedies. + +A comparison of the different hangings available to the amateur, or of +the pictured examples given in this book, will reveal more than can be +well set down with the pen. The use of flowers in the set of _The +Baillée des Roses_ is exceptional, in that here the flowers form a +harmonious decorative scheme and are at the same time an important +part of the story which is pictured. + +In other earliest examples they playfully peep within the limits of +the hanging. Important use is, however, made of them in that +altogether entrancing set of _The Lady and the Unicorn_, where they +indicate the beauties of a fascinating park in which the delicate lady +and her attendant led a wondrous life guarded by two beasts as +fabulous as faithful, and the whole region of leaves and petals but +serving as a paradise for delectable white rabbits and piquant +monkeys. Could any modern indicate by sophistry of brush or brain so +intoxicating a fairyland, so gracious a field of dear delights? + + +COSTUMES + +A minute study of all the details of costume and accessories is one of +the measuring sticks with which we count the years of a tapestry's +life. This applies more particularly to the work prior to the +Renaissance, to the time when all characters were dressed in the mode +of the day--another evidence of that ingenuousness that delights us +who have passed the period where it is possible. + +As we have noted before, a costume cannot be used before its time, so, +as much as anything can, the study of its details prevents us from +going too far back with its date. When one has reached the point of +identifying a Gothic tapestry to where the exact decade is questioned, +the century having been ascertained, a careful study of costumes +outside the region of tapestries is necessary. This leads one into a +department all by itself and means delightful hours in libraries +poring over illustrated books on costume. It means to learn in what +manner our gods and heroes of fact and fancy habited themselves, how +Berengaria wore her head-dress and Jehane de Bourgogne her brocades, +and how the eternally various sleeve differed in its fashioning for +both men and women. + +Head-dresses were of such size and variety that they form a study in +themselves, and dates have been fixed by these alone. The turban in +its evolution is an interesting study, and makes one wonder if that, +too, did not wander north from the Moorish occupancy of Spain and the +wave of inspiration which flowed unceasingly from the Orient in the +years when Europe created little without inspiration from outside. + +A patriarchal bearded man in sacerdotal robes of costly elegance +seriously impresses his fellows all through the Gothic tapestries, and +his rival is a swaggering, important person, clean-shaven, in full +brocaded skirt, fur-bound, whose attitude declares him royal or near +it. The first of these is the model nowadays for stage kings, and even +a woman's toilet must vaunt itself to get notice beside his gorgeous +array. He wears about his waist a jewelled girdle of great splendour, +and on his head some impressive matter of either jewels or draping. +His face is usually full-bearded, but even when smooth, youth is not +expressed upon him. Youths of the same time are more _débonnaire_, are +springing about, clean-faced, clad in short, belted pelisse, showing +sprightly legs equally ready to step quickly towards a lovely lady or +to a field of battle. + +Soldiers--let a woman hesitate to speak of their dress and arms in any +tone but that of self-depreciating humility. Suffice it to say that in +the early work they wore the armour of the time, whether the scene +depicted were an event of history cotemporaneous, or of the time of +Moses. Fashions in dress changed with deliberation then, and it is to +the arms carried by the men that we must sometimes look for exactness +of date. + + +LETTERING + +The presence of letters is often noticed in hangings of the +Fourteenth, Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Centuries. It was a fashion +eminently satisfactory, a great assistance to the observer. It helped +tell the story, and, as these old pictures had always a story to tell, +it was entirely excusable--at least, so it seems to one who has stood +confounded before a modern painting without a catalogue or other +indication as to the why of certain agitated figures. + +The lettering was, in the older Gothic, explicit and unstinted, in +double or quadruple lines, in which case it counts as decoration +banded across top or bottom. Again, it is as trifling as a word or two +affixed to the persons of the play to designate them. This lettering +may be French or Latin. + + +EARLY BACKGROUNDS + +Backgrounds of the early Fifteenth Century deal much in +conventionalised, flat patterns, but fifty or sixty years later, when +figures began to be more crowded, there was but little space left +unoccupied by the participants in the allegory, and this was filled by +the artifices of architecture or herbage that formed the divisions +into the various scenes. Later the designing artists decided to let +into the picture the light of distant fields and skies, and thus was +introduced the suggestion of space outside the limit of the canvas. + + +LATER DRAWING + +After the Gothic drawing, came the avalanche of the Renaissance. That +altered all. The Italian taste took precedence, and from that time on +the cartoons of tapestries represent modern art, trailing through its +various fashions or modes of the hour. The purest Renaissance is +direct from the Italian artist, in tapestry as well as in painting, +but it is interesting to see the maladroitness of the Flemish hand +when left to draw cartoons for himself after the new manner. + +After the Renaissance came exaggeration and lack of sincerity; then +the improvement of the Seventeenth Century, notably in France, and +after that the dainty fancies of the Eighteenth Century, and here we +are dealing with art so modern that it needs no elucidation. The +drawing in tapestries is a subject as fascinating as it is +inexhaustible, but, however much one may read on it, nothing equals +actual association with as many tapestries as are available, for the +eye must be trained by vision and not by intellectual process alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +IDENTIFICATIONS (_Continued_) + + +If the amateur can have the fortune to see in the same hour a tapestry +of the early Fifteenth Century, and one a hundred years later, and +then one about 1550, from Brussels, drawn by an Italian artist, he has +before him an exposition of tapestry weaving in its golden age when it +sweeps through its greatest periods and phases to marvellous +perfection. The earliest example gives acquaintance with that almost +fabled time of the Gothic primitives in art; the second shows the +highest development of that art under the influence of civilisation, +and the third shows the obsession of the new art of the Renaissance. +It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that after the revival of classic +art the power of producing spontaneous Gothic was lost forever. From +that time on, every drawing has had certain characteristics, certain +sophistications that the artist cannot escape except in a deliberate +copy. + +Modern art, we call it. In tapestry it began with a freedom of drawing +in figures, and an adoption of classic ornament and architecture. In +this connexion it is interesting to note the introduction of Greek or +Roman detail in the columns that divide the scenes, to see saints +gathered by temples of classic form instead of Gothic. If Renaissance +details appear in a hanging called Gothic, it is easy to see that the +piece was woven after Europe was infected with modern art, and this is +an assistance in placing dates; at least, it checks the tendency to +slip back too far in antiquity, a tendency of which we in a new +country are entirely guilty. + +Lest too long a lingering on the subject of design become wearisome, a +mention of later designs is made briefly. The simplicity of the early +Renaissance, the perfection of the high Renaissance, are both shown in +tapestry as well as in paintings, and so, too, is exemplified the +inflation that ended in tiresome exuberance. + +After the fruit was ripe it fell into decay. After Sixteenth Century +perfection, Seventeenth Century designs fell of their own overweight, +figures were too exaggerated, draperies billowed out as in a perpetual +gale, architecture and landscapes were too important, and tapestries +became frankly pictures to attract the attention. To this class of +design belong all those monstrosities which reflected and distorted +the art of Raphael, and which have been intimately associated with +Scriptural subjects down to our own times. + +After Raphael, Rubens. Familiarity with this heroic painter is the key +to placing all the magnificent designs similar to the set of _Antony +and Cleopatra_ (Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). + +Then came the easily recognisable designs of the French ateliers of +the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. These are so frequently +brought before us as to seem almost like products of our own day. The +earlier ones seem (as ever) the purer art, the less sensual, +appealing to the more impersonal side of man, dealing in battles and +in classic subjects. Later, the drawings, becoming more directly +personal, in the time of Louis XIV portrayed events in the _Life of +the King_; in the next reign, slipping into the pleasures of the +_Royal Hunts_, from which the descent was easy into depicting nothing +higher than the soft loveliness of the fantastic life of the time as +led by those of high estate. From Lebrun to Watteau one can trace the +gradual seductive decline, where heroic ideal lowers softly in +alluring decadence into a mere tickling of the senses. And at this +time the productions of great tapestries stopped. + +Before leaving the review of drawing or design, it is well to recall +that the fleeting fashions of the day usually set the models, not in +the manner of treatment which we have been considering broadly, but in +the subject of designs. For example, the tendency to religious and +morality subjects in the Gothic, the love for Greek gods and heroes in +the Renaissance, the glorification of kings and warriors at all times, +and the portrayal of royal pleasures in modern times. The months of +the year were woven in innumerable designs and formed an endless theme +for artists' ingenuity during and after the Renaissance. + + +BORDERS + +It is but natural that, with the expansion in drawing, the freedom +given the pencil, imagination leaped outside the pictured scene and +worked fantastically on the border, and it is to the border that we +turn for many a mark of identification. The subject being a full one, +it has longer consideration in a separate chapter. First there is the +simple outlying tape, then the designed border. The early Gothic was +but a narrow line of flowers and berries; the later more sophisticated +Gothic enlarged and elaborated this same motive without introducing +another. The blossoms grew larger, the fruit fuller and the modest +cluster of berries was crowded by pears, apples and larger fruit, +until a general air of full luxury was given. The design was at first +kept neatly within bordering lines of tape, but later, overleaped them +with a flaunting leaf or mutinous flower. + +Ribbons appeared early, then came fragmentary glimpses of dainty +columns which gave nice reasons for the erect upstanding of so heavy a +decoration. These all were Gothic, but what came after shows the +riotous imagination of the Renaissance. It seemed in that fruitful +time, space itself were not large enough to hold the designs within +the artist's brain. Certainly no corner of a tapestry could be left +unfilled, and not that alone, but filled with perfect pictures instead +of with a simple repeated scheme of decoration. It was in this rich +time of production that the borders of tapestries grew to exceeding +width, and were divided into squares, each square containing a scene. +These scenes were often of sufficient importance in composition to +serve as models for the centre of a tapestry, each one of them, which +thought gives a little idea of the fertility of the artists in that +untired period. + +It was the delight of the great Raphael himself to expend his talent +on the border of his cartoons. From this artist others took their cue +with varying skill, but with fine effect, and with unlimited interest +to us. Those who run have time to remark only the great central +picture in a hanging; but, to those who live with it, this added line +of exquisite panorama is an unceasing delight for the contemplative +hours of solitude. From this rich departure from Gothic simplicity the +artists grew into the same fulness of design that ended in decadence. +The border became almost obnoxious in its inflated importance and from +voluptuous elegance changed to coarse overweight; and by these signs +we know the early inspired work from its rank and monstrous +aftergrowth in the Eighteenth Century. + +A quick glance at the plates showing the work of tapestry's next +highwater mark, the hundred years of the Gobelins' best work, +illustrates the difference between that time and others, and shows +also the gradual drop into the border which is merely a woven +representation of a gilded wood frame to enclose the woven picture as +a painted one would be framed. The plate of _Esther and Ahasuerus_ +illustrates this sort of border in the unmistakable lines of Louis XV +ornament. + + +POINT OF INTEREST + +Allusion has been made to the placing of the point of interest in a +tapestry, but this is a matter to be studied by much exercise of the +eye. Perhaps the amateur knows already much about it, an unconscious +knowledge, and needs only to be directed to his own store of +observations. As much as anything this change of design depended on +the uses the varying civilisation made of the hangings. So much +interest lies in this that I find myself ever prone to recapitulate +the very human facts of the past; the lining of rude stone walls and +the forming of interior doors, which was the office of the early +tapestries, and the loose full draping of the same; then the gradual +increase of luxury in the finish of dwellings themselves, until +tapestries were a decoration only; and then the minimising of grandeur +under Louis XV when everything fell into miniature and tapestries were +demanded only in small pieces that could be applied to screens or +chairs--a prostitution of art to the royal demand for prettiness. + +Keeping these general ideas of the uses of tapestries in mind, it is +easy to reason out the course of the point of interest in the design. +The Gothic aim was to make warm and comfortable the austere apartment; +the Renaissance sought to produce big decorative pictures to hang in +place of frescoes; and the French idea--beginning with that same +ideal--fell at last into the production of something that should +accompany the other arts in making minutely ornate the home of man. +Therefore, the Gothic artist placed the point of interest high; the +artists of the Renaissance followed the rules of modern painting (even +to the point of becoming academic); and the last good period of the +Gobelins dropped into miniature and decoration. + + +COLOURS + +Colours we have not yet considered, in this chapter of review for +identification's sake. They follow the same line, have the same +history, and this makes the beauty, the logic and the consistency of +our work, the work of tracing to their source the products of other +men and other times. + +Colours in the early Gothic--of what do they remind one so strongly as +of the marvels of old stained glass, that rich, pure kaleidoscope +which has lived so long in the atmosphere of incense ascending from +censer and from heart. The same scale, rich and simple, unafraid of +unshaded colour, characterise both glass and tapestry. + +The dyeing of colours in those days was a religion, a religion that +believed in holding fast to the forefathers' tenets. Red was known to +be a goodly colour, and blue an honest one; yellow was to conjure +with, and brown to shade; but beyond twelve or perhaps twenty colours, +the dyer never ventured. To these he gave the hours of his life, with +these he subjugated the white of Kentish wool, and gave it honest and +soft into the hand of the artist-weaver who, we must add, should have +been thankful for this brief gamut. To say the least, we of to-day are +grateful, for to this we owe the effect of cathedral glass seen in old +tapestries like that of _The Sacraments_. The Renaissance having more +sophisticated tales to tell, a higher intellectual development to +portray, demanded a longer scale of colour, so more were introduced to +paint in wool the pictures of the artists. At first we see them pure +and true, then muddy, uncertain, until a dull confusion comes, and the +hanging is depressing. When, at the last, it came that a tapestry was +but a painting in wool, with as many thousand differently united +threads as would reproduce the shading of brush-blended paint, the +whole thing fell of its own weight, and we of to-day value less the +unlimited pains of the elaborate dyer and weaver than we do the +simpler work. The reason is plain. Time fades a little even the +securest dyes, and that little is just enough to reduce to flat +monotones a work in which perhaps sixty thousand tones are set in +subtle shading. + + +HAUTE LISSE + +The worker on tapestries, the modern restorer--to whom be much +honour--finds a sign of identification in the handling of old +tapestries that is scarcely within the province of the amateur, but is +worth mentioning. It is the black tracing on the warp with which +high-warp weavers assist their work of copying the artist's cartoon. +Where this is present, the work is of the prized haute lisse or +high-warp manufacture, instead of the basse lisse or low-warp. But the +latter is not to be spoken of disparagingly, for in the admirable time +of French production about the time of the formation of the Gobelins, +low-warp work was almost as well executed as high-warp, and as much +valued. Brussels made her fame by haute-lisse, but in France the +low-warp was dubbed "_á la façon de Flandres_"; and as Flanders stood +for perfection, the weavers did their best to make the low-warp +production approach in excellence the famed work of the ateliers to +the north, which had formerly so prospered. + +To find this black line is to establish the fact that the tapestry was +woven on a high-warp loom, if nothing more. But that in itself means, +as is explained in the chapter on looms and _modus operandi_, that a +superior sort of weaver, an artist-artisan, did the work, and that he +had enormous difficulties to overcome in his patient task. + +A black outline woven in the fabric is one which artists prior to the +Seventeenth Century used to give greater strength to figures. It was +the habit thus to trace the entire human form, to lift it clearly from +its background, after the "poster" manner of to-day. It is as though a +dark pencil had outlined each figure. This practice stopped in later +years, and is not seen at all in the softer methods of the Gobelins. + + +THE WEAVE + +The materials of tapestries we know to be invariably wool, silk and +metal threads, yet the weaving of these varies with the talent of the +craftsman. The manner of the oldest weavers was to produce a fabric +not too thick, flexible rather--for was it not meant to hang in +folds?--and of an engagingly even surface. It was not too fine, yet +had none of the looseness associated with the coarse, hurried work of +later and degenerate times. It was more like the even fabric we +associate with machine work, yet as unlike that as palpitating flesh +is like a graven image. It was the logical production of honest +workmen who counted time well spent if spent in taking pains. + +This ability, to take detail as a religion, has left us the precious +relics of the exquisite period immediately before the Italian artists +had their way in Brussels. Notice the weave here. See the pattern of +the fabrics worn by the personages of high estate. You could almost +pluck it from the tapestry, shake out its folds, measure it flat, by +the yard, and find its delicate, intelligent pattern neat and +unbroken. Wonderful weaver, magic hands, infinite pains, were those to +produce such an effect on our sated modern vision, all with a few +threads of silk and wool and gold. + +Then there is the human face--it takes an artist to describe the +various faces with their beauty of modelling, their infinite variety +of type, their subtlety of expression. You can almost see the flushing +of the capillaries under the translucent skin, so fine are the mediums +of silk and wool under the magic handling of the talented weavers in +brilliant epochs. Not a detail in one of these older canvases of the +highest Gothic development has been neglected. + +The modern places his point of interest, and, knowing the observer's +eye is to obediently linger there, he splashes the rest of his drawing +into careless subserviency. But these careful older drawings showed in +every inch of their execution a conscience that might put the Puritan +to shame. Note, even, the ring that is being handed to the lady in the +Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan's (if yours is the happy chance to see +it). It was not sufficient for the weaver that it be a ring, but it +must be a ring set with a jewel, and that jewel must be the one +celebrated ever for its value; so in the canvas glows a carefully +rounded spot of pigeon-blood. + +This exquisitely fine weaving of the period which trembled between the +Gothic and the Renaissance made possible the execution of the later +work--and yet, and yet, who shall say that the later is the superior +work? Vaunted as it is, one turns to it because one must, but with +entire fidelity of heart for the preceding manner. + +In the high period of Brussels production, when the Renaissance was +well established there, through the cartoons of the Italian artists, +it is interesting to note the richness given to surfaces solidly +filled in with gold by throwing the thread in groups of four. The +light is thus caught and reflected, almost as though from a heap of +cut topaz. This characterises the tapestries of the _Mercury_ series +in the Blumenthal collection. + +Naturally, the evenness of the weaving has much to do with the value +of the piece--otherwise the pains of the old weavers would have been +futile. The surface smooth, free from lumps or ridges, strong with the +even strength of well-matched threads, this is the beauty that +characterises the best work this side of the Fifteenth Century. + +It is the especial prerogative of the merchant to touch with his own +hands a great number of tapestries. It is by this handling of the +fabric that he acquires a skill in determining the make of many a +tapestry. There is an indefinable quality about certain wools, and +about the manner of their weaving that is only revealed by the touch. +Not all hands are wise to detect, but only those of the sympathetic +lover of the materials they handle--and I have found many such among +the merchant collector. But even he finds identification a task as +difficult as it is interesting, and spends hours of thought and +research before arriving at a conclusion--and even then will retract +on new evidence. + + +COPIES + +There are certain pitfalls into which one may so easily fall that they +must never be out of mind. The worst of these, the pit which has the +most engaging and innocent entrance, is that of the copy, the modern +tapestry copied from the old a few decades ago. + +It is easy to find by reference to the huge volumes of French writers +on tapestry just when certain sets of cartoons were first woven. Take, +for example, the _Acts of the Apostles_ by Raphael; Brussels, 1519, is +the authentic date. But after that the Mortlake factory in England +wove a set, and others followed. This instance is too historic to be +entirely typical, but there are others less known. It was the habit of +factories that possessed a valuable set of cartoons to repeat the +production of these in their own factory, and also to make some +arrangement whereby other factories could also produce the same set of +hangings. + +In the evil days that fell upon Brussels after her apogee, copying her +own works took the place of new matters. Also, in the French factories +in their prime, the same set was repeated on the same looms and on +different ones, _vide_ _The Months_, _The Royal Residences_, _History of +Alexander_, etc., and the gorgeous _Life of Marie de Medici_. If these +notable examples were copied it is safe to conclude that many others +were. + +The study of marks is left for another chapter, for, by this time, +even the enthusiast is wearying. There seems so much to learn in this +matter of investigating and identifying, and, after all, everything is +uncertain. One looks about at identified pieces in museums and private +collections, even among the dealers, and the discouraging thought +comes that other people can tell at a glance. But this is very far +from being true. + +Even the savant studies long and investigates much before he gives a +positive classification of a piece that is not "pedigreed." Here is a +Flemish piece, here is a French, he will declare, and for the life of +you you cannot see the ear-marks that tell the ancestry. And so in all +humility you ask, "How can you tell with a glance of the eye?" But he +does not. No one can do that in every case. He must spend days at it, +reflecting, reading, handling, if the piece is evidently one of value. +He will show you, perhaps, as an honest dealer-collector showed me, a +set of five fine pieces which he could not identify at all. "The +weave," said he, "is Mortlake, the design in part German, these are +Italian _putti_--yet when all is told, I put down the work as an +Eighteenth Century copy of decadent Renaissance. But I am far from +sure." + +If a dealer, surrounded by experienced helpers, can thus be +nonplussed, there is little cause for humiliation on the part of the +amateur who hesitates. It is not expected that one can know at a +glance whether a piece of work was executed in France, or in Flanders +at a given epoch. But the more difficult the work of identification, +the keener the zest of the hunt. It is then that one calls into +requisition all the knowledge of art that the individual has been +unconsciously accumulating all the years of his life. The applied +arts reflect the art feeling of the age to which they belong, and the +diluted influence of the great artists directs them. This is true of +drawing and of colour. + +History has ever its reflection on arts and crafts, but perhaps it has +in tapestry its most intentional record. It is a forced and deliberate +piece of egoism when a monarch or a conqueror has a huge picture drawn +exhibiting his grandeur in battle or his elegance at home. In some +hangings modesty limits to the border of an imaginary and decorative +scene the monogram of the heroine of history for whose apartments the +tapestry was woven. And so history is given a grace, a delicate +meaning, a warm interest, which is one of the side-gardens of delight +that show from the long path of identification study. + +This little book has as its aim the gentle purpose of pointing the way +to a knowledge that shall be a guide in knowing gold from--not from +dross, that is too simple, but gold from gold-plating let us say, for +the mad lover of tapestries will not admit that any hand-woven +tapestry is on the low level of dross. Any work which human hands have +touched and lingered on in execution is deserving of the respect of +the modern whose life must of necessity be lived in hasty execution. +Every chapter, then, is but a caution or a counsel, and this one but a +briefer statement of the same matter. If onto the fringe of the main +thought hangs much of history, it is history inseparable from it, for +history of nations gives the history of great men, and these regulate +the doings of all the lesser ones below them. + +Identification, pure and simple, is for the rapt lover of art who +pursues his game in museums and has his quiet delights that others +little dream of. But in general, to the practical yet cultivated +American, it is a means to expend wisely the derided dollars that we +impress upon other nations to the artistic enrichment of our own +country. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +BORDERS + + +If the artists of tapestries had never drawn nor ever woven anything +but the borders that frame them, we would have in that department +alone sufficient matter for happy investigation and acutely refined +pleasure. I even go so far as to think that in certain epochs the +border is the whole matter, and the main design is but an enlargement +of one of the many motives of which it is composed. But that is in one +particularly rich era, and in good time we shall arrive at its joys. + +First then--for the orderly mind grows stubborn and confused at any +beginning that begins in the middle--we must hark back to the earliest +tapestries. Tracing the growth of the border is a pleasant pastime, a +game of history in which amorini, grotesques and nymphs are the +personages, and garlands of flowers their perpetual accessories, but +first comes the time when there were no borders, the Middle Ages. + +There were none, according to modern parlance, but it was usual to +edge each hanging with a tape of monotone, a woven galloon of quiet +hue, which had two purposes; one, to finish neatly the work, as the +housewife hems a napkin; the other, to provide space of simple +material for hanging on rude hooks the big pictured surface. + +This latter consideration was one of no small importance, as we can +readily see by sending the thought back to the time when tapestries +led a very different life (so human they seem in their association +with men that the expression must be allowed) from that of to-day, +when they are secured to stretchers, or lined, or even framed behind +glass like an easel painting. + +In those other times of romance and chivalry a great man's tapestries +were always en route. Like their owner, they were continually going on +long marches, nor were they allowed to rest long in one place. From +the familiar castle walls they were taken down to line the next +habitat of their owner, and that might be the castle of some other +lord, or it might be the tent of an encampment. Again, it might be +that an open-air exposition for a pageant, was the temporary use. + +The tapestries thus bundled about, forever hung and unhung on hooks +well or ill-spaced, handled roughly by unknowing varlets or dull +soldiers, these tapestries suffered much, even to the point of +dilapidation, and thus arose the need for a tape border, and thus it +happens also that the relics of that time are found mainly among the +religious pieces. These last found safe asylum within convent walls or +in the sombre quiet of cathedral shades, and like all who dwell within +such precincts were protected from contact with a rude world. + +One day, sitting solitary at his wools, it occurred to the weaver of +the early Fifteenth Century to spill some of his flowers out upon the +dark galloon that edged his work. The effect was charming. He +experimented further, went into the enchanted wood of such a design as +that of _The Lady and the Unicorn_ to pluck more flowers, and of them +wove a solid garland, symmetrical, strong, with which to frame the +picture. To keep from confounding this with the airy bells and starry +corollas of the tender inspiring blossoms of the work, he made them +bolder, trained them to their service in solid symmetric mass, and +edged the whole, both sides, with the accustomed two-inch line of +solid rich maroon or blue. + +It is easy to see the process of mind. For a long time there had been +gropings, the feeling that some sort of border was needed, a division +line between the world of reality and the world of fable. Examine the +Arras work and see to what tricks the artist had recourse. The +architectural resource of columns, for example; where he could do so, +the artist decoyed one to the margin. Thus he slipped in a frame, and +broke none of the canons of his art, and no more beautiful frame could +have been devised, as we see by following up the development and use +of the column. Once out from its position in the edge of the picture +into its post in the border, it never stops in its beauty of growth +until it reaches such perfection as is seen in the twisted and +garlanded columns which flank the Rubens series, and those superb +shafts in _The Royal Residences_ of Lebrun at the Gobelins under Louis +XIV. + +The other trick of framing in his subject which was open to the Arras +weaver whom we call Gothic, was to set verses, long lines of print in +French or Latin at top or bottom. + +But his first real legitimate border was made of the same flowers and +leaves that made graceful the finials and capitals of Gothic carving. +Small clustered fruit, like grapes or berries, came naturally mixed +with these, as Nature herself gives both fruit and flowers upon the +earth in one fair month. + +Simplicity was the thing, and a continued turning to Nature, not as to +a cult like a latter-day nature-student, but as a child to its mother, +or a hart to the water brook. As even in a border, stayed between two +lines of solid-coloured galloon, flowers and fruit do not stand +forever upright without help, the weaver gave probability to his +abundant mass by tying it here and there with a knot of ribbon and +letting the ribbon flaunt itself as ribbons have ever done to the +delight of the eye that loves a truant. + +By this time--crawling over the top of the Fourteen Hundreds--the +border had grown wider, had left its meagre allowance of three or four +inches, and was fast acquiring a foot in width. This meant more +detail, a broader design, coarser flowers, bigger fruit, and these +spraying over the galloon, and all but invading the picture. It was +all in the way of development. The simplicity of former times was +lost, but design was groping for the great change, the change of the +Renaissance. + +The border tells quickly when it dawned, and when its light put out +all candles like a glorious sun--not forgetting that some of those +candles would better have been left burning. By this time Brussels was +the centre of manufacture and the cartoonist had come to influence all +weavings. Just as carpenters and masons, who were the planners and +builders of our forefathers' homes, have now to submit to the +domination of the _École des Beaux Arts_ graduates, so the man at the +loom came under the direction of Italian artists. And even the border +was not left to the mind of the weaver, but was carefully and +consistently planned by the artist to accompany his greater work, if +greater it was. + +Raphael himself set that fashion. He was a born decorator, and in +laying out the borders of his tapestries unbridled his wonderful +invention and let it produce as many harmonies as could be crowded +into miniature. He set the fashion of dividing the border into as many +sections as symmetry would allow, dividing them so daintily that the +eye scarce notes the division, so purely is it of the intellect. In +the border for the _Acts of the Apostles_, this style of treatment is +the one he preferred. This set has no copy in America, but an almost +unrivalled example of this style of border is in the private +collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., the _Herse and Mercury_.[16] +Here picture follows picture in charming succession, in that purity +and perfection of design with which the early Renaissance delights us. +The classic note set by the subject of the hanging is never forgotten, +but on this key is played a varied harmony of line and colour. For +dainty invention, this sort of border reaches a very high expression +of art. + +If Raphael set the fashion, others at least were not slow in seizing +the new idea and from that time on, until a period much later--that of +the Gobelins under Louis XV--it was the fashion to introduce great and +distracting interest into the border. Even the little galloon became a +twist of two ribbons around a repeated flower, or a small reciprocal +pattern, so covetous was design of all plain spaces. + +Lesser artists than Raphael also divided the border into squares and +oblongs, and with charming effect. The sides were built up after the +same fashion, but instead of the delicate architectural divisions he +affected, partitions were made with massed fruit and flowers, vines +and trellises. The scenes were surprisingly dramatic, Flemish artists +showing a preference for such Biblical reminders as Samson with his +head being shorn in Delilah's lap, while Philistines just beyond +waited the enervating result of the barber's work; or, any of the +loves and conflicts of the Greek myths was used. + +The colouring--too much cannot be seen of the warm, delicate +blendings. There is always the look of a flowerbed at dawn, before +Chanticleer's second call has brought the sun to sharpen outlines, +before dreams and night-mist have altogether quitted the place. Plenty +of warm wood colours are there, of lake blues, of smothered reds. +Precious they are to the eye, these scenes, but hard to find now +except in bits which some dealer has preserved by framing in a screen +or in the carved enclosure of some nut-wood chair. + +For a time borders continued thus, all marked off without conscious +effort, into countless delicious scenes. Then a change begins. After +perfection, must come something less until the wave rises again. If in +Raphael's time the border claimed a two-foot strip for its imaginings, +it was slow in coming narrower again, and need required that it be +filled. But here is where the variance lay: Raphael had so much to +say that he begged space in which to portray it; his imitators had so +much space to fill that their heavy imagination bungled clumsily in +the effort. They filled it, then, with a heterogeneous mass of +foliage, fruit and flowers, trained occasionally to make a bower for a +woman, a stand for a warrior, but all out of scale, never keeping to +any standard, and lost absolutely in unintelligent confusion. + +The Flemings in their decadence did this, and the Italians in the +Seventeenth Century did more, they introduced all manner of cartouche. +The cartouche plays an important part in the boasting of great +families and the sycophancy of those who cater to men of high estate, +for it served as a field whereon to blazon the arms of the patron, who +doubtless felt as man has from all time, that he must indeed be great +whose symbols or initials are permanently affixed to art or +architecture. The cartouche came to divide the border into medallions, +to apportion space for the various motives; but with a far less subtle +art than that of the older men who traced their airy arbours and +trailed their dainty vines and set their delicate grotesques, in a +manner half playful and wholly charming. + +But when the cartouche appeared, what is the effect? It is as though a +boxful of old brooches had been at hand and these were set, +symmetrically balanced, around the frame, and the spaces between +filled with miscellaneous ornament on a scale of sumptuous size. +Confusing, this, and a far cry from harmony. Yet, such are the +seductions of tapestry in colour and texture, and so caressing is the +hand of time, that these borders of the Seventeenth Century given us +by Italy and Flanders, are full of interest and beauty. + +The very bombast of them gives joy. Who can stand before the Barberini +set, _The Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ_, bequeathed +to the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, in New York, by Mrs. Clarke, +without being more than pleased to recognise in the border the +indefatigable Barberini bee? We are human enough to glance at the +pictures of sacred scenes as on a tale that is told, but that potent +insect makes us at once acquainted with a family of renown, puts us on +a friendly footing with a great cardinal of the house, reminds us of +sundry wanderings of our own in Rome; and then, suddenly flashes from +its wings a memory of the great conqueror of Europe, who after the +Italian campaign, set this bee among his own personal symbols and +called it Napoleonic. Yes, these things interest us enormously, +personally, for they pique imagination and help memory to fit together +neatly the wandering bits of history's jigsaw puzzle. Besides this, +they help the work of identifying old tapestries, a pleasure so keen +that every sense is enlivened thereby. + +When decorative design deserts the Greek example, it strays on +dangerous ground, unless Nature is the model. The Italians of the +Seventeenth Century, tired of forever imitating and copying, lost all +their refinement in the effort to originate. Grossness, sensuality +took the place of fine purity in border designs. Inflation, so to +speak, replaced inspiration. + +Amorini--the word can hardly be used without suggesting the gay babes +who tumble deliciously among Correggio's clouds or who snatch flowers +in ways of grace, on every sort of decoration. In these later +drawings, these tapestry borders of say 1650, they are monsters of +distortion, and resemble not at all the rosy child we know in the +flesh. They are overfed, self-indulgent, steeped in the wisdom of a +corrupt and licentious experience. I cannot feel that anyone should +like them, except as curiosities of a past century. + +Heavy swags of fruit, searching for larger things, changed to +pumpkins, melons, in the gross fashion of enlarged designs for +borders. Almost they fell of their own weight. Cornucopias spilled +out, each one, the harvest of an acre. And thus paucity of imagination +was replaced by increase in the size of each object used in filling up +the border's allotted space. + +After this riot had continued long enough in its inebriety, the +corrective came through the influence of Rubens in the North and of +Lebrun in France. These two geniuses knew how to gather into their +control the art strength of their age, and to train it into +intellectual results. Mere bulk, mere space-filling, had to give way +under the mind force of these two men, who by their superb invention +gave new standards to decorative art in Flanders and in France. +Drawings were made in scale again, and designs were built in harmony, +constructed not merely to catch the eye, but to gratify the logical +mind. + +The day was for the grandiose in borders. The petite and _mignonne_ of +Raphael's grotesques was no longer suited to the people, or, to put +it otherwise, the people were not such as seek expression in +refinement, for all art is but the visible evidence of a state of mind +or soul. + +The wish to be sumptuous and superb, then, was a force, and so the art +expressed it, but in a way that holds our admiration. A stroll in the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows us better than words the +perfection of design at this grandiose era. There one sees _Antony and +Cleopatra_ of Rubens--probably. On these hangings the border has all +the evidences of genius. If there were no picture at all to enclose, +if there were but this decorative frame, a superb inspiration would be +flaunted. From substantial urns at right and left, springs the design +at the sides which mounts higher and higher, design on design, but +always with probability. That is the secret of its beauty, its +probability, yet we are cheated all the time and like it. No vase of +fruit could ever uphold a cupid's frolic, nor could an emblematic bird +support a chalice, yet the artist makes it seem so. Note how he hangs +his swags, and swings his amorini, from the horizontal borders. He +first sets a good strong architectural moulding of classic +egg-and-dart, and leaf, and into this able motive thrusts hooks and +rings. From these solid facts he hangs his happy weight of fruit and +flower and peachy flesh. Nothing could be more simple, nothing could +be more logical. The cartouche at the top, he had no choice but to put +it there, to hold the title of the picture, and at the bottom came a +tiny landscape to balance. So much for fashion well executed. + +Colours were reformed, too, at this time, for we are now at the era +when tapestry had its last run of best days, that is to say, at the +time when France began her wondrous ascendency under Louis XIV. In +Italy colours had grown garish. Too much light in that country of the +sun, flooded and over-coloured its pictured scenes. Tints were too +strong, masses of blue and yellow and red glared all in tones purely +bright. They may have suited the twilight of the church, the gloom of +a palace closed in narrow streets, but they scourge the modern eye as +does a blasting light. The Gothic days gave borders the deep soft +tones of serious mood; the Renaissance played on a daintier scale; the +Seventeenth Century rushed into too frank a palette. + +It remained for Rubens and Lebrun to find a scheme both rich and +subdued, to bring back the taste errant. Here let me note a +peculiarity of colour, noticeable in work of Seventeenth and +Eighteenth Century borders. The colour tone varies in different pieces +of the same set, and this is not the result of fading, but was done by +deliberate intent, one side border being light and another dark, or +one entire border being lighter than others of the same set. + +Lest in speaking of borders, too much reference might be made to the +history of tapestry in general, I have left out Simon Vouet and Henri +Lerambert as inspired composers of the frame which enclosed their +cartoons; but it is well to say briefly that these men at least had +not followed false gods, and were not guilty of the flagrant offence +to taste that put a smirch on Italian art. These are the men who +preceded the establishment of State ateliers under Louis XIV and who +made productive the reign of Henri IV. + +If Rubens kept to a style of large detail, that was a popular one and +had many followers in a grandiose age. Lebrun in borders harked back +to the classics of Greece and Rome, thus restoring the exquisite +quality of delicacy associated with a thousand designs of amphoræ, +foliated scrolls and light grotesques. But he expressed himself more +individually and daringly in the series called _The Months_ and _The +Royal Residences_. This set is so celebrated, so delectable, so +grateful to the eye of the tapestry lover, that familiarity with it +must be assumed. You recollect it, once you have seen no more than a +photograph of one of its squares. But it cannot be pertinent here, for +it has no important border, say you. No, rather it is all border. Look +what the cunning artist has done. His problem was to picture twelve +country houses. To his mind it must have seemed like converting a room +into an architect's office, to hang it full of buildings. But genius +came to the front, his wonderful feeling for decoration, and lo, he +filled his canvas with glorious foreground, full of things man lives +with; columns, the size appropriate to the salon they are placed in; +urns, peacocks, all the ante-terrace frippery of the grand age, +arranged in the foreground. Garlands are fresh hung on the columns as +though our decorator had but just posed them, and beyond are clustered +trees--with a small opening for a vista. Way off in the light-bathed +distance stands the faithfully drawn château, but here, here where the +observer stands, is all elegance and grace and welcome shade, and +close friendship with luxury. + +This work of Lebrun's is then the epitome of border. Greater than this +hath no man done, to make a tapestry all border which yet so +intensified the value of the small central design, that not even the +royal patron, jealous of his own conspicuousness, discovered that art +had replaced display. + +After that a great change came. As the picture ever regulates the +border, that change was but logical. After the "Sun King" came the +regency of the effeminate Philippe, whom the Queen Mother had kept +more like a court page than a man. Artists lapped over from the +previous reign, and these were encouraged to develop the smaller, +daintier, more effeminate designs that had already begun to assert +their charm. Borders took on the new method. And as small space was +needed for the curves and shells and latticed bands, the border +narrower grew. + +Like Alice, after the potent dose, the border shrank and shrank, until +in time it became a gold frame, like the _encadrement_ of any easel +picture. And that, too, was logical, for tapestries became at this +time like painted pictures, and lost their original significance of +undulating hangings. + +The well-known motives of the Louis XV decoration rippled around the +edge of the tapestry, woven in shades of yellow silk and imitated well +the carved and gilded wood of other frames, those of chairs and +screens and paintings. There are those who deplore the mode, but at +least it seems appropriate to the style of picture it encloses. + +And here let us consider a moment this matter of appropriateness. So +far we have thought only of tapestries and their borders as +inseparable, and as composed at the same time. But, alas, this is the +ideal; the fact is that in the habit which weavers had of repeating +their sets when a model proved a favourite among patrons, led them +into providing variety by setting up a different border around the +drawing. As this reproducing, this copying of old cartoons was +sometimes done one or two hundred years after the original was drawn, +we find an anachronism most disagreeable to one who has an orderly +mind, who hates to see a telephone in a Venus' shell, for instance. +The whole thing is thrown out of key. It is as though your old family +portrait of the Colonial Governor was framed in "art nouveau." + +The big men, the almost divine Raphael, and later Rubens, felt so +keenly the necessity of harmony between picture and frame, that they +were not above drawing their own borders, and it is evident they +delighted in the work. But Raphael's cartoons went not only to +Brussels, but elsewhere, and somehow the borders got left behind; and +thus we see his celebrated suite of _Acts of the Apostles_ with a +different entourage in the Madrid set from what it bears in Rome. + +There is another matter, and this has to do with commerce more than +art. An old tapestry is of such value that mere association with it +adds to the market price of newer work. So it is that sometimes a +whole border is cut off and transferred to an inferior tapestry, and +the tapestry thus denuded is surrounded with a border woven nowadays +in some atelier of repairs, copied from an old design. + +Let such desecrators beware. The border of a tapestry must appertain, +must be an integral part of the whole design for the sake of artistic +harmony. + + +FOOTNOTE: + +[16] Frontispiece. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TAPESTRY MARKS + + +Regardless of what a man's longing for fame may have been in the +Middle Ages, he let his works pass into the world without a sign upon +them that portrayed their author. This is as true of the lesser arts +as of the greater. It was not the fashion in the days of Giotto, nor +of Raphael, to sign a painting in vermillion with a flourished +underscore. The artist was content to sink individuality in the +general good, to work for art's sake, not for personal fame. + +This was true of the lesser artists who wove or directed the weaving +of the tapestries called Gothic, not only through the time of the +simple earnest primitives, but through the brilliant high development +of that style as shown at the studio of Jean de Rome, of the Brussels +ateliers, through the years lying between the close of the Fifteenth +Century and the Raphael invasion. + +Even that important event brought no consequence of that sort. The +freemasonry among celebrities in those days showed its perfection by +this very lack of signed work. Everybody knew the man by his works, +and the works by their excellence. + +Tapestry marks were non-existent as a system until the Brussels edict +of 1528 made them compulsory in that town. Documents and history have +been less unkind to those early workers, and to those of us who like +to feel the thrill of human brotherhood as it connects the artist and +craftsman centuries dead with our own strife for the ideal. Nicolas +Bataille in 1379 cannot remain unknown since the publishing of certain +documents concerning his Christmas task of the _Apocalypse_, and there +are scores of known master weavers reaching up through the ages to the +time when marks began. + +The Brussels mark was the first. It was a simple and appropriate +composition, a shield flanked with two letters B. These were capitals +or not. One was reversed or not, with little arbitrariness, for the +mark was legible and unmistakable in any case, even though the weaver +took great liberties--as he sometimes did. The place for this mark was +the galloon, and it was usually executed in a lighter colour, but a +single tone. + + [Illustration: BRUSSELS] + +So much for the town mark, which has a score or more of variations. In +addition to this was the mark of the weaver or of the merchant who +gave the commission. A pity it was thus to confound the two, to give +such confusion between a gifted craftsman and a mere dealer. One was +giving the years of his life and the cunning of his hand to the work, +while the other did but please a rich or royal patron with his wares. +But so it was, and we can but study over the symbols and glean at +least that the tapestry was considered a worthy one, reached the high +standard of the day, or it would have had no mark at all. + +For it was thus that the marks were first adopted. They were for the +protection of every one against fraud. High perfection made Brussels +famous, but fame brought with it such a rush of patronage that only by +lessening the quality of productions could orders be filled in such +hot haste. + +Tricks of the trade grew and prospered; there were tricks of dyeing +after a tapestry was finished, in case the flesh tints or other light +shades were not pleasing. There was a trick of dividing a large square +into strips so that several looms might work upon it at once. And +there was all manner of slighting in the weave, in the use of the comb +which makes close the fabric, in the setting of the warp to make a +less than usual number of threads to the inch. In fact, men tricked +men as much in those days as in our own. + +The fame of the city's industry was in danger. It was the province of +the guild of tapestry-makers to protect it against its own evils. +Thus, in 1528, a few years after the weaving of the Raphael +tapestries, the law was made that all tapestries should bear the +Brussels mark and that of the weaver or the client. Small tapestries +were exempt, but at that time small tapestries were not frequent, or +were simple verdures, and, charming as they are, they lacked the same +intellectual effort of composition. + +The Brussels guild stipulated the size at which the tapestry should be +marked. It was given at six ells, a Flemish ell being about 27½ +inches. Therefore, a tapestry under approximately thirteen feet might +escape the order. But that was the day of large tapestries, the day +of the Italian cartoonists, and important pieces reached that measure. + +The guild of the tapissiers in Brussels, once started on restrictions, +drew article after article, until it seemed that manacles were put on +the masters' hands. To these restrictions the decadence of Brussels is +ascribed, but that were like laying a criminal's fault to the laws of +the country. Primarily must have been the desire to shirk, the intent +to do questionable work. And behind that must have been a basic cause. +Possibly it was one of those which we are apt to consider modern, that +is, the desire to turn effort into the coin of the realm. All of the +enormous quantity of orders received by Brussels in the days of her +highest prosperity could not have been accepted had not the master of +the ateliers pressed his underlings to highest speed. + +Speed meant deterioration in quality of work, and so Brussels tried by +laws to prevent this lamentable result, and to protect the fair fame +of the symbol woven in the bordering galloon. The other sign which +accompanied the town mark, of the two letters B, should have had +excellent results, the personal mark of the weaver that his work might +be known. + +In spite of this spur to personal pride, the standard lessened in a +few years, but not until certain weavers had won a fame that thrills +even at this distance. Unfortunately, a great client was considered as +important as a weaver, and it was often his arbitrary sign that was +woven. And sometimes a dealer, wishing glory through his dealings, +ordered his sign in the galloon. And thus comes a long array of signs +which are not identifiable always. In general, one or two initials +were introduced into these symbols, which were fanciful designs that +any idle pencil might draw, but in the lapse of years it is not +possible to know which able weaver or what great purveyor to royalty +the letter A or B or C may have signified. + +Happily the light of Wilhelm de Pannemaker could not be hid even by +piling centuries upon it. His works were of such a nature that, like +those of Van Aelst, who had no mark, they would always be known for +their historic association. In illustration, there is his set of the +_Conquest of Tunis_ (plate facing page 62), woven under circumstances +of interest. Even without a mark, it would still be known that the +master weaver of Brussels (whom all acknowledged Pannemaker to be) set +up his looms, so many that it must have seemed to the folk of Granada +that a new industry had come to live among them. And it is a matter of +Spanish history that the great Emperor Charles V carried in his train +the court artist, Van Orley, that his exploits be pictured for the +gratification of himself and posterity. + +But Wilhelm de Pannemaker lived and worked in the time of marks, so +his tapestries bear his sign in addition to the Brussels mark. Of +symbols he had as many as nine or ten, but all of the same general +character, taking as their main motive the W and the P of his name. + + [Illustration: WILHELM DE PANNEMAKER] + +Incorporated into his sign, as into many others of the period, was a +mark resembling a figure 4. Tradition has it that when this four was +reversed, the tapestry was not for a private client, but for a dealer. +One set of the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ at Madrid (plates facing pages +72, 73, 74, 75) bears De Pannemaker's mark, while others have a +conglomerate pencilling. + +The sign of Jacques Geubels is, like W. de Pannemaker's, made up of +his initials combined with fantastic lines which doubtless were full +of meaning to their inventor, little as they convey to us. The example +of Jacques Geubels' weaving given in the plate is from the Chicago +Institute of Art. His time was late Sixteenth Century. + +The _Acts of the Apostles_ of Raphael, the first set, was woven by +Peter van Aelst without a mark, but the set at Madrid bears the marks +of several Brussels weavers, some attributed to Nicolas Leyniers. + +The desirability of distinguishing tapestries by marks in the galloon +appealed to other weaving centres, and the method of Brussels found +favour outside that town. Presently Bruges adopted a sign similar to +that of her neighbour, by adding to the double B and shield a small b +traversed by a crown. + + [Illustration: JACQUES GEUBELS] + + [Illustration: NICOLAS LEYNIERS] + + [Illustration: BRUGES] + +In Oudenarde, that town of wonderful verdures, the weavers, as though +by trick of modesty, often avoided such clues to identity as a woven +letter might be, and adopted signs. However significant and famous +they may have been in the Sixteenth Century, they mean little now. The +town mark with which these were combined was distinctly a striped +shield with decoration like antennæ. + + [Illustration: OUDENARDE] + +Enghien is one of the tapestry towns of which we are gradually +becoming aware. Its products have not always been recognised, but of +late more interest is taken in this tributary to the great stream of +the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. + +The famous Peter or Pierre van Aelst, selected from all of Flanders' +able craftsmen to work for Raphael and the Pope, was born in this +little town, wove here and, more yet, was known as Pierre of Enghien. +Yet it is the larger town of Brussels which wore his laurels. + + [Illustration: ENGHIEN] + +The Enghien town marks are an easy adaptation of the arms of the +place, and the weavers' marks are generally monograms. + +Weavers' marks, after playing about the eccentricities of cipher, +changed in the Seventeenth Century to easily read initials, sometimes +interlaced, sometimes apart. Later on it became the mode to weave the +entire name. An example of these is the two letters C of Charles de +Comans on the galloon of _Meleager and Atalanta_ (plate facing page +68); and the name G. V. D. Strecken in the _Antony and Cleopatra_ +(plate facing page 79). + +Other countries than Flanders were wise in their generation, and +placed the marks that are so welcome to the eye of the modern who +seeks to know all the secrets of the tapestry before him. In the +Seventeenth Century, when Paris was gathering her scattered decorative +force for later demonstration at the Gobelins, the city had a pretty +mark for its own, a simple fleur-de-lis and the initial P, and the +initials of the weaver. + + [Illustration: PARIS] + + [Illustration: ALEX. DE COMANS] + + [Illustration: CHARLES DE COMANS] + +That Jean Lefèvre, who with his father Pierre was imported into Italy +to set the mode of able weaving for the Florentines, had a sign +unmistakable on the Gobelins tapestries of the _History of the King_. +(Plate facing page 114.) It was a simple monogram or union of his +initials. In the Eighteenth Century the Gobelins took the fleur-de-lis +of Paris, and its own initial letter G. The modern Gobelins' marks +combined the G with an implement of the craft, a _broche_ and a +straying thread. + + [Illustration: JEAN LEFÈVRE] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS, 18TH CENTURY] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS, MODERN] + +In Italy, in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, we find the able +Flemings, Nicholas Karcher and John Rost, using their personal marks +after the manner of their country. Karcher thus signed his +marvellously executed grotesques of Bacchiacca which hang in the +gallery of tapestries in Florence. (Plates facing pages 48 and 49.) +John Rost's fancy led him to pun upon his name by illustrating a fowl +roasting on the spit. Karcher had a little different mark in the +Ferrara looms, where he went at the call of the d'Este Duke. + + [Illustration: KARCHER, FLORENCE] + + [Illustration: JOHN ROST] + + [Illustration: KARCHER, FERRARA] + +The Florence factory made a mark of its own, refreshingly simple, +avoiding all of the cabalistic intricacies that are so often made +meaningless by the passing of the years, and which were affected by +the early Brussels weavers. The mark found on Florence tapestries is +the famous Florentine lily, and the initial of the town. The mark of +Pierre Lefèvre, when weaving here, was a combination of letters. + + [Illustration: PIERRE LEFÈVRE, FLORENCE] + + [Illustration: MORTLAKE] + +When the Mortlake factory was established in England, the date was +sufficiently late, 1619, for marking to be considered a necessity. The +factory mark was a simple shield quartered by means of a cross thrown +thereon. Sir Francis Crane contented himself with a simple F. C., one +a-top the other, as his identification. Philip de Maecht, he whose +family went from Holland to England as tapissiers, directed at +Mortlake the weaving of a part of the celebrated _Vulcan_ and _Venus_ +series, and his monogram can be seen on _The Expulsion of Vulcan from +Olympus_ (coloured plate facing page 170), owned by Mrs. A. von +Zedlitz, as well as in the other rare _Vulcan_ pieces owned by Philip +Hiss, Esq. This same Philip de Maecht worked under De Comans in Paris, +he having been decoyed thence by the wise organisers of Mortlake. + + [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS CRANE] + + [Illustration: PHILIP DE MAECHT] + +The marks on tapestries are as numerous as the marks on china or +silver, and the absence of marks confronts the hunter of signs with +baffling blankness, as is the case of many very old wares, whether +china, silver or tapestries. Also, late work of poor quality is +unmarked. Having thus disposed of the situation, it remains to +identify the marks when they exist. The exhaustive works of the French +writers must be consulted for this pleasure. There are hundreds of +known signs, but there exist also many unidentified signs, yet the +presence of a sign of any kind is a keen joy to the owner of a hanging +which displays it. + + [Illustration: TOURNAY] + + [Illustration: LILLE] + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HOW IT IS MADE + + +Wanting to see the wheels go 'round is a desire not limited to babes. +We, with our minds stocked with the history and romance of tapestry, +yet want to know just how it is made in every particular, just how the +loom works, how the threads are placed. + +It seems that there must be some obscure and occult secret hidden +within the looms that work such magic, and we want to pluck it out, +lay it in the sunlight and dissect its intricacies. Well, then, let us +enter a tapestry factory and see what is there. But it is safe to +forecast the final deduction--which must ever be that the god of +patience is here omnipotent. Talent there must be, but even that is +without avail if patience lacks. + +The factory for tapestries seems, then, little like a factory. The +belt and wheel, the throb and haste are not there. The whole place +seems like a quiet school, where tasks are done in silence broken by +an occasional voice or two. It is a place where every one seems bent +on accomplishing a brave amount of fancy-work; a kindergarten, if you +like, for grown-ups. + +Within are many departments of labour. The looms are the thing, of +course, so must be considered first, although much preparing is done +before their work can be begun. + +The looms are classic in their method, in their simplicity. They have +scarcely changed since the days when Solomon built his Temple and +draped it with such gorgeous hangings that even the inspired writers +digress to emphasise their richness with long descriptions that could +not possibly have assisted the cause of their religion. + +The stitch made by the modern loom is the same as that made by the +looms of the furthermost-back Egyptian, by the Greeks, by the Chinese, +of primitive peoples everywhere, by the people of the East in the +familiar Khelim rugs, and by the aborigines of the two Americas. There +is nothing new, nothing obscure about it, being a simple weaving of +warp and woof. Penelope's loom was the same almost as that in use +to-day at the Gobelins factory in Paris. Archeologists have discovered +pictures of the ancient Egyptian loom, and of Penelope's, and there is +but little change from the times of these ladies to our days. + +The fact is, the work is hand-work, must always be so, and the loom is +but a tool for its working, a tool which keeps in place the threads +set by hand. That is why tapestry must always be valuable and original +and no more possible to copy by machine than is a painting. + +High warp and low warp are the terms so often used as to seem a +shibboleth. _Haute lisse_ and _basse lisse_ are their French +equivalents. They describe the two kinds of looms, the former +signifying the loom which stands upright, or high; the latter +indicating the loom which is extended horizontally or low. On the high +loom, the instrument which holds the thread is called the _broche_, +and on the low loom it is called the _flute_. + +The stitch produced by the two is the same. The manner of producing +it varies in convenience to the operators, the low-warp being the +easier, or at least the more convenient and therefore the quicker +method. + +The cynic is ever ready to say that the tyrant living within a man +declares only for those things which represent great sacrifice of time +and effort on the part of other men. Perhaps it is true, and that +therein lies the preference of the connoisseur in tapestry for the +works of the high-warp loom. Even the wisest experts cannot always +tell by an examination of a fabric, on which sort of loom it was +woven, high warp or low, other evidence being excluded. + +The high loom has, then, the threads of its warp hung like a weighted +veil, from the top of the loom to the floor, with a huge wooden roller +to receive the finished fabric at the bottom and one at the top for +the yet unneeded threads. Each thread of the warp is caught by a loop, +which in turn is fastened to a movable bar, and by means of this the +worker is able to advance or withdraw the alternate threads for the +casting of the _broche_ or _flute_, which is the shuttle. Behind the +veil of the warp sits the weaver--_tissier_ or _tapissier_--with his +supply of coloured thread; back of him is the cartoon he is copying. +He can only see his work by means of a little mirror the other side of +his warp, which reflects it. The only indulgence that convenience +accords him is a tracing on the white threads of the warp, a copy of +the picture he is weaving. Thus stands the prisoner of art, sentenced +to hard labour, but with the heart-swelling joy of creating, to +lighten his task. + + [Illustration: WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO] + + [Illustration: SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS] + +High-warp looms were those that made famous the tapestries of Arras in +the Fifteenth Century, of Brussels in the Sixteenth, and of Paris in +the Seventeenth, therefore it is not strange that they are worshipped +as having a resident, mysterious power. + +To-day, the age of practicality, they scarcely exist outside the old +Gobelins in Paris. But this is not the day of tapestry weaving. + +A shuttle, thrown by machine, goes all the width of the fabric, back +and forth. The _flute_ or _broche_, which is the shuttle of the +tapestry weaver, flies only as far as it is desired to thrust it, to +finish the figure on which its especial colour is required. Thus, a +leaf, a detail of any small sort, may mount higher and higher on the +warp, to its completion, before other adjacent parts are attempted. + +The effect of this is to leave open slits, petty gashes in the fabric, +running lengthwise of the warp, and these are all united later with +the needle, in the hands of the women who thus finish the pieces. + +Unused colours wound on the hundreds of flutes are dropped at the +demand of the pattern, left in a rich confusion of shades to be +resumed by the workmen at will; but the threads are not severed, if +the colour is to be used again soon. + +Low-warp work is the same except for the weaver's position in relation +to his work. Instead of the warp like a thin wall before his face, on +which he seems to play as on one side of a harp, the warp is extended +before him as a table. It is easy to see how much more convenient is +this method. + +The wooden rollers are the same, one for the yet unused length of +warp, the other for the finished fabric, and over one of these rollers +the worker leans, protected from its hostile hardness by a pillow. + +The pattern lies below, just beneath the warp, and easily seen through +it, not the mere tracing as on the threads of the high-warp loom, but +the coloured cartoon, so that shades may be followed as well as lines. +It sometimes happens, however, in copying a valuable old tapestry, +that a black and white drawing only is placed under the warp while the +original is suspended behind the weavers, who look to it for colour +suggestion. + +In low-warp the worker has the privilege of laying his flutes on top +the work, the flutes not at the moment in use, and there they lie in +convenient mass ready to resume for the figure abandoned for another. +If the right hand thrusts the flute, it is the duty of the left to see +that the alternate and the limiting threads of the warp are properly +lifted. First comes a pressure of the foot on a long, lath-like pedal +which is attached to the bar holding in turn the loops which pass +around alternate threads. + +That pressure lifts the threads, and the fingers of the left hand, +deft and agile, limit and select those which the flute shall cover +with its coloured woof. + +After the casting of a thread, or of a group of threads, the weaver +picks up a comb of steel or of ivory, and packs hard the woof, one +line against another, to make the fabric firm and even in the weaving. + + [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY] + + [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON] + +Such then is the simple process of the looms, far simpler seen than +described and yet depending absolutely for its beauty on the talent +and patience of gifted workers. It is as simple as the alphabet, yet +as complicated as the dictionary. + +Patient years of apprenticeship must a man spend before he can become +a good weaver, and then must he give the best years of his life to +becoming perfect in the craft. But if the work is exacting, at least +it is agreeable, almost lovable, and in delightful contrast to the +labour of those who but tend machines driven by power. And if the art +of tapestry weaving is almost a lost one to-day, at least the weavers +can find in history much matter for pride. It is no mean ambition to +follow the profession of conscientious Nicolas Bataille, of the able +Pannemaker, of La Planche and Comans, of Tessier, Cozette, and a +hundred others of family and fame. + +Much preparation is necessary before the loom can be set going. First +is the design, the cartoon. There we are in the department of the +artist, and must talk in whispers. Raphael belongs there, and +Leonardo; and Rubens, Teniers, Lebrun, Boucher and David, train us +through the past centuries into our own. + +But the cartoon of to-day is not so sacred a matter, and we may speak +of it frankly--regretfully, too. Cartoons hang all over the walls of +the tapestry factory, so much property for the setting of future +scenes, and besides, they make a decoration which alone would lift the +tapestry factory into the regions of art and class it among ateliers, +instead of factories. The cartoons are painted, however, where the +artist will, in his own studio or in one provided for the purpose by +the director, as in the case of the Baumgarten works. They have the +look of special designs. They are not done in the manner of a painting +to be hung on a wall. Their brushwork is smooth and broad, dividing +lines well distinguished by marked contrasts in colour to make +possible their translation into the language of silk and wool. + +After the cartoon is ready, comes the warp. That is set with the +closeness agreed upon. Naturally, the smaller the thread of the warp, +the closer is it set, the more threads to the inch, and thus comes +fine fabric. Coarser warp means fewer threads to the inch, quicker +work for the weaver and less value to the tapestry. From ten to twenty +threads to the inch carries the limits of coarseness and fineness. In +fine weaving, a weaver will accomplish but a square foot a week. Think +of that, you who wonder at the price of tapestries ordered for the new +drawing-room. + +The warp comes to the factory all in big hanks of even thread. +Nowadays it is usually of cotton, although they contend at the +Gobelins that wool warp is preferable, for it gives the finished +fabric a lightness and flexibility that the heavier, stiffer cotton +destroys. + +Setting the warp is a matter of patience and precision, and we will +leave the workman with it, to make it the whole length of the tapestry +to be woven, and to fasten the loops of thread around each _chaîne_ +and to fasten those in turn, alternating, to the bar by means of +which they may be shifted to make the in-and-out of the weaving. + +Then after choosing the colours, the weaving begins. It is like +nothing so much as a piece of fancy-work. If it were not for the +cumbersome loom, I am sure ladies would emulate the king who wove for +amusement, and would make chair-pieces on the summer veranda. + +But before the silks and wools go to the weaving they are treated to a +beauty-bath in the dye-room. Hanks of wool and skeins of silk are but +neutral matters, coming to the factory devoid of individuality, mere +pale, soft bulk. + +A room apart, somewhere away from the studio of design and the rooms +where the looms stand stolid, is a laboratory of dyes, a place which +looks like a farmhouse kitchen on preserving day. You sniff the air as +you go in, the air that is swaying long bunches of pendulous colour, +and it smells warm and moist and full of the suggestions of magic. + +Over a big cauldron two men are bending, stirring a witches' broth to +charm man's eye. One of the wooden paddles brings up a mass from the +heavy liquid. It is silk, glistening rich, of the colour of melted +rubies. Upstairs the looms are making it into a damask background onto +which are thrown the garlands Boucher drew and Tessier loved to work. + +Dainties fished up from another cauldron are strung along a line to +dry, soft wool and shining silk, all in shades of grapes, of asters, +of heliotropes, telling their manifest destiny. And beyond, are great +bunches of colour, red which mounts a quivering scale to salmon pink, +blue which sails into tempered gray, greens dancing to the note of +the forest. It is a nature's workshop, a laboratory where the rainbow +serves, apprenticed. + +Jars, stone jars, little kegs, all ugly enough, are standing against +the wall. But uncover one, touch the thick dark stuff within, and +feast your eye on the colour left on a curious finger-tip. You are +close to the cochineal, to indigo, and all the wonderful alchemy of +colour. + +Aniline? Not a bit of the treacherous stuff. It takes the eye, but it +is a fickle friend. They say a mordant has been found to stay the +flight of its lovely colours. Perhaps; it may be. But what weaver of +tapestry would be willing to confide his labour to the care of a dye +that has not known the test of ages? Aniline dye, says the director of +a tapestry factory, may last twenty years--but twenty years is nothing +in the life of a tapestry. Over in Paris, at the Gobelins, a master +rules as chemist of the dyes, with the dignity of a special laboratory +for making them. + +In America, with no government assuming the expense, the dyes are +bought in such form that only expert dyers can use them in the few +factories which exist. But no new hazards are taken. The matter is too +serious. Economy in dyes brings too great disaster to contemplate. It +is only too true that a man, several men, may labour a year to produce +a perfect work, and that all the labour may be ruined by an ephemeral +dye, by the escape of tones skilfully laid. Let commerce cheat in some +other way, if it must, but not in this. Let the dye be honest, as +enduring as the colours imprisoned in gems. + + [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON] + +It is a modern economy. The ancients knew not of it, and were +willing to spend any amount on colours. More than that a port, or a +nation, was willing to rest its fame on a single colour. Purple of +Tyre, red of Turkey, yellow of China, are terms familiar through the +ages, and think not these colours were to be had for the asking. They +brought prices which we do not pay now even in this age of money. The +brothers Gobelins--their fame originally rested on their ambition to +be "dyers of scarlet," that being an ultimate test of skill. + +It is a serious matter, that of dyeing wools and silks for tapestries, +and one which the directors conduct within the walls of the tapestry +factory. The Gobelins uses for its reds, cochineal or the roots of the +madder; for blue, indigo and Prussian blue; for yellow, the vegetable +colour extracted from gaude. + +In America there is a specialist in dyes: Miss Charlotte Pendleton, who +gives her entire attention to rediscovering the dyes of the ancients, +the dyes that made a city's fame. It is owing to her conscientious +work that the tapestry repairers of museums can find appropriate +threads. + +It is interesting to trace the differing gamut of colour through the +ages. Old dyes produced, old weavers needed, but twenty tones for the +old work. Tapestries of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries were as +simple in scale as stained glass, and as honest. Flesh tints were +neutral by contrast to the splendid reds, honest yellows and rich +greens. Colours meant something, then, too; had a sentimental language +all their own. When white predominated, purity was implied; black was +mortification of the flesh; livid yellow was tribulation; red, +charity; green, meditation. + +An examination of the colours in the series which depicts the life of +Louis XIV, reveals a use of but seventy-nine colours. So up to that +time, great honesty of dye, and fine decorative effect were preserved. +The shades were produced by two little tricks open as the day, +hatching being one, the other, winding two shades on the same broche +or shuttle. Hatching, as we know, is merely a penman's trick, of +shading with lines of light and dark. + +It was when they began to paint the lily, in the days of pretty +corruption, that the whole matter of dyeing changed. In the Eighteenth +Century when the Regent Philip, and then La Pompadour, set the mode, +things greatly altered. When big decorative effects were no more, the +stimulating effect of deep strong colour was considered vulgar, and, +only the suave sweetness of Boucher, Nattier, Fragonard, were admired. +Every one played a pretty part, all life was a theatre of gay comedy, +or a flattered miniature. + +So, as we have seen, new times and new modes caused the Gobelins to +copy paintings instead of to interpret cartoons--and there lay the +destruction of their art. Instead of four-score tones, the dyers hung +on their lines tens and tens of thousands. And the weavers wove them +all into their fabric-painting, with the result that when the light +lay on them long, the delicate shades faded and with them was lost the +meaning of the design. And that is why the Gobelins of the older time +are worth more as decoration than those of the later. + +We are doing a little better nowadays. There is a limit to the tones, +and in all new work a decided tendency to abandon the copying of +brush-shading in favour of a more restricted gamut of colour. By this +means the future worker may regain the lost charm of the simple old +pieces of work. + +Another room in the factory of tapestry interests those who like to +see the creation of things. It is one of the prettiest rooms of all, +and is more than ever like a kindergarten for grown-ups. Or, if you +like, it is a chamber in a feudal castle where the women gather when +the men are gone to war. + +Here the workers are all girls and women, each bending over a large +embroidery frame supported at a convenient level from the floor. On +one frame is a long flowered border with cartouches in the strong rich +colours of Louis XIV. On another a sofa-seat copied from Boucher. They +are both new, but like all work fresh from the loom are full of the +open slits left in the process of weaving, a necessity of the changing +colours and the requirements of the drawing. + +All these little slits, varying from half an inch to several inches in +length, must be sewed with strong, careful stitches before the +tapestry can be considered complete. + +On other frames are stretched old tapestries for repairs. At the +Gobelins as many as forty women are thus employed. The malapropos +deduction springs here that the demand for repaired old work is +greater than that for new in the famous factory, for only six or eight +weavers are there occupied. + +Repairing is almost an art in itself. The emperor established a small +school at Berlin for training girls in this trade. The studio of the +late Mr. Ffoulke in Florence kept twenty or thirty girls occupied. The +Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a repair studio under a +graduate of the Berlin school. The factories of Baumgarten and of +Herter, in New York, also conduct repairs; and the museum at Boston as +well. + +We cannot make old tapestries, but we can restore and preserve them by +skilled labour in special ateliers. Restoration by the needle is the +only perfect restoration, and this is as yet but little done here, +although the method is so well known in Europe. We deplore the quicker +way, to use the loom for weaving large sections of border or large +bits which have gone into hopeless shreds, or have disappeared +altogether by reason of the bitter years when tapestries had fallen +into neglect. But the quicker way is the poorer, with these great +claimants for time. The woven figures are relentless in this, that +they claim of the living man a lion's share of his precious days. His +reward is that they outlast him. Food for cynics lies there. + +The careful worker looks close and sees the warp exposed like fiddle +strings here and there. She matches the colour of silk and wool to the +elusive shades and covers stitch by stitch the bare threads, in +perfect imitation of the loom's way. + +Sometimes the warp is gone. Then the work tests the best skill. The +threads, the _chaîne_, must be picked up, one by one, and united +invisibly to the new, and then the pattern woven over with the needle. +It happens that large holes remain to be filled entirely, the pattern +matched, the design caught or imagined from some other part of the +fabric. That takes skill indeed. But it is done, and so well, that the +repairer is called not that, but a restorer. + +The two factories in New York, the Baumgarten and Herter ateliers, +have certain employés always busy with repairs and restorations. Given +even a fragment, the rest is supplied to make a perfect whole, in +these studios where the manner of the old workers is so closely +studied. For big repairs a drawing is made, a cartoon on the same +principle as that of large cartoons, in colours, these following the +old. Then it remains for the weaver to set his loom with the +corresponding number of threads, that the new fabric may match the old +in fineness. Then, too, comes the test of matching colours, a test +that almost never discovers a worker equal to its exactions. That is +as often as not the fault of the dyer who has supplied colours too +fresh. + +It is the repairs done by the needle that give the best effect, +although such restorations are costly and slow. + +Old repairs on old tapestries have been made, in some instances, very +long ago. It often happens, in old sets, that a great piece of another +tapestry has been roughly set in, like the knee-patches of a farm boy. +The object has been merely to fill the hole, not to match colour +scheme or figure. And these patches are by the judicious restorer +taken out and their place carefully filled with the needle. + +Moths, say some, do not devour old tapestries. The reason given is +that the ancient wool is so desiccated as to be no longer nutritious. +A pretty argument, but not to be trusted, for I have seen moths +comfortably browsing on a Burgundian hanging, keeping house and +raising families on such precious stuff. + +Commerce demands that tricks shall be played in the repair room, but +not such great ones that serious corruption will result. The coarse +verdures of the Eighteenth Century that were thrown lightly off the +looms with transient interest are sought now for coverings to antique +chairs. To give the unbroken greens more charm, an occasional bird is +snipped from a worn branch where he has long and mutely reposed, and +is posed anew on the centre of a back or seat. It is the part of the +repairer to see that he looks at home in his new surroundings. + +If metal threads have not been spoken of in this chapter on _modus +operandi_, it is because metal is so little used since the time of +Louis XV as to warrant omitting it. And the little that appears seems +very different from the "gold of Cyprus" that made gorgeous and +valuable the tapestries of Arras, of Brussels and of old Paris. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY + +A. D. 1066 + + +So long as one word continues to have more than one meaning, civilised +man will continue to gain false impressions. The word tapestry suffers +as much as any other--witness the attempt made for hundreds of years +among all nations to set apart a word that shall be used only to +designate the hand-woven pictured hangings and coverings discussed in +this book; arras, gobelins, _toile peinte_, etc. In English, tapestry +may mean almost any decorative stuff, and so comes it that we speak of +the wonderful hanging which gives name to this chapter as the tapestry +of Bayeux (plates facing pages 242, 243 and 244), when it is in +reality an embroidery. But so much is it confused with true tapestry, +and so poignantly does it interest the Anglo-Saxon that we will +introduce it here, even while acknowledging its extraneous character. + +To begin with, then, we say frankly that it is not a tapestry; that it +has no place in this book. And then we will trail its length through a +short review of its history and its interest as a human document of +the first order. + +In itself it is a strip of holland--brown, heavy linen cloth, +measuring in length about two hundred and thirty-one feet, and in +width, nineteen and two-thirds inches--remarkable dimensions which are +accounted for in the neatest way. The hanging was used in the +cathedral of the little French city of Bayeux, draped entirely around +the nave of the Norman Cathedral, which space it exactly covered. This +indicates to archeologists the original purpose of the hanging. + +On the brown linen is embroidered in coloured wools a panoramic +succession of incidents, with border top and bottom. The colours are +but eight, two shades each of green and blue, with yellow, +dove-colour, red and brown. + +This, in brief, is the great Bayeux tapestry. But its threads breathe +history; its stitches sing romance; and we who love to touch +humorously the spirits of brothers who lived so long ago, find here +the matter that humanly unites the Eleventh Century with the +Twentieth. + +The subject is the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in +1066. That is fixed beyond a doubt, so that the precious cloth cannot +trail its ends any further back into antiquity than that event. +However, even the most insatiable antiquarian of European specialties +is smilingly content with such a date. + +Legend has it that Queen Matilda, the wife of the conqueror, executed +the work as an evidence of the devotion and adulation that were his +due and her pleasure: There are lovely pictures in the mind of Matilda +in the safety of the chambers of the old castle at Caen, directing +each day a corps of lovely ladies in the task of their historic +embroidery, each one sewing into the fabric her own secret thoughts of +lover or husband absent on the great Conqueror's business. In absence +of direct testimony to the contrary, why not let us believe this +which comes as near truth as any legend may, and fits the case most +pleasantly? + + [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] + + [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] + +The history it portrays in all its seventy-odd yards is easy enough to +verify. That is like working out a puzzle with the key in hand. But +the history of this keenly interesting embroidery is not so easy. + +The records are niggardly. Inventories record it in 1369 and 1476. In +an inventory of the Bishop of Bayeux it is mentioned in 1563. About +this time it was in ecclesiastical hands and used for decorating the +nave of the Bayeux Cathedral. + +Then the world forgot it. + +How the world rediscovered that which was never lost is interesting +matter. Here is the story: + +In 1724 an antiquarian found a drawing of about ten yards long, taken +from the tapestry. Here, said he and his fellow sages, is the drawing +of some wonderful, ancient work of art, most probably a frieze or +other decoration carved in wood or stone. Naturally, the desire was to +find such a monument. But no one could remember such a carving in any +church or castle. + +Father Montfaucon, of Saint Maur, with interest intelligent, wrote to +the prior of St. Vigor's at Bayeux, and received the most satisfactory +reply, that the drawing represented not a carving but a hanging in +possession of his church, and associated with many yards more of the +same cloth. + +So all this time the wonderful relic had lain safe in Bayeux, and +never was lost, but only forgotten by outsiders. The rediscovery, +so-called, aroused much comment, and England declared the cloth the +noblest monument of her history. + +It was in use at that time, and after, once a year. It was hung around +the cathedral nave on St. John's Day, and left for eight days that all +the people might see it. + +The fact that it was not religious in subject, that it could not +possibly be interpreted otherwise than as a secular history, makes +remarkable its place in the cathedral. This is explained by the +suggestion that while Bishop Odo established that precedent, all +others but followed without thought. + +Since 1724 the world outside of Bayeux has never forgotten this +panorama of a past age, and its history is known from that time on. + +The Revolution of France had its effect even on this treasure; or +would have had if the clergy had not been sufficiently capable to +defend it. It was hidden in the depositories of the cathedral until +the storm was over. + +It seems there was no treasure in Europe unknown to Napoleon. He +commanded in 1803 that the Bayeux tapestry, of which he had heard so +much, be brought to the National Museum for his inspection. The +playwrights of Paris seized on the pictured cloth as material for +their imagination, and, refusing to take seriously the crude figures, +wrote humorously of Matilda eternally at work over her ridiculous +task, surrounded with simple ladies equally blind to art and nature. +It is only too easy to let humour play about the ill-drawn figures. +They must be taken grandly serious, or ridicule will thrust tongue in +cheek. It is to these French plays of 1804 that we owe the firmness +of the tradition that Queen Matilda in 1066 worked the embroidery. + + [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] + +Napoleon returned the cloth to Bayeux, not to the church, but to the +Hotel de Ville, in which manner it became the property of the civil +authorities, instead of the ecclesiastic. It was rolled on cylinders, +that by an easy mechanism it might be seen by visitors. But the fabric +suffered much by the handling of a curious public. Even the most +enlightened and considerate hands can break threads which time has +played with for eight centuries. + +It was decided, therefore, to give the ancient _toile fatiguée_ a +quiet, permanent home. For this purpose a museum was built, and about +1835 the great Bayeux tapestry was carefully installed behind glass, +its full length extended on the walls for all to see who journey +thither and who ring the guardian's bell at the courtyard's handsome +portico. + +Once since then, once only, has the venerable fabric left its cabinet. +This was at the time of the Prussians when, in 1871, France trembled +for even her most intimate and special treasures. + +The tapestry was taken from its case, rolled with care and placed in a +zinc cylinder, hermetically sealed. Then it was placed far from harm; +but exactly where, is a secret that the guardians of the tapestry do +well to conserve. There might be another trouble, and asylum needed +for the treasure in the future. + +The pictures of the great embroidery are such as a child might draw, +for crudeness; but the archeologist knows how to read into them a +thousand vital points. History helps out, too, with the story of +Harold, moustached like the proper Englishman of to-day, taking a +commission from William, riding gaily out on a gentleman's errand, not +a warrior's. This is shown by the falcon on his wrist, that wonderful +bird of the Middle Ages that marked the gentleman by his associations, +marked the high-born man on an errand of peace or pleasure. + +In these travelling days, no sooner do we land in Normandy than Mount +St. Michael looms up as a happy pilgrimage. So to the same religious +refuge Harold went on the pictured cloth, crossed the adjacent river +in peril, and--how pleasingly does the past leap up and tap the +present--he floundered in the quicksands that surround the Mount, and +about which the driver of your carriage across the _passerelle_ will +tell you recent tales of similar flounderings. + +And when in Brittany, who does not go to tumbley-down Dinan to see its +ancient gates and walls, its palaces of Queen Anne, its lurching crowd +of houses? It is thither that Harold, made of threads of ancient wool, +sped and gave battle after the manner of his time. + +Another link to make us love this relic of the olden time: It is the +star, the star so great that the space of the picture is all too small +to place it; so the excited hands of the embroiderers set it outside +the limit, in the border. + +It flames over false Harold's head and he remembers sombrely that it +is an omen of a change of rule. He is king now, has usurped a throne, +has had himself crowned. But for how long is he monarch, with this +flaming menace burning into his courage? The year finishing saw the +prophecy fulfilled by the coming of the conqueror. + +It was this section of the tapestry that, when it came to Paris, had +power to startle Napoleon, ever superstitious, ever ready to read +signs. The star over Harold's head reminded him of the possible +brevity of his own eminence. + +The star that blazed in 1066--we have found it. It was not imaginary. +Behold how prettily the bits of history fit together, even though we +go far afield to find those bits. This one comes from China. Records +were better kept there in those times than in Christian Europe; and +the Chinese astronomers write of a star appearing April 2, 1066, which +was seen first in the early morning sky, then after a time disappeared +to reappear in the evening sky, with a flaming tail, most agreeably +sensational. It was Halley's comet, the same that we watched in 1910 +with no superstitious fear at all for princes nor for powers. But it +is interesting to know that our modern comet was recorded in China in +the Eleventh Century, and has its portrait on the Bayeux tapestry, and +that it frightened the great Harold into a fit of guilty conscience. + +The archeologist gives reason for the faith that is in him concerning +the Bayeux tapestry by reading the language of its details, such as +the style of arms used by its preposterous soldiers; by gestures; by +groupings of its figures; and we are only too glad to believe his +wondrous deductions. + +There are in all fifteen hundred and twelve figures in this celebrated +cloth, if one includes birds, beasts, boats, _et cetera_, with the +men; and amidst all this elongated crowd is but one woman. Queen +Matilda, left at home for months, immured with her ladies, probably +had quite enough of women to refrain easily from portraying them. +Needless to say, this one embroidered lady interests poignantly the +archeologist. + +Most of the animals are in the border--active little beasts who make a +running accompaniment to the tale they adorn. This excepts the very +wonderful horses ridden by knights of action. + +Scenes of the pictured history of William's conquest are divided one +from the other by trees. Possibly the archeologist sees in these +evidences of extinct varieties, for not in all this round, green world +do trees grow like unto those of the Bayeux tapestry. They are dream +trees from the gardens of the Hesperides, and set in useful decoration +to divide event from event and to give sensations to the student of +the tree in ornament. + +Such is the Bayeux tapestry, which, as was conscientiously forewarned, +is not a tapestry at all, but the most interesting embroidery of +Europe. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +TO-DAY + + +The making of inspired tapestry does not belong to to-day. The _amour +propre_ suffers a distinct pain in this acknowledgment. It were far +more agreeable to foster the feeling that this age is in advance of +any other, that we are at the front of the world's progress. + +So we are in many matters, but those matters are all bent toward one +thing--making haste. Economy of time occupies the attention of +scientist, inventor, labourer. Yet a lavish expenditure of time is the +one thing the perfect tapestry inexorably demands, and that is the +fundamental reason why it cannot now enter a brilliant period of +production like those of the past. + +It is not that one atelier cannot find enough weavers to devote their +lives to sober, leisurely production; it is that the stimulating +effect is gone, of a craft eagerly pursued in various centres, where +guilds may be formed, where healthy rivalry spurs to excellence, where +the world of the fine arts is also vitally concerned. + +The great hangings of the past were the natural expression of +decoration in those days, the natural demand of pomp, of splendour and +of comfort. As in all things great and small, the act is but the +visible expression of an inward impulse, and we of to-day have not the +spirit that expresses itself in the reverent building of cathedrals, +or in the inspired composition of tapestries. + +This is to be entirely distinguished from appreciation. That gift we +have, and it is momentarily increasing. To be entirely commercial, +which view is of course not the right one, one need only watch the +reports of sales at home and abroad to see what this latter-day +appreciation means in pelf. In England a tapestry was recently +unearthed and identified as one of the series of seven woven for +Cardinal Woolsey. It is not of extraordinary size, but was woven in +the interesting years hovering above and below the century mark of +1500. The time was when public favour spoke for the upholding of +morality with a conspicuousness which could be called Puritanism, were +the anachronism possible. Pointing a moral was the fundamental excuse +for pictorial art. This tapestry represents one of _The Seven Deadly +Sins_. Hampton Court displays the three other known pieces of the +series, and he who harbours this most recent discovery has paid +$33,000 for the privilege. + +But that is a tiny sum compared to the price that rumour accredits Mr. +Morgan with paying for _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ (called +also _The Kingdom of Heaven_). And this is topped by $750,000 paid for +a Boucher set of five pieces. One might continue to enumerate the +sales where enormous sums are laid down in appreciation of the men +whose excellence of work we cannot achieve, but these sums paid only +show with pathetic discouragement the completeness with which the +spirit of commercialism has replaced the spirit of art, at least in +the expression of art that occupies our attention. + + [Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION] + + [Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION] + +If, then, this is not an age of production, but of appreciation, +it, too, has its natural expression. First it is the acquiring at any +sacrifice of the ancient hangings wherever they are found; and after +that it is their restoration and preservation. This is the reason for +recent high prices and the reason, too, for the establishment of +ateliers of repair, which are found in all large centres in Europe as +well as wherever any important museum exists in America. + +It would not be possible nor profitable to dwell on the tapestry +repair shops of Europe. They have always been; the industry is one +that has existed since the Burgundian dukes tore holes in their +magnificent tapestries by dragging them over the face of Europe, and +since Henry the Eighth, in eager imitation of the continentals, +established in the royal household a supervisor of tapestry repairs. +Paris is full of repairers, and in the little streets on the other +side of the Seine old women sit in doorways on a sunny day, defeating +the efforts of time to destroy the loved _toiles peintes_. But this +haphazard repair, done on the knee, as a garment might be mended, is +not comparable to the careful, exact work of the restorer at her +frame. One ranks as woman's natural task of nine stitches, while the +other is the work of intelligent patience and skilled endeavour. + +Wherever looms are set up, a department of repair is the logical +accompaniment. As every tapestry taken from the loom appears punctured +with tiny slits, places left open in the weaving, and as all of these +need careful sewing before the tapestry is finished, a corps of +needlewomen is a part of a loom's equipment. This is true in all but +the ateliers of the Merton Abbey factory, of which we shall speak +later. + +Apart from repairs, what is being done in the present day? So little +that historians of the future are going to find scant pickings for +their record. + + +FRANCE + +The Gobelins factory being the last one to make a permanent +contribution to art, the impulse is to ask what it is doing now. That +is easily answered, but there is no man so optimistic that he can find +therein matter for hope. + +France is commendably determined not to let the great industry die. It +would seem a loss of ancient glory to shut down the Gobelins. Yet why +does it live? It lives because a body of men have the patriotic pride +to keep it alive. But as for its products, they are without +inspiration, without beauty to the eye trained to higher expressions +of art. + +The Gobelins to-day is almost purely a museum, not only in the +treasures it exposes in its collection of ancient "toiles," but +because here is preserved the use of the high-warp loom, and the same +method of manufacture as in other and better times. A crowd of +interested folk drift in and out between the portals, survey the +Pavilion of Louis XIV and the court, the garden and the stream, then, +turning inside, the modern surveys the work of the ancient, the +remnants of time. And no less curious and no less remote do the old +tapestries seem than the atelier where the high looms rear their +cylinders and mute men play their colour harmonies on the warp. It +all seems of other times; it all seems dead. And it is a dead art. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY + + Luxembourg, Paris] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY + + Pantheon, Paris] + +The tapestries on the looms are garish, crude, modern art in its +cheapest expression; or else they are brilliant-hued copies of +time-softened paintings that were never meant to be translated into +wool and silk. + +The looms are always busy, nevertheless. There is always preserved a +staff of officers, the director, the chemist of dyes, and all that; +and the tapissiers are careful workmen, with perfection, not haste, in +view. The State directs the work, the State pays for it, the State +consumes the products. That is the Republic's way of continuing the +craft that was the serious pleasure of kings. But there is now no +personal element to give it the vital touch. There is no Gabrielle +d'Estrées, nor Henri IV; no Medici, no Louis XIV, no Pompadour. All is +impersonal, uninspired. + +Men who have worked in the deadening influence of the Gobelins declare +that the factory cannot last much longer. But it is improbable that +France--Republican France, that holds with bourgeois tenacity to +aristocratic evidences--will abandon this, her expensive toy, her +inheritance of the time of kings. + +In the time of the Second Empire it was the fashion to copy, at the +Gobelins, the portraits of celebrated personages executed by +Winterhalter. The exquisite portrait of the beautiful Empress Eugénie +by this delectable court painter has a delicacy and grace that is all +unhurt by contrast with more modern schools of painting. But fancy the +texture of the lovely flesh copied in the medium of woven threads, no +matter how delicately dyed and skilfully wrought. Painting is one art, +tapestry-making is entirely another. + +But that is just where the fault lay and continued, the inability of +the Gobelins ateliers to understand that the two must not be confused. +The same false idea that caused Winterhalter's portraits to be copied, +gave to the modern tapissiers the paintings of the high Renaissance to +reproduce. Titian's most celebrated works were set up on the loom, as +for example the beautiful fancy known as _Sacred and Profane Love_, +which perplexes the loiterer of to-day in the Villa Borghese. Other +paintings copied were Raphael's _Transfiguration_, Guido René's +_Aurora_, Andrea del Sarto's _Charity_. There were many more, but this +list gives sufficiently well the condition of inspiration at the +Gobelins up to the third quarter of the Nineteenth Century. + +Paul Baudry appeared at about this time striking a clear pure note of +delicate decoration. The few panels that he drew for the Gobelins +charm the eye with happy reminiscences of Lebrun, of Claude Audran, a +potpourri of petals fallen from the roses of yesterday mixed with the +spices of to-day. + +But if the work of this talented artist illustrates anything, it is +the change in the uses of tapestries. The modern ones are made to be +framed, as flat as the wall against which they are secured. In a word, +they take the place of frescoes. The pleasure of touching a mobile +fabric is lost. A fold in such a dainty piece would break its beauty. +Almost must a woven panel of our day fit the panel it fills as +exactly as the wood-work of a room fits its dimensions. + +The Nineteenth Century at the Gobelins was finished by mistakenly +copying Ghirlandajo, Correggio, others of their time. + +In the beginning of this century, the spirit of pure decoration again +became animated. Instead of copying old painters, the Gobelins began +to copy old cartoons. The effect of this is to increase the +responsibility of the weaver, and with responsibility comes strength. + +The models of Boucher, and the _Grotesques_ of Italian Renaissance +drawing are given even now to the weavers as a training in both taste +and skill. But better than all is the present wisdom of the Gobelins, +which has directly faced the fact that it were better to copy the +tapestries of old excellence than to copy paintings of no matter what +altitude of art. + +Modern cartoons are used, as we know, commanded for various public +buildings in France, but the copying of old tapestries exercises a far +happier influence on the weavers. If this is not an age of creation in +art, at least it need not be an age of false gods, notwithstanding the +seriousness given to distortions of the Matisse and post-impressionist +school. + +A careful copying of old tapestries--and in this case old means those +of the high periods of perfection--has led to a result from which much +may be expected. This is the enormous reduction in the number of tones +used. Gothic tapestries of stained glass effect had a restricted range +of colour. By this brief gamut the weaver made his own gradations of +colour, and the passage from light to shadow, by hatching, which was +in effect but a weaving of alternating lines of two colours, much as +an artist in pen-and-ink draws parallel lines for shading. Tapestries +thus woven resist well the attacks of light and time. + +To sum up the present attitude of the Gobelins, then, is to say that +the director of to-day encourages the education of taste in the +weavers by encouraging them to copy old tapestries instead of +paintings old or new, and in a reduction of the number of the tones +employed. The talent of an artist is thus made necessary to the +tapissier, for shadings are left to him to accomplish by his own skill +instead of by recourse to the forty thousand shades that are stored on +the shelves of the store-room. + +The manufactory at Beauvais, being also under the State, is associated +with the greater factory in the glance at modern conditions. Both +factories weave primarily for the State. Both factories keep alive an +ancient industry, and both have permission to sell their precious +wares to the private client. That such sales are rarely made is due to +the indifference of the State, which stipulates that its own work +shall have first place on the looms, that only when a loom is idle may +it be used for a private patron. The length of time, therefore, that +must elapse before an order is executed--two or three years, +perhaps--is a tiresome condition that very few will accept. + + [Illustration: THE ADORATION + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones] + + [Illustration: DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE + TEMPLE + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist] + +Beauvais, with its low-warp looms, is more celebrated for its small +pieces of work than for large hangings. The tendency toward the latter +ended some time ago, and in our time Beauvais makes mainly those +exquisite coverings for seats and screens that give the beholder a +thrill of artistic joy and a determination to possess something +similar. The models of Béhagle, Oudry, Charron are copied with +fidelity to their loveliness, and it is these that after a few years +of wear on furniture take on that mellowness which long association +with human hands alone can give. It is scarcely necessary to say that +antique furniture tapestry is rare; its use has been too hard to +withstand the years. Therefore, we may with joy and the complacency of +good taste acquire new coverings of the Don Quixote or Æsop's Fables +designs for our latter-day furniture or for the fine old pieces from +which the original tapestries have vanished. + + +ENGLAND + +The chapter on Mortlake looms shows what was accomplished by +deliberate importation of an art coveted but not indigenous. It is +interesting to compare this with England's entirely modern and +self-made craft of the last thirty years. I allude to the tapestry +factory established by William Morris and called Merton Abbey. Mr. +Morris preferred the word arras as attached to his weavings, tapestry +having sometimes the odious modern meaning of machine-made figured +stuffs for any sort of furniture covering. But as Arras did not invent +the high-warp hand-loom, nor did the Saracens, nor the Egyptians, it +is but quibbling to give it arbitrarily the name of any particular +locale. + +It seems that enough can never be said about the versatility of +William Morris and the strong flood of beauty in design that he sent +rippling over arid ground. It were enough had he accomplished only the +work in tapestry. It is not too strong a statement that he produced at +Merton Abbey the only modern tapestries that fill the primary +requirements of tapestries. + +How did he happen upon it in these latter days? By worshipping the old +hangings of the Gothic perfection, by finding the very soul of them, +of their designers and of their craftsmen; then, letting that soul +enter his, he set his fingers reverently to work to learn, as well, +the secret of the ancient workman. + +It was as early as 1885 that he began; was cartoonist, dyer, +tapissier, all, for the experiment, which was a small square of +verdure after the manner of the Gothic, curling big acanthus leaves +about a softened rose, a mingling of greens of ocean and shady reds. +Perhaps it was no great matter in the way of tapestry, but it was to +Morris like the discovery of a new continent to the navigator. + +His was the time of a so-called æsthetic school in England. Watts, +Rossetti and Burne-Jones were harking back to antiquity for +inspiration. Morris associated with him the latter, who drew wondrous +figures of maids and men and angels, figures filled with the devout +spirit of the time when religion was paramount, and perfect with the +art of to-day. + +The romance of _The Holy Grail_ gave happy theme for the work, and +three beautiful tapestries made the set. _The Adoration of the Magi_ +was another, made for Exeter College, Oxford. Sir Edward Burne-Jones +designed all these wondrous pictures, and the wisdom of Morris +decreed that the _Grail_ series should not be oft repeated. The +first figure tapestry woven on the looms was a fancy drawn by Walter +Crane, called _The Goose Girl_. + + [Illustration: TRUTH BLINDFOLDED + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist] + +The most enchantingly mediæval and most modernly perfect piece is by +Burne-Jones, called _David Instructing Solomon in the Building of the +Temple_. (Plate facing page 257.) In this the time of Gothic beauty +lives again. Planes are repeated, figures are massed, detail is clear +and impressive, yet modern laws of drawing concentrate the interest on +the central action as strongly as though all else were subservient. + +_The Passing of Venus_ was Burne-Jones' last cartoon for Merton Abbey +looms. (Plate facing page 260.) Although a critique of the art of this +great painter would be out of place in a book on the applied arts, at +least it is allowable to express the conviction that more beautiful, +more fitting designs for tapestry it would be difficult to imagine. +Modern work of this sort has produced nothing that approaches them, +preserving as they do the sincerity and reverence of a simple people, +the ideality of a conscientious age, yet softening all technical +faults with modern finish. An unhappy fact is that this tapestry, +which was considered by the Merton Abbey works as its _chef d'oeuvre_, +was destroyed by fire in the Brussels Exhibition of 1910. + +Alas for tapestry weaving of to-day, the usual modern cartoon is a +staring anachronism, and a conglomerate of modes. An "art nouveau" +lady poses in a Gothic setting, a Thayer angel stands in a Boucher +entourage, and both eye and intelligence are revolted. The master +craftsman and artist, William Morris, alone has known how to produce +acceptable modern work from modern cartoons. Other examples are +_Angeli Laudantes_, and _The Adoration_. (Plates facing pages 261 and +256.) + +A false note is sometimes struck, even in this factory of wondrous +taste. In _Truth Blindfolded_ (plate facing page 258), Mr. Byram Shaw +has drawn the central figure as Cabanel might have done a decade ago, +while every other figure in the group might have been done by some +hand dead these four hundred years. + +Morris' manner of procedure differed little from that of the decorator +Lebrun, although his work was a private enterprise and in no way to be +compared with the royal factory of a rich king. Burne-Jones drew the +figures; H. Dearle, a pupil, and Philip Webb drew backgrounds and +animals, but Morris held in his own hands the arrangement of all. It +was as though a gardener brought in a sheaf of cut roses and the +master hand arranged them. Mr. Dearle directed some compositions with +skill and talent. + +With the passing of William Morris an inevitable change is visible in +the cartoons. The Gothic note is not continued, nor the atmosphere of +sanctity, which is its usual accompaniment. A tapestry of 1908 from +the design of _The Chace_ by Heyward Sumner suggests long hours with +the Flemish landscapists of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, +with a jarring note of Pan dragged in by the ears to huddle under +foliage obviously introduced for this purpose. + + [Illustration: THE PASSING OF VENUS + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones] + + [Illustration: ANGELI LAUDANTES + + Merton Abbey Tapestry] + +But criticism of this aberration cannot hurt the wondrous inspired +work directed by Morris, and which it were well for a beauty-loving +world to have often repeated. Unhappily, the Merton Abbey works are +bound not to repeat the superb series of the _Grail_. The entire set +has been woven twice, and three pieces of it a third time--and there +it ends. This is well for the value of the tapestries, but is it not a +providence too thrifty when the public is considered? In ages to come, +perhaps, other looms will repeat, and our times will glow with the +fame thereof. + +Before leaving the subject of the Merton Abbey tapestries, it is +interesting to note a technical change in the weaving. By +intertwisting the threads of the chain or warp at the back, a way is +found to avoid the slits in weaving that are left to be sewn together +with the needle in all old work. This method has been proved the +stronger of the two. The strain of hanging proves too great for the +strength of the stitches, and on many a tapestry appear gaping wounds +which call for yet more stitching. But in the new method the fabric +leaves the loom intact. + +The determination of William Morris to catch old secrets by fitting +his feet into old footsteps, led him to employ only the loom of the +best weavers in the ancient long ago. The high-warp loom is the only +one in use at the Merton Abbey works. + + +AMERICA + +America makes heavy demands for tapestries, but the art of producing +them is not indigenous here. We are not without looms, however. The +first piece of tapestry woven in America--to please the ethnologist +we will grant that it was woven by Zuñi or Toltec or other aborigine. +But the fabric approaching that of Arras or Gobelins, was woven in New +York, in 1893, in the looms of the late William Baumgarten. It is +preserved as a curiosity, as being the first. It is a chair seat woven +after the designs popular with Louis XV and his court, a plain +background of solid colour on which is thrown a floral ornament. + +The loom was a small affair of the low-warp type, and was operated by +a Frenchman who came to this country for the purpose of starting the +craft on new soil. + +The sequence to this small beginning was the establishment of tapestry +ateliers at Williamsbridge, a suburb of New York. Like the Gobelins +factory, this was located in an old building on the banks of a little +stream, the Bronx. Workmen were imported, some from Aubusson, who knew +the craft; these took apprentices, as of old, and trained them for the +work. The looms were all of the low-warp pattern. + +It may be of interest to those who like figures, to know that the work +of the Baumgarten atelier averages in price about sixty dollars a +square yard. Perhaps this will help a little in deciding whether or +not the price is reasonable when a dealer seductively spreads his +ancient wares. Modern cartoons of the Baumgarten factory lack the +charm of the old designs, but the adaptations and copies of ancient +pieces are particularly happy. No better execution could be wished +for. The factory has increased its looms to the number of twenty-two, +and has its regular corps of tapissiers, dyers, repairers, etc. +Nowhere is the life of the weaver so nearly like that of his prototype +in the golden age of tapestry. The colony on the Bronx is like a bit +of old Europe set intact on American soil. + + [Illustration: AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC] + + [Illustration: DRYADS AND FAUNS + + From Herter Looms, New York, 1910] + +It is odd that New York should have more tapestry looms at work than +has Paris. The Baumgarten looms exceed in number the present Gobelins, +and the Herter looms add many more. The ateliers of Albert Herter are +in the busiest part of New York, and here are woven by hand many +fabrics of varying degrees of excellence. It is not Mr. Herter's +intention to produce only fine wall hangings, but to supply as well +floor coverings "a la façon de Perse," as the ancient documents had +it, and to make it possible for persons of taste, but not necessarily +fortune, to have hand-woven portières of artistic value. + +Apart from this commendable aim, the Herter looms are also given to +making copies of the antique in the finest of weaving, and to +producing certain original pieces expressing the decorative spirit of +our day. Besides this, the work is distinguished by certain +combinations of antique and modern style that confuse the seeker after +purity of style. That the effect is pleasing must be acknowledged as +illustrated in the plate showing a tapestry for the country house of +Mrs. E. H. Harriman. (Plate facing page 263.) It is not easy in a +review of tapestry weaving of to-day to find any great encouragement. + +These are times of commerce more than of art. If art can be made +profitable commercially, well and good. If not, it starves in a garret +along with the artist. If the demand for modern tapestries was large +enough, the art would flourish--perhaps. But it is not a large demand, +for many reasons, chief among which is the incontrovertible one that +the modern work is seldom pleasing. The whole world is occupied with +science and commerce, and art does not create under their influence as +in more ideal times. What can the trained eye and the cultivated taste +do other than turn back to the products of other days? + +We have artists in our own country whose qualities would make of them +marvellous composers of cartoons. The imagination and execution of +Maxfield Parrish, for example, added to his richness of colouring, +would be translatable in wool under the hands of an artist-weaver. And +the designs which take the name of "poster" and are characterised by +strength, simplicity and few tones, why would they not give the same +crispness of detail that constitutes one of the charms of Gothic work? +Perhaps the factories existent in America will work out this line of +thought, combine it with honesty of material and labour, and give us +the honour of prominence in an ancient art's revival. + + +FINIS + + + + +BEST PERIODS AND THEIR DATES + + + EARLIEST TAPESTRY LOOMS Prehistoric + EUROPEAN EARLY ATTEMPTS Twelfth To Fourteenth Centuries + ARRAS AND BURGUNDIAN TAPESTRY Early Fifteenth Century + GOTHIC PERFECTION, FLANDERS About Fifteen Hundred + GOTHIC PERFECTION, FRANCE About Fifteen Hundred + ITALIAN FACTORIES Fifteenth Century + RAPHAEL CARTOONS IN FLANDERS 1515-1519 + RENAISSANCE PERFECTION, FLANDERS 1515 To Second Half of Century + BRUSSELS MARK 1528 + FLEMISH DECADENCE End of Sixteenth Century + FRENCH RISE End of Sixteenth Century + FRENCH ORGANISATION 1597, Reign of Henri IV + ENGLISH SUPREMACY, MORTLAKE + ESTABLISHED 1619 + ESTABLISHMENT OF GOBELINS 1662, Reign of Louis XIV + BEST HEROIC PERIOD OF GOBELINS Last Half of Seventeenth Century + BEST DECORATIVE PERIOD OF + GOBELINS Middle of Eighteenth Century + DECADENCE OF GOBELINS End of Eighteenth Century + RECENT TIMES, ENGLAND, WM. MORRIS End of Nineteenth Century + RECENT TIMES, AMERICA End of Nineteenth Century + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbot Robert, 20. + + _Achilles, Story of_, 169. + + Adelaide, Queen, 22. + + _Adoration of the Eternal Father, The_, 59, 250, 260. + + _Adoration of the Magi, The_, 258. + + _Acts of the Apostles_, 64, 86, 147, 169, 197, 205, 214, 221. + + _Alcisthenes, Mantle of_, 19. + + _Alexander, History of_, 115, 172, 197. + + Alfonso II (d'Este), 83. + + America, 261-264. + + American interest, 10. + + Amorini, 209. + + Andrea del Sarto, 73. + + _Angeli Laudantes_, 260. + + Angers, 29, 30. + + Angivillier, Count of, 131, 133, 137. + + _Annunciation, The_, 61. + + Antin, Duke d', 128, 130, 131, 148. + + _Antony and Cleopatra_, 80, 110, 151, 187, 210, 222. + + _Apocalypse_, 23, 25, 30, 45, 217. + + Apprentices, 5. + + Architectural detail, 177-179. + + _Armide_, 130. + + Arras, 28, 32, 34, 38, 47, 48, 51, 54, 66, 90, 106, 129, 163, 176, + 203, 229. + + Arazzeria Medicea, 84. + + Artemisia, 93, 94. + + Artois, 32, 34, 163. + + Aubusson, 150, 152-158. + + Audran, Claude, 122-124, 126-128, 132. + + Audran, Jean, 138. + + _Aurora_, 254. + + + Babylon, 18. + + Bacchiacca, 76, 223. + + Backgrounds, 185. + + _Baillée des Roses_, 42, 176, 181. + + Bajazet, 35. + + Barberini, 87, 88, 131, 208. + + Basse lisse, 3, 193, 227. + + Bataille, Nicolas, 29, 30, 217. + + Baudry, Paul, 254. + + Baumgarten, 232, 238, 239, 262. + + Bayeux Tapestry, 21, 241-248. + + Beauvais, 4, 121, 135, 145-153, 154, 163, 256. + + Beaux Art, École des, 204. + + Béhagle, Philip, 147, 148, 257. + + Belle, Augustin, 138. + + Bellegarde, 157. + + Berne, Cathedral of, 37, 53. + + Bernini, 10. + + Berthélemy, 141. + + Besnier, 152. + + Bible, influence of, 130. + + Bièvre, 105, 106, 107. + + Blamard, Louis, 99, 103. + + Blumenthal collection, 74, 75, 78, 196, 205. + + Bobbin, 4. + + _Book of Hours_, 41. + + Borders, 132, 147, 158, 169, 170, 172, 173, 188-190, 201-215. + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 15, 46, 56, 238. + + Botticelli, 180. + + Boucher, 131, 132, 135, 141, 151. + + Boulle, 107. + + Bourg, Maurice du, 93, 94, 95, 96. + + Broche, 4, 223, 227, 228, 229. + + Bruges, 54, 55, 221. + + Brussels, 7, 9, 10, 29, 38, 48, 54, 55, 57, 64, 66, 68-72, 76, 78, + 90, 111, 129, 141, 163, 194, 197, 216, 218, 219, 221, 229. + + Brussels Mark, 217. + + Burgundian tapestry, 37, 45, 160, 174. + + Burgundy, Dukes of, 22, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 46, 47, 48, 51. + + Burne-Jones, 258, 259. + + + Caffieri, 107. + + Carron, Antoine, 94. + + Carthaginians, 19. + + Cartoons, 56, 151, 155, 173, 176, 231, 255. + + Cartouche, 207. + + Casanova, 151. + + Cellini, Benvenuto, 7. + + _Charity_, 254. + + Charles I, 167, 168, 170, 171. + + Charles V, 32. + + Charles V, Emperor, 62, 75, 82, 83, 220. + + Charles VI, 29. + + Charles VII, 42. + + Charles VIII, 48. + + Charles le Téméraire, 36, 45, 47, 51, 66. + + Chef d'atelier, 5. + + Chicago Institute of Art, 47, 78, 221. + + China, 18. + + Circe, 19. + + Clein, or Cleyn, Francis, 166, 169, 170, 171. + + Cluny Museum of Paris, 44, 54. + + Colbert, 99, 102, 103, 107, 108, 109, 116, 117, 118, 121, 145, + 155, 156. + + Colours, 191-193, 210, 211, 233-236. + + Comans, Charles de, 222. + + Comans, or Coomans, Marc, 95-97, 107, 165, 166, 231. + + _Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets, The_, 51. + + _Conquest of Tunis_, 75, 220. + + _Constantine, History of_, 112. + + Copies, 197-200. + + Coptic, 15, 16. + + Cornelisz, Lucas, 82. + + Correggio, 209. + + Cortona, Pietro di, 87. + + Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany, 84, 85. + + Cosmati brothers, 178. + + Costumes, 181-183. + + Cotte, Jules Robert de, 122, 129, 131. + + Coypel, Antoine, 130. + + Coypel, Charles, 12, 127, 128, 130, 132, 150. + + Cozette, 132. + + Crane, Richard, 171. + + Crane, Sir Francis, 165, 167, 168, 170, 171, 223. + + Crane, Walter, 259. + + Crusades, 19, 24. + + _Cupid and Psyche_, 132. + + + David, 136, 140, 142, 143, 144. + + _David Instructing Solomon, etc._, 259. + + Dearle, H., 260. + + Delacroix, Jean, 109. + + Devonshire, Duke of, 46. + + _Diana, History of_, 92. + + Directing artist, 5. + + Director, 4. + + Directory, 139, 142. + + _Don Quixote_, 127, 132, 133, 152. + + Dosso, Battista, 82. + + Dourdin, 30. + + Ducal Palace at Nancy, tapestry room of, 51, 65. + + Du Mons, Jean Joseph, 158. + + Dupont, Pierre, 161. + + Dye, scarlet, of the Gobelin brothers, 106. + + Dyes, 6, 218, 233, 234. + + Dyes at Aubusson, 156. + + + Edward the Confessor, 260. + + Egypt, 18, 27. + + Egyptian drawing, 15. + + Egyptian loom, 16. + + Egyptian weaving, 16. + + Egyptian work, 7. + + Eighteenth Century, 76, 123, 152, 158, 180, 185, 187, 190, 211, + 222, 236, 257-261. + + Eleventh Century, 23. + + Elizabeth, Queen, 164. + + _Enfants Jardiniers_, 74. + + Enghien, 103, 221, 222. + + England, 54, 223. + + Ercole II (d'Este), 82-84. + + Este, d', 82-84, 91, 223. + + _Esther and Ahasuerus_, 190. + + Europe, 18, 19. + + + _Fables of La Fontaine_, 149-152. + + Felletin, 157. + + Ferrara, 82, 83, 223. + + Ffoulke collection, 88, 89, 131. + + Fifteenth Century, 22, 27, 46, 51, 54, 58, 81, 106, 160, 163, 176, + 183, 184, 196, 202. + + Filleul, 148. + + Flanders, 6, 7, 28, 54, 68, 110, 121, 150, 163, 169, 176, 208. + + Flemish tapestry, 9, 79. + + Fleur-de-lis, use of, 38, 222. + + Florence factory, 223. + + Flowers, use of, 52, 180, 181. + + Flute, 4, 227, 228, 229. + + Fontainebleau, 91, 92. + + Foucquet, 100-105. + + Fouquet, Jean, 42. + + Fourteenth Century, 25, 27, 30, 106, 176, 183. + + France, 10, 28, 54, 90, 110, 163, 176, 252-257. + + Francis I, 90, 91. + + French terms, 4. + + Furniture, 133, 134, 135, 146, 149, 152, 159, 162. + + + Galloon, 173, 201, 204, 219, 221. + + Genoa, 89. + + Germany, 54, 160. + + Geubels, Jacques, 79, 221. + + Ghent, 66. + + Giotto, 27, 216. + + Giulio Romano, 73, 74, 84, 93, 118. + + Gobelin, Jean and Philibert, 105, 106. + + Gobelins, 10, 30, 90, 93, 99, 103-107, 109, 111, 112, 115-122, + 128-131, 133, 135, 137-145, 154, 159, 161, 162, 203, 205, 222, + 236, 252. + + Gobelins Museum (Paris), 92, 99, 252. + + Gold, use of, 6. + + Gonnor (Duchess), 21. + + Gonzaga, 61, 81. + + _Goose Girl, The_, 259. + + Gothic border, 60, 61. + + Gothic columns, use of, 39, 52, 177, 178. + + Gothic drawing, 174-177. + + Gothic flowers, 180, 181. + + Gothic period, 7, 8, 16, 52, 69, 188, 192. + + Gothic style, 5, 27, 53, 66. + + Greece, 18, 27. + + Greek drawing, 15. + + Greek influence, 186. + + _Grotesque Months_, 76, 127. + + Guildhall, 7. + + Guilds, 6, 7. + + + Halberstadt, Cathedral at, 23. + + Hallé, 131. + + Hardwick Hall tapestries, 46. + + Harriman, Mrs. E. H., 263. + + Haute lisse, 3, 193, 194, 227. + + Helen, 19, 21. + + Helly, 35. + + Henri II, 92. + + Henri IV, 10, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 107, 146, 160, 161, 164, 165, + 212. + + Henry V, 31. + + Henry VIII, 164, 251. + + _Hero and Leander, History of_, 169. + + _Herse and Mercury_, 205. + + Herter, 238, 239, 263. + + High-loom, 15, 18. + + High-warp, 3, 16, 19, 27, 29, 95, 109, 157, 193, 227, 228, 229. + + Hinart, Louis, 146, 147. + + Hiss, Philip, 170, 224. + + _History of Alexander_, 115, 172, 197. + + _History of Constantine_, 112. + + _History of Esther_, 131, 132. + + _History of Gideon_, 36. + + _History of Hero and Leander_, 169. + + _History of Meleager_, 112. + + _History of the King_, 112, 113, 129, 222. + + _Holy Grail, The_, 258. + + _Horrors of the Seven Deadly Sins, The_, 51. + + _Hunt of Meleager_, 99. + + _Hunts of Louis XV_, 130, 188. + + + Identifications, 172-200. + + Iliad, influence of, 130. + + India, 18. + + Italy, 6, 10, 54, 71, 81, 86, 110, 152, 168, 208, 223. + + + James I, 164-167. + + Jans, Jean, 109, 126. + + John, Revelation of, 23. + + John without Fear, 36, 45. + + Jouvenet, 130. + + _Judgment of Paris, The_, 119. + + Jumeau, Pierre le, 28, 29. + + + Karcher, John, 82. + + Karcher, Nicholas, 76, 82, 84, 85, 223. + + _Kingdom of Heaven, The_, 59. + + King's Works, 171. + + + _Lady and the Unicorn, The_, 44, 54, 175, 181, 203. + + Lancaster, Duke of, 33. + + La Marche, 157, 158. + + La Planche, Raphael de, 96, 165, 166. + + Laurent, Henri, 95, 96, 109. + + Lebrun, 74, 99, 103, 104, 107, 109-120, 188, 203, 209, 211, 212, + 213. + + Lefèvre (or Lefebvre), 98, 109, 126, 222, 223. + + Leipzig, 152. + + Leleu, 105. + + Leo X, Pope, 70, 71, 86. + + Leonardo da Vinci, 90. + + Le Pape, 147. + + Leprince, 151. + + Lerambert, Henri, 94, 211. + + Lettering, 183-184, 203. + + Leyniers, Nicolas, 221. + + Liége, tapestries of, 48. + + _Life of Marie de Medici_, 197. + + _Life of the King_, 114, 144, 188. + + Lisse, 3, 193. + + Loches, church of, 41. + + London, 165. + + "Long wool" (_longue laine_), 160. + + Looms, 3, 226-230. + + Lorenzo the Magnificent, 86. + + Louis XI, 36, 47, 48, 50, 54. + + Louis XII, 48. + + Louis XIII, 98. + + Louis XIV, 10, 97-107, 117, 118, 122, 129, 145, 155-157, 161, 188, + 203, 211, 212. + + Louis XV, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 150, 162, 191, 205, + 213. + + Louis XVI, 133, 136, 137, 152, 162. + + Louvois, 116-121. + + Louvre, 97, 108, 109, 115, 160, 161. + + _Loves of the Gods_, 132. + + Low-warp, 3, 78, 109, 114, 147, 157, 158, 193, 227, 228, 230. + + + Maecht, Philip de, 166, 170, 223, 224. + + Maincy, factory of. _See_ Vaux. + + Maintenon, Mme. de, 118, 122, 124. + + Mangelschot, 138. + + Mantegna, Andrea, 61, 73, 81, 171. + + Manufactory, Royal (Aubusson), 156. + + Marie Antoinette, 133, 137, 152. + + _Marie de Medici, Life of_, 197. + + Marie Thérèse, 118. + + Marks, 216-224. + + Martel, Charles, 154, 155. + + Mary's Chamber at Holyrood, 65. + + Master-weaver, 6. + + Matilda (Queen), 21, 242, 245. + + _Mausolus and Artemisia_, 93. + + Mazarin, Cardinal, 59, 100. + + Mazarin tapestry, 56, 196. + + Medici, 84, 92, 94. + + _Meleager and Atalanta_, 222. + + Memling, 55. + + Mercier, Pierre, 157. + + _Mercury_, 75, 76, 78, 196. + + Merton Abbey, 252, 257-261. + + Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15, 40, 42, 46, 52, 58, 59, 76, 80, + 162, 170, 174, 176, 187, 210, 238. + + Meulen, François de la, 114. + + Michael Angelo, 84. + + Micou, 148. + + Middle Ages, 5, 6, 7, 19, 21, 27, 42, 201. + + Mignard, Pierre, 119, 120, 121. + + Millefleurs, 4, 13. + + Missals, 5. + + Monasteries, influence of, 21, 22. + + Montespan, Mme. de, 118, 131, 148. + + Montezert, Pierre de, 158. + + _Months, The_, 112, 133, 197, 212. + + Morgan, J. P., 40, 56, 59, 128, 196, 250. + + Morris, William, 257-261. + + Mortlake, 163-171, 197, 223. + + Mozin, Jean Baptiste, 109. + + _Muses_, 104, 141. + + Museums, Boston Fine Arts, 15, 46, 56, 238; + Chicago Institute of Art, 47, 78, 221; + Cluny, 44, 54; + Gobelins (Paris), 92, 99, 252; + Metropolitan (New York), 15, 40, 42, 52, 58, 59, 76, 80, 162, + 170, 174, 176, 187, 210, 238; + Nancy, 37. + + _Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ, The_, 87, 208. + + + Nancy, Museum of, 37. + + Nantes, Edict of; its effect, 95, 118, 157. + + Napoleon, 136, 142, 143, 144, 208. + + _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, 144. + + Natoire, Charles, 151. + + Neilson, 132. + + Nineteenth Century, 255. + + Notre Dame, 21. + + + Otho, Count of Burgundy, 32. + + Oudenarde, 221. + + Oudry, 131, 148-152, 257. + + + Pannemaker, Wilhelm de, 62, 75, 220. + + Paris, 10, 28, 29, 30, 47, 51, 90, 98, 132, 163, 222, 229. + + Parrish, Maxfield, 264. + + Parrocel, Charles, 130. + + _Passing of Venus, The_, 259. + + Pendleton, Charlotte, 235. + + Penelope, 15, 16, 21, 227. + + Pepersack, Daniel, 99. + + Percier, 143. + + "_Perse, à la façon de, ou du Levant_," 160. + + Persia, 19. + + Personages, 4. + + Perspective, 175-177. + + Pharaohs, 18, 57. + + Philip the Good, 36. + + Philip the Hardy, 22, 29, 33, 34, 35, 45. + + Philippe (Regent), 122, 128, 134, 148, 236. + + Pickering, Sir Gilbert, 171. + + Pius X, Pope, 9. + + Planche, François de la, 95, 96, 97, 107. + + Poitiers, 23, 154, 155. + + Poitou, Count of, 23. + + _Portières des Dieux_, 126. + + Portraits, 133, 140, 143, 162, 253. + + _Presentation in the Temple, The_, 30. + + + Quedlimburg Hanging, 25. + + Quentin Matsys, 58, 59. + + + Raphael, 9, 64, 67, 69, 70, 71, 79, 84, 118, 119, 145, 169, 187, + 189, 205, 207, 214, 216, 221. + + Ravaillac, 97. + + Renaissance, influence of, 9, 53, 61, 67, 68, 69, 70, 77, 78, 174, + 178, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192. + + _Renommés, Les_, 111. + + Repairs, 237-240. + + Revolution, French, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 152. + + _Reward of Virtue, The_, 51. + + Rheims, 99, 155. + + Richelieu, 99. + + Riesner, 107. + + Riviera, Giacomo della, 87. + + Rococo, 128. + + Roman influence, 186. + + Romanelli, 87, 88, 130. + + Romano, Giulio, 73, 74, 84, 93, 118. + + Rome, 18, 27. + + Rome, Jean de, or Jan von Room, 56, 58, 59, 216. + + Rost, John, 76, 84, 85, 223. + + Rouen, 21. + + Royal Collection, Madrid, 187. + + _Royal Hunts, The_, 130, 188. + + _Royal Residences, The_, 112, 197, 203, 212. + + Rubens, 79, 104, 110, 111, 112, 169, 187, 209, 210, 211, 214. + + Ryerson collection, 59, 60, 61. + + Ryswick, Peace of, 121. + + + _Sack of Jerusalem, The_, 45, 176. + + _Sacraments, The_, 38, 46, 52, 174, 176, 192. + + _Sacred and Profane Love_, 254. + + St. Denis, abbey of, 22. + + St. Florent, Abbot of, 23. + + St. Germain, 109. + + St. John the Divine, Cathedral of, 87, 88, 208. + + St. Marceau, 97. + + St. Merri, 95. + + Saracens, 28, 154, 155, 178. + + Sarrazinois, 28, 29, 47. + + Saumur, 20. + + Savonnerie, 97, 159-162. + + _Seasons, The_, 132. + + _Seven Cardinal Virtues, The_, 34. + + _Seven Cardinal Vices, The_, 34. + + _Seven Deadly Sins, The_, 6, 250. + + Seventeenth Century, 10, 76, 86, 96, 99, 123, 158, 160, 163, 180, + 185, 187, 194, 207, 208, 211. + + Sevigné, Mme. de, 101, 103. + + Sforza Castle, 90. + + Shaw, Byram, 260. + + Shuttle, 4. + + _Siege of Calais_, 141. + + Silver, use of, 6. + + Sixteenth Century, 29, 54, 56, 58, 62, 73, 74, 79, 163, 183, 187, + 221, 223. + + Sorel, Agnes, 41. + + Spain, 54. + + Spitzer, collection of Baron, 59, 60, 61. + + _Spring_, 180. + + Stockholm, 152. + + _Story of Christ, The_, 99. + + "Stromaturgie, La," 161. + + Stradano, 85. + + Sully, 94, 95, 164. + + Sumner, Howard, 260. + + + Tapissiers, 4, 5, 228. + + Tenth Century, 20, 22. + + Tessier, Louis, 135. + + Thirteenth Century, 25, 26, 27, 28. + + Titian, 73. + + Tournelles, 96, 97. + + Tours, 99. + + _Transfiguration, The_, 254. + + "Très Riches Heures, Les," 41. + + Trinité, Hôpital de la, 92, 93, 95, 97, 109. + + _Triumph of Cæsar, The_, 171. + + _Triumph of Right, The_, 51. + + _Triumphs of the Gods_, 74. + + _Troy, History of_, 81. + + Troy, J. F. de, 131. + + _Truth Blindfolded_, 260. + + Tuileries, 97. + + Tuscans, 27. + + Twelfth Century, 23, 28. + + + Urban VIII, History of, 88. + + Urbino, Duke Frederick of, 81. + + + Vallière, Mme. de la, 118. + + Van Aelst, 70, 71, 86, 220, 221, 222. + + Van den Strecken, Gerard, 80, 222. + + Van der Straaten, Johan, 85. + + Van Dyck, 169. + + Van Eycks, 27, 55, 58. + + Van Orley, Bernard, 55, 220. + + Vaux, factory of, 99, 103, 105, 111, 112. + + Venice, 10, 89. + + _Venus_, 180. + + Verdure, 4, 158, 222. + + Vermeyen, Jan, 62. + + Veronese, Paolo, 73. + + Versailles, 109. + + _Vertumnus and Pomona, The Loves of_, 76, 78, 220. + + Vignory, Count of, 131. + + _Virgin and Saints_, 21. + + _Visit of Louis XIV to the Gobelins_, 113. + + Von Zedlitz, Anna, 170, 224. + + Vouet, Simon, 211. + + _Vulcan, The Expulsion of_, 170, 224. + + _Vulcan, Story of_, 169. + + + Warp, 232. + + Watteau, André, 126, 188. + + Wauters, 87. + + Weave, 194-196. + + Weavers, 5. + + Webb, Philip, 260. + + William the Conqueror, 242. + + Williamsbridge, 262. + + Winterhalter, 253. + + Woolsey, Cardinal, 250. + + + Zègre, Jean, 103. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +Minor typographic errors of spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have +been repaired. Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as +printed. + +The following errors in facing page number references have been repaired: + + Page 61--plate reference to page 81 amended to 82. + + Page 76--plate references for the "Vertumnus and Pomona" + series amended from 39 through 42 to 72 through 75. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Tapestry Book, by Helen Churchill Candee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TAPESTRY BOOK *** + +***** This file should be named 26151-8.txt or 26151-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/1/5/26151/ + +Produced by Eileen Gormly, Alicia Williams (who did the +scanning, image prep, and OCR), Sam W. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tapestry Book + +Author: Helen Churchill Candee + +Release Date: July 30, 2008 [EBook #26151] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TAPESTRY BOOK *** + + + + +Produced by Eileen Gormly, Alicia Williams (who did the +scanning, image prep, and OCR), Sam W. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 379px;"> +<img src="images/tapestry001.jpg" width="379" height="600" +alt="Cover of the book" /> +</div> + + + +<h1 class="padtop"><span style="font-size: large;">THE</span><br /> +TAPESTRY<br /> +BOOK</h1> + + +<p class="center" style="padding-top: 2em;"><b>BY</b></p> + +<h2>HELEN CHURCHILL CANDEE</h2> +<p class="center smcap">Author of “Decorative Styles and Periods”</p> + + +<p class="center padtop"><i>WITH FOUR PLATES IN COLOUR AND NINETY-NINE<br /> +ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE</i></p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 158px;"> +<img src="images/tapestry002.png" width="158" height="200" +alt="Decorative logo" /> +</div> + + +<p class="center padtop">NEW YORK<br /> +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY<br /> +MCMXII</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="HERSE_AND_MERCURY" id="HERSE_AND_MERCURY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry003th.jpg" width="400" height="327" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry003.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">HERSE AND MERCURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de Pannemaker, weaver.<br /> +Collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., New York</p> + + + + +<p class="center padtop"><i>Copyright, 1912, by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Frederick A. Stokes Company</span><br /> +<br /> +———<br /> +<br /> +<i>All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign<br /> +languages, including the Scandinavian</i></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/tapestry004.png" width="200" height="56" +alt="October, 1912" /> +</div> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center padding">TO<br /> +TWO CERTAIN BYZANTINE MADONNAS<br /> +AND THEIR OWNERS</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h2> + + +<p>Modesty so dominates the staff in art museums that I +am requested not to make mention of those officers who +have helped me with friendly courtesy and efficiency. To +the officers and assistants at the Metropolitan Museum +of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the +Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Print Department +in the Library of Congress in Washington, indebtedness +is here publicly acknowledged with the regret that +I may not speak of individuals. Photographs of tapestries +are credited to Messrs. A. Giraudon, Paris; J. Laurent, +Madrid; Alinari, Florence; Wm. Baumgarten, and Albert +Herter, New York, and to those private collectors whose +names are mentioned on the plates.</p> + +<p class="sig">H. C. C.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="Table of contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="tdrt">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">I</td> + <td class="tdlsc">A Foreword</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">II</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Antiquity</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">III</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Modern Awakening</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">IV</td> + <td class="tdlsc">France and Flanders, 15th Century</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">V</td> + <td class="tdlsc">High Gothic</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">VI</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Renaissance Influence</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">VII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Renaissance to Rubens</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">VIII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Italy, 15th through 17th Centuries</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">IX</td> + <td class="tdlsc">France</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">X</td> + <td class="tdlsc">The Gobelins Factory</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XI</td> + <td class="tdlsc">The Gobelins Factory (<i>Continued</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">The Gobelins Factory (<i>Continued</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XIII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">The Gobelins Factory (<i>Continued</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XIV</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Beauvais</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XV</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Aubusson</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XVI</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Savonnerie</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XVII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Mortlake</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XVIII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Identifications</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XIX</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Identifications (<i>Continued</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XX</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Borders</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XXI</td> + <td class="tdlsc">Tapestry Marks</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XXII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">How It Is Made</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XXIII</td> + <td class="tdlsc">The Bayeux Tapestry</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrt">XXIV</td> + <td class="tdlsc">To-day</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc" colspan="2">Best Periods and Their Dates</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc" colspan="2">Index</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="List of illustrations"> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">HERSE AND MERCURY (<i>Coloured Plate</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#HERSE_AND_MERCURY"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de Pannemaker, weaver. Collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"> </td> + <td class="tdrb"><small>FACING PAGE</small></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CHINESE TAPESTRY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CHINESE_TAPESTRY">14</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Chien Lung Period</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">COPTIC TAPESTRY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#COPTIC_TAPESTRY01">15</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">About 300 A. D.</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">COPTIC TAPESTRY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#COPTIC_TAPESTRY02">16</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Boston Museum of Fine Arts</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">COPTIC TAPESTRY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#COPTIC_TAPESTRY03">17</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Boston Museum of Fine Arts</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#PERUVIAN_TAPESTRY">18</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Date prior to Sixteenth Century</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE SACRAMENTS (<i>Coloured Plate</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#THE_SACRAMENTS01">34</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE SACRAMENTS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#THE_SACRAMENTS02">38</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Arras Tapestry, about 1430</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE SACRAMENTS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#THE_SACRAMENTS03">39</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Arras Tapestry, about 1430</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">FIFTEENTH CENTURY, FRENCH TAPESTRY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#FRENCH_TAPESTRY">40</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Boston Museum of Fine Arts</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE LIFE OF CHRIST</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#LIFE_OF_CHRIST">41</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. Boston Museum of Fine Arts</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">LA BAILLÉE DES ROSES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#LA_BAILLEE_DES_ROSES">42</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#MILLEFLEUR_WITH_ARMS">43</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Cathedral of Troyes</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE LADY AND THE UNICORN</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#LADY_AND_UNICORN01">44</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE LADY AND THE UNICORN</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#LADY_AND_UNICORN02">45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#SACK_OF_JERUSALEM">46</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#SCENES_FROM_LIFE_OF_CHRIST">48</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, Chicago</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#HISTORY_OF_VIRGIN">49</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Angers Cathedral</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DAVID AND BATHSHEBA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#DAVID_AND_BATHSHEBA01">50</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">German Tapestry, about 1450</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#FLEMISH_TAPESTRY01">51</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DAVID AND BATHSHEBA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#DAVID_AND_BATHSHEBA02">52</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#HISTORY_OF_ST_STEPHEN">53</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VERDURE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VERDURE">54</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">French Gothic Tapestry</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">“ECCE HOMO”</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ECCE_HOMO">55</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ALLEGORICAL_SUBJECT">56</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CROSSING THE RED SEA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CROSSING_RED_SEA">57</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#KINGDOM_OF_HEAVEN">58</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#FLEMISH_TAPESTRY02">60</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE HOLY FAMILY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#HOLY_FAMILY">61</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CONQUEST_OF_TUNIS">62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal Collection at Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DEATH OF ANANIAS.—FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY RAPHAEL</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#DEATH_OF_ANANIAS">64</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">From the Palace of Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE STORY OF REBECCA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#STORY_OF_REBECCA01">65</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Brussels Tapestry, Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE CREATION</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#THE_CREATION">66</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE ORIGINAL SIN</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ORIGINAL_SIN">67</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>MELEAGER AND ATALANTA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#MELEAGER_AND_ATALANTA">68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. Woven in Paris workshops by Charles de Comans</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">PUNIC WAR SERIES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#PUNIC_WAR_SERIES">69</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CÆSAR</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#EPISODE_IN_LIFE_OF_CAESAR">70</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, Florence</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">WILD BOAR HUNT</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#WILD_BOAR_HUNT">71</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, Florence</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA01">72</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA02">73</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA03">74</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA04">75</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BED_TAPESTRIES">76</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE STORY OF REBECCA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#STORY_OF_REBECCA02">77</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BRUSSELS_TAPESTRY">78</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#MEETING_OF_ANTONY_AND_CLEOPATRA">79</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon attributed to Rubens</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE ANNUNCIATION (<i>Coloured Plate</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#THE_ANNUNCIATION">82</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">ITALIAN TAPESTRY, MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ITALIAN_TAPESTRY01">84</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ITALIAN_TAPESTRY02">85</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ITALIAN_VERDURE">86</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE FINDING OF MOSES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#FINDING_OF_MOSES">90</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. The Louvre Museum</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">TRIUMPH OF JUNO</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#TRIUMPH_OF_JUNO">91</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins under Louis XIV</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#TRIUMPH_OF_GODS01">94</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins, Seventeenth Century</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#TRIUMPH_OF_GODS02">95</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins Tapestry</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_BORDER">98</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CHILDREN GARDENING</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CHILDREN_GARDENING01">99</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri Quatre, Pau</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CHILDREN GARDENING</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CHILDREN_GARDENING02">102</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri Quatre, Pau</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS GROTESQUE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_GROTESQUE">103</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_TAPESTRY01">104</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE VILLAGE FÊTE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VILLAGE_FETE">105</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DESIGN BY RUBENS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#RUBENS_DESIGN01">110</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DESIGN BY RUBENS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#RUBENS_DESIGN02">111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DESIGN BY RUBENS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#RUBENS_DESIGN03">112</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_TAPESTRY02">113</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Royal Collection, Madrid</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#LOUIS_XIV_VISITING">114</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_TAPESTRY03">126</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">HUNTS OF LOUIS XV</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#HUNTS_OF_LOUIS_XV">130</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ESTHER_AND_AHASUERUS">131</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; G. Audran, weaver</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CUPID AND PSYCHE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CUPID_AND_PSYCHE">132</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CATHERINE_OF_RUSSIA">133</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Gobelins under Louis XVI.</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CHAIR_OF_TAPESTRY">136</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISÉE. STYLE LOUIS XV</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_TAPESTRY04">137</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#HENRI_IV_BEFORE_PARIS">146</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D’ESTRÉES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#HENRI_IV_AND_GABRIELLE">147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Design by Vincent</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY01">148</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY02">149</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY03">150</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY04">152</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">CHAIR COVERING</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#CHAIR_COVERING">153</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#SAVONNERIE">162</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VULCAN_AND_VENUS01">163</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VULCAN_AND_VENUS02">168</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#VULCAN_AND_VENUS03">169</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS (<i>Coloured Plate</i>)</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#EXPULSION_OF_VULCAN">170</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#WEAVER_AT_WORK">228</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#SEWING_AND_REPAIR">229</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY01">230</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY02">231</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY03">234</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BAYEUX_TAPESTRY01">242</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BAYEUX_TAPESTRY02">243</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#BAYEUX_TAPESTRY03">244</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#MODERN_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY01">250</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#MODERN_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY02">251</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_TAPESTRY05">252</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Luxembourg, Paris</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#GOBELINS_TAPESTRY06">253</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Pantheon, Paris</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">THE ADORATION</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#THE_ADORATION">256</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#DAVID_INSTRUCTING_SOLOMON">257</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">TRUTH BLINDFOLDED</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#TRUTH_BLINDFOLDED">258</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>THE PASSING OF VENUS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#PASSING_OF_VENUS">260</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">ANGELI LAUDANTES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#ANGELI_LAUDANTES">261</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">Merton Abbey Tapestry</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#AMERICAN_TAPESTRY">262</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlp">DRYADS AND FAUNS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#DRYADS_AND_FAUNS">263</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlin">From Herter Looms, New York, 1910</td> + <td class="tdrb"> </td> + </tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h1 class="padtop">THE TAPESTRY BOOK</h1> + + + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>A FOREWORD</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE commercial fact that tapestries have immeasurably +increased in value within the last five +years, would have little interest were it not that +this increase is the direct result of America’s awakened +appreciation of this form of art. It has come about in +these latter days that tapestries are considered a necessity +in the luxurious and elegant homes which are multiplying +all over our land. And the enormous demand thus +made on the supply, has sent the prices for rare bits into +a dizzy altitude, and has made even the less perfect pieces +seem scarce and desirable.</p> + +<p>The opinion of two shrewd men of different types is +interesting as bearing on the subject of tapestries. One +with tastes fully cultivated says impressively, “Buy good +old tapestries whenever you see them, for there are no +more.” The other says bluffly, “Tapestries? You can’t +touch ’em. The prices have gone way out of sight, and +are going higher every day.” The latter knows but one +view, the commercial, yet both are right, and these two +views are at the bottom of the present keen interest in +tapestries in our country. Outside of this, Europe has +collections which we never can equal, and that thought +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +alone is enough to make us snatch eagerly at any opportunity +to secure a piece. We may begin with our ambition +set on museum treasures, but we can come happily +down to the friendly fragments that fit our private purses +and the wall-space by the inglenook.</p> + +<p>Tapestries are not to be bought lightly, as one buys a +summer coat, to throw aside at the change of taste or +circumstance. They demand more of the buyer than +mere money; they demand that loving understanding and +intimate appreciation that exists between human friends. +A profound knowledge of tapestries benefits in two ways, +by giving the keenest pleasure, and by providing the collector—or +the purchaser of a single piece—with a self-protection +that is proof against fraud, unconscious or deliberate.</p> + +<p>The first step toward buying must be a bit of pleasant +study which shall serve in the nature of self-defence. +Not by books alone, however, shall this subject be approached, +but by happy jaunts to sympathetic museums, +both at home and abroad, by moments snatched from the +touch-and-go talk of afternoon tea in some friend’s salon +or library, or by strolling visits to dealers. These object +lessons supplement the book, as a study of entomology is +enlivened by a chase for butterflies in the flowery meads +of June, or as botany is made endurable by lying on a +bank of violets. All work and no play not only makes +Jack a dull boy, but makes dull reading the book he has +in hand.</p> + +<p>The tale of tapestry itself carries us back to the unfathomable +East which has a trick at dates, making the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +Christian Era a modern epoch, and making of us but a +newly-sprung civilisation in the history of the old grey +world. After showing us that the East pre-empted originality +for all time, the history of tapestry lightly lifts us +over a few centuries and throws us into the romance of +Gothic days, then trails us along through increasing +European civilisation up to the great awakening, the +Renaissance. Then it loiters in the pleasant ways of the +kings of France during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth +Centuries, and finally falls upon modern effort, not limited +to Europe now, but nesting also in the New World +which is especially our own.</p> + +<p>Tapestry, according to the interpretation of the word +used in this book, is a pictured cloth, woven by an artist +or a talented craftsman, in which the design is an integral +part of the fabric, and not an embroidery stitched on a +basic tissue. With this flat statement the review of tapestries +from antiquity until our time may be read without +fear of mistaking the term.</p> + + +<h4>THE LOOM</h4> + +<p>The looms on which tapestries are made are such as +have been known as long as the history of man is known, +but we have come to call them high-warp and low-warp, +or as the French have it, <i>haute lisse</i> and <i>basse lisse</i>. In +the celebrated periods of weaving the high loom has been +the one in use, and to it is accredited a power almost +mysterious; yet the work of the two styles of loom are not +distinguishable by the weave alone, and it is true that the +low-warp looms were used in France when the manufacture +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +of tapestries was permanently established by the +Crown about 1600. So difficult is it to determine the +work of the two looms that weavers themselves could not +distinguish without the aid of a red thread which they +at one time wove in the border. Yet because the years +of the highest perfection in tapestries have been when the +high loom was in vogue, some peculiar power is supposed +to reside within it. That the high movements of the fine +arts have been contemporary with perfection in tapestries, +seems not to be taken into consideration.</p> + + +<h4>NECESSARY FRENCH TERMS</h4> + +<p>French terms belong so much to the art of tapestry +weaving that it is hard to find their English equivalent. +Tapestries of <i>verdure</i> and of <i>personnages</i> describe the +two general classes, the former being any charming mass +of greenery, from the Gothic <i>millefleurs</i>, and curling +leaves with animals beneath, to the lovely landscapes of +sophisticated park and garden which made Beauvais +famous in the Eighteenth Century. <i>Tapisseries des personnages</i> +have, as the name implies, the human figure as +the prominent part of the design. The shuttle or bobbin +of the high loom is called a <i>broche</i>, and that of the low +loom a <i>flute</i>. Weavers throughout Europe, whether in +the Low Countries or in France, were called <i>tapissiers</i>, +and this term was so liberal as to need explaining.</p> + + +<h4>WORKERS’ FUNCTIONS</h4> + +<p>The tapestry factory was under the guidance of a +director; under him were the various persons required for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +the work. Each tapestry woven had a directing artist, as +the design was of primary importance. This man had +the power to select the silks and wools for the work, that +they might suit his eye as to colour. But there was also +a <i>chef d’atelier</i> who was an artist weaver, and he directed +this matter and all others when the artist of the cartoons +was not present. Under him were the tapissiers who +did the actual weaving, and under these, again, were the +apprentices, who began as boys and served three years +before being allowed to try their hands at a “’prentice +job” or essay at finished work.</p> + + +<h4>WEAVERS</h4> + +<p>The word weaver means so little in these days that it +is necessary to consider what were the conditions exacted +of the weavers of tapestries in the time of tapestry’s highest +perfection. A tapissier was an artist with whom a +loom took place of an easel, and whose brush was a +shuttle, and whose colour-medium was thread instead of +paints. This places him on a higher plane than that of +mere weaver, and makes the term tapissier seem fitter. +Much liberty was given him in copying designs and +choosing colours. In the Middle Ages, when the Gothic +style prevailed, the master-weaver needed often no other +cartoon for his work than his own sketches enlarged from +the miniatures found in the luxurious missals of the day. +These historic books were the luxuries of kings, were +kept with the plate and jewels, so precious were considered +their exquisitely painted scenes in miniature. From +them the master-weaver drew largely for such designs +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +as <i>The Seven Deadly Sins</i> and other “morality” subjects.</p> + +<p>Master-weavers were many in the best years of tapestry +weaving; indeed, a man must have attained the dignity +and ability of that position before being able to produce +those marvels of skill which were woven between 1475 +and 1575 in Flanders, France and Italy. Their aids, the +apprentices, pique the fancy, as Puck harnessed to labour +might do. They were probably as mischievous, as shirking, +as exasperating as boys have ever known how to be, +but those little unwilling slaves of art in the Middle Ages +make an appeal to the imagination more vivid than that +of the shabby lunch-box boy of to-day.</p> + + +<h4>DYERS</h4> + +<p>Accessory to the weavers, and almost as important, +were the dyers who prepared the thread for use. The +conscientiousness of their work cries out for recognition +when the threads they dyed are almost unaltered in colour +after five hundred years of exposure to their enemies, +light and air. Dye stuffs were precious in those days, +and so costly that even threads of gold and silver (which +in general were supplied by the client ordering the tapestry) +hardly exceeded in value certain dyed wools and +silk. All of these workers, from director down to apprenticed +lad, were bound by the guild to do or not do, +according to its infinite code, to the end that the art of +tapestry-making be held to the highest standards. The +laws of the guilds make interesting reading. The guild +prevailed all over Europe and regulated all crafts. In +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +Florence even to-day evidences of its power are on every +side, and the Guildhall in London attests its existence +there. Moreover, the greatest artists belonged to the +guilds, uniting themselves usually by work of the goldsmith, +as Benvenuto Cellini so quaintly describes in his +naïve autobiography.</p> + + +<h4>GUILDS</h4> + +<p>It was these same protective laws of the guilds that +in the end crippled the hand of the weaver. The laws +grew too many to comply with, in justice to talent, and +talent with clipped wings could no longer soar. At the +most brilliant period of tapestry production Flanders was +to the fore. All Europe was appreciating and demanding +the unequalled products of her ateliers. It was but +human to want to keep the excellence, to build a wall of +restrictions around her especial craft that would prevent +rivals, and at the same time to press the ateliers to execute +all the orders that piled in toward the middle of the +Sixteenth Century.</p> + +<p>But although the guilds could make wise laws and enforce +them, it could not execute in haste and retain the +standard of excellence. And thus came the gradual decay +of the art in Brussels, a decay which guild-laws had +no power to arrest.</p> + + +<h4>GOTHIC PERIOD</h4> + +<p>The first period in tapestries which interests—except +the remnants of Egyptian and aboriginal work—is that +of the Middle Ages, the early Gothic, because that is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +when the art became a considerable one in Europe. It +is a time of romance, of chivalry, of deep religious feeling, +and yet seems like the childhood of modernity. Is +it the fault of crudity in pictorial art, or the fault of +romances that we look upon those distant people as more +elemental than we, and thus feel for them the indulgent +compassion that a child excites? However it is, theirs +is to us a simple time of primitive emotion and romance, +and the tapestries they have left us encourage the whim.</p> + +<p>The time of Gothic perfection in tapestry-making is +included in the few years lying between 1475 and 1520. +Life was at that time getting less difficult, and art had +time to develop. It was no longer left to monks and +lonely ladies, in convent and castle, but was the serious +consideration of royalty and nobility. No need to dwell +on the story of modern art, except as it affects the art of +tapestry weaving. With the improvement of drawing +that came in these years, a greater excellence of weave +was required to translate properly the meaning of the +artist. The human face which had hitherto been either +blank or distorted in expression, now required a treatment +that should convey its subtlest shades of expression. +Gifted weavers rose to the task, became almost inspired +in the use of their medium, and produced such works of +their art as have never been equalled in any age. These +are the tapestries that grip the heart, that cause a <i>frisson</i> +of joy to the beholder. And these are the tapestries we +buy, if kind chance allows. If they cannot be ours to +live with, then away to the museum in all haste and often, +to feast upon their beauties.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<h4>RENAISSANCE</h4> + +<p>That great usurper, the Renaissance, came creeping up +to the North where the tapestry looms were weaving +fairy webs. Pope Pius X wanted tapestries, those of the +marvellous Flemish weave. But he wanted those of +the new style of drawing, not the sweet restraint and +finished refinement of the Gothic. Raphael’s cartoons +were sent to Brussels’ workshops, and thus was the North +inoculated with the Renaissance, and thus began the +second phase of the supreme excellency of Flemish tapestries. +It was the Renaissance expressing itself in the +wondrous textile art. The weavers were already perfect +in their work, no change of drawing could perplex them. +But to their deftness with their medium was now added +the rich invention of the Italian artists of the Renaissance, +at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy +were still dominant notes.</p> + +<p>It was the overworking of the craft that led to its +decadence. Toward the end of the Sixteenth Century +the extraordinary period of Brussels perfection had +passed.</p> + +<p>But tapestry played too important a part in the life +and luxury of those far-away centuries for its production +to be allowed to languish. The magnificence of every +great man, whether pope, king or dilettante, was ill-expressed +before his fellows if he were not constantly +surrounded by the storied cloths that were the indispensable +accessories of wealth and glory. Palaces and +castles were hung with them, the tents of military +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +encampments were made gorgeous with their richness, and +no joust nor city procession was conceivable without their +colours flaunting in the sun as background to plumed +knights and fair ladies. Venice looked to them to +brighten her historic stones on days of carnival, and Paris +spread them to welcome kings.</p> + + +<h4>FRANCE</h4> + +<p>When, therefore, Brussels no longer supplied the tissues +of her former excellence, opportunity came for some +other centre to rise. The next important producer was +Paris, and in Paris the art has consistently stayed. Other +brief periods of perfection have been attained elsewhere, +but Paris once establishing the art, has never let it drop, +not even in our own day—but that is not to be considered +at this moment.</p> + +<p>Divers reigns of divers kings, notably that of Henri +IV, fostered the weaving of tapestry and brought it to +an interesting stage of development, after which Louis +XIV established the Gobelins. From that time on for a +hundred years France was without a rival, for the decadent +work of Brussels could not be counted as such. +Although the work of Italy in the Seventeenth Century +has its admirers, it is guilty of the faults of all of Italy’s +art during the dominance of Bernini’s ideals.</p> + + +<h4>AMERICAN INTEREST</h4> + +<p>America is too late on the field to enter the game of +antiquity. We have no history of this wonderful textile +art to tell. But ours is the power to acquire the lovely +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +examples of the marvellous historied hangings of other +times and of those nations which were our forebears before +the New World was discovered. And we are +acquiring them from every corner of Europe where they +may have been hiding in old château or forgotten chest. +To the museums go the most marvellous examples given +or lent by those altruistic collectors who wish to share +their treasures with a hungry public. But to the mellow +atmosphere of private homes come the greater part of +the tapestries. To buy them wisely, a smattering of their +history is a requisite. Within the brief compass of this +book is to be found the points important for the amateur, +but for a profounder study he must turn to those huge +volumes in French which omit no details.</p> + +<p>Not entirely by books can he learn. Association with +the objects loved, counts infinitely more in coming to an +understanding. Happy he who can make of tapestries +the <i>raison d’être</i> for a few months’ loitering in Europe, +and can ravish the eye and intoxicate the imagination +with the storied cloths found hanging in England, in +France, in Spain, in Italy, in Sweden, and learn from +them the fascinating tales of other men’s lives in other +men’s times.</p> + +<p>Then, when the tour is finished and a modest tapestry +is hung at home, it represents to its instructed owner the +concentrated tale of all he has seen and learned. In +the weave he sees the ancient craftsman sitting at his +loom. In the pattern is the drawing of the artist of +the day, in the colours, the dyes most rare and costly; +in the metal, the gold and silver of a duke or prince; and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +in the tale told by the figures he reads a romance of chivalry +or history, which has the glamour given by the haze +of distant time to human action.</p> + +<p>To enter a house where tapestries abound, is to feel +oneself welcomed even before the host appears. The +bending verdure invites, the animated figures welcome, +and at once the atmosphere of elegance and cordiality +envelopes the happy visitor.</p> + +<p>To live in a house abundantly hung with old tapestries, +to live there day by day, makes of labour a pleasure +and of leisure a delight. It is no small satisfaction in +our work-a-day life to live amidst beauty, to be sure that +every time the eyes are raised from the labour of writing +or sewing—or of bridge whist, if you like—they encounter +something worthy and lovely. In the big living-room +of the home, when the hours come in which the +family gathers, on a rainy morning, or on any afternoon +when the shadows grow grim outside and the afternoon +tea-tray is brought in whispering its discreet tune +of friendly communion, the tapestries on the walls seem +to gather closer, to enfold in loving embrace the sheltered +group, to promise protection and to augment brotherly +love.</p> + +<p>In the dining-room the glorious company assembles, so +that he who eats therein, attends a feast on Olympus, even +though the dyspeptic’s fast be his lot. If the eyes gaze +on Coypel’s gracious ladies, under fruit and roses, with +adolescent gods adoring, what matters if the palate is +chastised? In a dining-room soft-hung with piquant +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +scenes, even buttermilk and dog-biscuit, burnt canvasback +and cold Burgundy lose half their bitterness.</p> + +<p>When night is well started in its flight, perhaps one +only, one lover of the silence and the solitude, loath to +give away to soft sleep the quiet hours, this one remains +behind when all the others have flown bedward, and to +him the neighbouring tapestries speak a various language. +From the easy chair he sees the firelight play on the +verdure with the effect of a summer breeze, the gracious +foliage all astir. The figures in this enchanted wood are +set in motion and imagination brings them into the life +of the moment, makes of them sympathetic playmates +coaxing one to love, as they do, the land of romance. +Before their imperturbable jocundity what bad humour +can exist? All the old songs of mock pastoral times come +singing in the ears, “It happened on a day, in the merry +month of May,” “Shepherds all and maidens fair,” “It +was a lover and his lass,” “Phœbus arise, and paint the +skies,” <i>et cetera</i>. Animated by the fire, in the silence of +the winter night the loving horde gathers and ministers to +the mind afflicted with much hard practicality and the +strain of keeping up with modern inexorable times. +This sweet procession on the walls, thanks be to lovely +art, needs no keeping up with, merely asks to scatter joy +and to soften the asperities of a too arduous day.</p> + +<p>All the way up the staircase in the house of tapestries +are dainty bits of <i>millefleurs</i>, that Gothic invention for +transferring a block of the spring woods from under the +trees into a man-made edifice. It may have a deep indigo +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +background or a dull red—like the shades of moss or like +last year’s fallen leaves—but over it all is abundantly +sprinkled dainty bluebells, anemones, daisies, all the +spring beauties in joyous self-assertion and happy mingling. +With such flowery guides to mark the way the +path to slumberland is followed. Once within the bedroom, +the poppies of the hangings spread drowsy influence, +and the happy sleeper passes into unconsciousness, +passes through the flowered border of the ancient square, +into the scene beyond, becomes one of those storied persons +in the enchanted land and lives with them in jousts +and tourneys or in <i>fêtes champêtres</i> at lovely châteaux. +The magic spell of the house of tapestries has fallen like +the dew from heaven to bless the striver in our modern +life of exigency and fatigue.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 241px;"> +<a name="CHINESE_TAPESTRY" id="CHINESE_TAPESTRY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry005th.jpg" width="241" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry005.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CHINESE TAPESTRY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Chien Lung Period</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="COPTIC_TAPESTRY01" id="COPTIC_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry006th.jpg" width="400" height="358" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry006.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">COPTIC TAPESTRY</p> + +<p class="incaption">About 300 A. D.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>ANTIQUITY</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">E</span>GYPT and China, India and Persia, seem made to +take the conceit from upstart nations like those of +Europe and our own toddling America. Directly +we scratch the surface and look for the beginning +of applied arts, the lead takes us inevitably to the oldest +civilisation. It would seem that in a study of fabrics +which are made in modern Europe, it were enough to +find their roots in the mediæval shades of the dark ages; +but no, back we must go to the beginning of history +where man leaped from the ambling dinosaur, which +then modestly became extinct, and looking upon the lands +of the Nile and the Yangtsi-kiang found them good, and +proceeded to pre-empt all the ground of applied arts, so +that from that time forward all the nations of the earth +were and are obliged to acknowledge that there is nothing +new under the sun.</p> + +<p>In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a +bit of tapestry, Coptic, that period where Greek and +Egyptian drawing were intermixed, a woman’s head +adorned with much vanity of head-dress, woven two or +three centuries after Christ. (Plate facing page <a href="#COPTIC_TAPESTRY01"><b>15</b></a>.) +In the Boston Museum of Fine Arts are other rare specimens +of this same time. (Plates facing pages <a href="#COPTIC_TAPESTRY02"><b>16</b></a> +and <a href="#COPTIC_TAPESTRY03"><b>17</b></a>.) +Looking further back, an ancient decoration shows Penelope +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +at her high loom, four hundred years before the +Christian era; and one, still older, shows the Egyptians +weaving similarly three thousand years before that epoch.</p> + +<p>It is not altogether thrilling to read that civilised people +of ancient times wove fabrics for dress and decoration, +but it certainly is interesting to learn that they were +masters of an art which we carelessly attribute to Europe +of six centuries back, and to find that the weaving apparatus +and the mode of work were almost identical. The +Coptic tapestry of the Third Century is woven in the +same manner as the tapestries that come to us from Europe +as the flower of comparatively recent times, and its +dyes and treatment of shading are identical with the +Gothic times. Penelope’s loom as pictured on an ancient +vase, is the same in principle as the modern high-warp +loom, although lacking a bit in convenience to the +weaver; and so we can easily imagine the lovely lady at +work on her famous web, “playing for time,” during +Ulysses’ absence, when she sat up o’ nights undoing her +lovely stint of the day.</p> + +<p>And the Egyptian loom shown in ancient pictures—that +is even more modern than Penelope’s, although it +was set up three thousand years before, a last guide-post +on the backward way to the misty land called prehistoric.</p> + +<p>But as there is really little interest except for the +archeologist in digging so far into the past for an art +that has left us but traditions and museum fragments, let +us skim but lightly the surface of this time, only picking +up the glistening facts that attract the mind’s eye, so that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +we may quickly reach the enchanted land of more recent +times which yet appear antique to the modern.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="COPTIC_TAPESTRY02" id="COPTIC_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry007th.jpg" width="400" height="159" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry007.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">COPTIC TAPESTRY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Boston Museum of Fine Arts</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 379px;"> +<a name="COPTIC_TAPESTRY03" id="COPTIC_TAPESTRY03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry008th.jpg" width="379" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry008.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">COPTIC TAPESTRY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Boston Museum of Fine Arts</p> + +<p>There are those to whom reading the Bible was a +forced task during childhood, a class which slipped the +labour as soon as years gave liberty of choice. There +are others who have always turned as naturally to its +accounts of grand ceremony and terrible battles as to the +accounts of Cæsar, Cœur de Lion, Charlemagne. But +in either case, whatever the reason for the eye to absorb +these pages of ancient Hebrew history, the impression is +gained of superb pomp. And always concerned with +it are descriptions of details, lovingly impressed, as +though the chronicler was sure of the interest of his audience. +In this enumeration, decorative textiles always +played a part. Such textiles as they were exceed in extravagance +of material any that we know of European +production, for in many cases they were woven entirely of +gold and silver, and even set with jewels. These gorgeous +fabrics shone like suns on the magnificent pomp of +priest and ruler, and declared the wealth and power of +the nation. They departed from the original intention +of protecting shivering humanity from chill draughts or +from close and cold association with the stones of architectural +construction, and became a luxury of the eye, a +source of bewilderment to the fancy and a lively intoxication +to those who—irrespective of class, or of century—love +to compute display in coin.</p> + +<p>But, dipping into the history of one ancient country +after another, it is easy to see that the usual fabric for +hanging was woven of wool, of cotton and of silk, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +carried the design in the weaving. Babylon the great, +Egypt under the Pharaohs, Greece in its heroic times, +Rome under the Emperors—not omitting China and +India of the Far East—these countries of ancient peoples +all knew the arts of dyeing and weaving, of using the +materials that we employ, and of introducing figures +symbolic, geometric, or realistic into the weaving. Beyond +a doubt the high loom has been known to man since +prehistoric times. It may be discouraging to those who +like to feel that tapestry properly belongs to Europe only,—Europe +of the last six centuries—to find that the art +has been sifted down through the ages; but in reality it is +but one more link between us and the centuries past, the +human touch that revivifies history, that unites humanity. +People of the past wear a haze about them, are immovable +and rigid as their pictured representations. The Assyrian +is to us a huge man of impossible beard, the +Egyptian is a lean angle fixed in posture, the Greek is +eternally posed for the sculptor.</p> + +<p>But once we can find that these people were not forever +transfixed to frieze, but were as simple, as industrious, +as human as we, the kinship is established, and +through their veins begins to flow the stream that is common +to all humanity. These people felt the same need +for elegantly covering the walls of their homes that we +in this country of new homes feel, and the craftsmen led +much the same lives as do craftsmen of to-day. Even in +the matter of expense, of money which purchasers were +willing to spend for woven decorative fabrics, we see no +novelty in the high prices of to-day, the Twentieth +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +Century. <i>The Mantle of Alcisthenes</i> is celebrated for having +been bought by the Carthaginians for the equal of a +hundred thousand dollars.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 336px;"> +<a name="PERUVIAN_TAPESTRY" id="PERUVIAN_TAPESTRY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry009th.jpg" width="336" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry009.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU</p> + +<p class="incaption">Date prior to Sixteenth Century</p> + +<p>Thus we connect ourselves with the remote past in +making a continuous history. But as the purpose of this +book is to assist the owner of tapestries to understand the +story of his hangings and to enable the purchaser or collector +to identify tapestries on his own knowledge instead +of through the prejudiced statements of the salesman, it +is useless to dwell long upon the fabrics that we can only +see through exercise of the imagination or in disintegrated +fragments in museums.</p> + +<p>Then away with Circe and her leisure hours of weaving, +with Helen and her heroic canvas, and the army of +grandiose Biblical folk, and let us come westward into +Europe in short review of the textiles called tapestry +which were produced from the early Christian centuries +to the time of the Crusades, and thus will we approach +more modern times.</p> + +<p>So far as known, high-warp weaving was not universally +used in Europe in the first part of the Middle Ages. +Whether plain or figured, most of the fabrics of that +time that have come down to us for hangings or for clothing, +are woven, with the decorative pattern executed by +the needle on woven cloth. In Persia and neighbouring +states, however, the high-warp loom was used.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>Europe in the Middle Ages was a place so savage, so +devastated by war and by neighbouring malice, that to +consider it is to hear the clash of steel, to feel the pangs +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +of hunger, to experience the fearsome chill of dungeons +or moated castles. It was a time when those who could +huddle in fortresses mayhap died natural deaths, but +those who lived in the world were killed as a matter of +course. Man was man’s enemy and to be killed on sight.</p> + +<p>In such gay times of carnage, art is dead. Men there +were who drew designs and executed them, for the <i>luxe</i> +of the eye is ever demanding, but the designs were timid +and stunted and came far from the field of art. Fabrics +were made and worn, no doubt, but when looms were +like to be destroyed and the weavers with them, scant attention +was given to refinements.</p> + +<p>By the time the Tenth Century was reached matters +had improved. We come into the light of records. It +is positively known that the town of Saumur, down in +the lovely country below Tours, became the destination +of a quantity of wall-hangings, carpets, curtains, and seat +covers woven of wool. This was by order of the third +Abbot Robert of the Monastery of St. Florent, one of +those vigorous, progressive men whose initiative inspires +a host. It is recorded that he also ordered two pieces of +tapestry executed, not of wool exclusively, but with silk +introduced, and in these the figures of the designs were +the beasts that were then favourites in decoration and that +still showed the influence of Oriental drawing.</p> + +<p>Before enumerating other authentic examples of early +tapestries it is well to speak of the reason for their being +invariably associated with the church. The impression +left by history is that folk of those days must have been +universally religious when not cutting each other in bits +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +with bloody cutlass. The reason is, of course, that when +poor crushed humanity began to revive from the devastating +onslaughts of fierce Northern barbarians, it was +with a timid huddling in monasteries, for there was +found immunity from attack. The lord of the castle was +forced to go to war or to resist attack in his castle, but +the monastery was exempt from whatever conscription +the times imposed, and frocked friars were always on +hand were defence needed. Thus it came about that +monasteries became treasure-houses, the only safe ones, +were built strong, were sufficiently manned, and therefore +were the safe-deposit of whatever articles of concentrated +value the great lord of the Middle Ages might +accumulate. Many tapestries thus deposited became +gifts to the institution which gave them asylum.</p> + +<p>The arts and crafts of the Middle Ages were in the +hands of the monasteries, monks and friars being the +only persons with safety and leisure. Weaving fell naturally +to them to execute as an art. In the castles, necessary +weaving for the family was done by the women, as +on every great lord’s domains were artisans for all crafts; +and great ladies emulated Penelope and Helen of old in +passing their hours of patience and anxiety with fabricating +gorgeous cloths. But these are exceptional, and +deal with such grand ladies as Queen Matilda, who with +her maidens embroidered (not wove) the Bayeux Tapestry, +and with the Duchess Gonnor, wife of Richard First, +who embroidered for the church of Notre Dame at +Rouen a history of the Virgin and Saints.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +To the monasteries must be given the honour of preserving +this as many other arts, and of stimulating the +laity which had wealth and power to present to religious +institutions the best products of the day. The subjects +executed inside the monastery were perforce religious, +many revelling in the horrors of martyrology, and those +intended as gifts or those ordered by the clergy were +religious in subject for the sake of appropriateness. It +is interesting to note the sweet childlike attitude of all +lower Europe toward the church in these years, a sort of +infantile way of leaving everything in its hands, all +knowledge, all wisdom, all power. It was not even +necessary to read or write, as the clergy conveniently concerned +themselves with literacy. As late as the beginning +of the Fifteenth Century Philip the Hardy, the +great Duke of Burgundy, in ordering a tapestry, signed +the order, not with his autograph, for he could not, but +with his mark, for he, too, left pen-work to the clerks of +the church.</p> + +<p>That pile of concentrated royal history, the old abbey +of St. Denis, received, late in the Tenth Century, one of +the evidences of royal patronage that every abbey must +have envied. It was a woven representation of the +world, as scientists of that day imagined our half-discovered +planet, and was presented by Queen Adelaide, +the wife of Hugh Capet, whose descendants reigned for +three hundred years.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>While dealing with records rather than with objects +on which the eye can gaze and the hand can rest, note +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +must be made of an order of a Count of Poitou, William +V, to a factory for tapestries then existing in Poitiers, +showing that the art of weaving had in that spot jumped +the monastery walls in 1025.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The order was for a large +hanging with subjects taken from the Scriptures, but +given the then modern touch by introducing portraits of +kings and emperors and their favourite animals transfixed +in ways peculiar to the nature of the day.</p> + +<p>A century later, another Abbot of St. Florent in +Saumur had hangings made important enough to be recorded. +One of these represented the four and twenty +elders of the Apocalypse with musical instruments, and +other subjects taken from the Revelation of John. This +subject was one of unending interest to the artists of that +time who seemed to find in its depicting a serving of both +God and imagination.</p> + +<p>Among the few tapestries of this period, those of the +Cathedral at Halberstadt must be mentioned, partly by +way of conscientious chronicling, partly that the interested +traveller may, as he travels, know where to find the +rare specimens of the hobby he is pursuing. This is a +high-warp tapestry which authorities variously place as +the product of the Eleventh or the Twelfth Centuries. +Entirely regardless of its age, it has for us the charm of the +craft of hands long vanished, and of primitive art in all +its simplicity of artifice. The subject is religious—could +hardly have been otherwise in those monastic days—and +for church decoration, and to fit the space they were +woven to occupy, each of the two parts was but three +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +and a half feet high although more than fourteen yards +long.</p> + +<p>Each important event recorded in history has its expression +in the material product of its time, and this is one +of the charms of studying the liberal arts. Tapestry more +than almost any other handicraft has left us a pictured +history of events in a time when records were scarce. +The effect of the Crusades was noticeable in the impetus +it gave to tapestry, not only by bringing Europe into fresh +contact with Oriental design but by increasing the desire +for luxurious stuffs. The returning crusaders—what +traveller’s tales did they not tell of the fabrics of the +great Oriental sovereigns and their subjects, the soft rugs, +the tent coverings, the gorgeous raiment; and these tales +they illustrated with what fragments they could port in +their travellers’ packs. Here lay inspiration for a continent.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Eugene Müntz, “History of Tapestry.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Jubinal, “Recherches,” Vol. I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> F. Michel, “Recherches.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Jubinal, “Recherches.”</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>MODERN AWAKENING</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>N the Fourteenth Century, tapestry, the high-warp +product, began to play an important part in the refinements +of the day. We have seen the tendency of the +past time to embellish and soften churches and monastic +institutions with hangings. Records mostly in clerical +Latin, speak of these as curtains for doorways, dossers +for covering seats, and the backs of benches, and baldachins, +as well as carpets for use on the floor. Subjects +were ecclesiastic, as the favourite Apocalypse; or classic, +like that of the Quedlimburg hanging which fantastically +represents the marriage of Mercury and Philology.</p> + +<p>But in the Thirteenth Century the political situation +had improved and men no longer slept in armour and +women no longer were prepared to thrust all household +valuables into a coffer on notice that the enemy was +approaching over the plains or up the rocks. Therefore, +homes began to be a little less rude in their comforts. +Stone walls were very much the rule inside as well as +out, but it became convenient then to cover their grim +asperities with the woven draperies, the remains of which +so interest us to-day, and which we in our accession of +luxuriousness would add to the already gently finished +apartments. To put ourselves back into one of those +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +castle homes we are to imagine a room of stone walls, +fitted with big iron hooks, on which hung pictured +tapestry which reached all around, even covering the +doors in its completeness. To admit of passing in and +out the door a slit was made, or two tapestries joined at +this spot. Set Gothic furniture scantily about such a +room, a coffer or two, some high-backed chairs, a generous +table, and there is a room which the art of to-day +with its multiple ingenuity cannot surpass for beauty and +repose.</p> + +<p>But such a room gave opportunity for other matters +in the Thirteenth Century. Customs were less polite and +morals more primitive. Important people desiring important +information were given to the spying and eavesdropping +which now has passed out of polite fashion. +And those ancient rooms favoured the intriguer, for the +hangings were suspended a foot or two away from the +wall, and a man or a woman, for that matter, might easily +slip behind and witness conversations to which the listener +had not been invited. So it was customary on occasions +of intimate and secret converse lightly to thrust a +sharpened blade behind the curtains. If, as in the case +in “Hamlet,” the sword pierced a human quarry, so much +the worse for the listener who thus gained death and lost +its dignity.</p> + +<p>Before leaving this ancient chamber it is well to impress +ourselves with the interesting fact that tapestries +were originally meant to be suspended loosely, liberally, +from the upper edge only, and to fall in folds or gentle +undulations, thus gaining in decorative value and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +elegance. This practice had an important effect on the +design, and also gave an appearance of movement to +human figures and to foliage, as each swayed in light +folds.</p> + +<p>When considering tapestries of the Thirteenth Century +we are only contemplating the stones of history, for the +actual products of the looms of that time are not for us; +they are all gathered into museums, public or ecclesiastic. +The same might be said of tapestries of the Fourteenth +Century, and almost of the Fifteenth. But those old times +are so full of romance, that their history is worth our +toying with. It adds infinite joy to the possessing of old +tapestries, and converts museum visits into a keen chase +for the elusive but fascinating figures of the past.</p> + +<p>Let us then absorb willingly one or two dry facts. +High-warp tapestry we have traced lightly from Egypt +through Greece and Rome and, almost losing the thread +in the Middle Ages, have seen it rising a virile industry, +nursed in monasteries. It was when the stirrings of +artistic life were commencing under the Van Eycks in +the North and under Giotto and the Tuscans in the South +that the weaving of tapestries reached a high standard +of production and from that time until the Nineteenth +Century has been an important artistic craft. The Thirteenth +Century saw it started, the Fourteenth saw the +beginnings of important factories, and the Fifteenth +bloomed into full productions and beauty of the style we +call Gothic.</p> + +<p>In these early times of the close of the Thirteenth Century +and the beginning of the Fourteenth, the best known +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +high-warp factories were centred in northern and midland +provinces of France and Flanders, Paris and Arras +being the towns most famed for their productions. As +these were able to supply the rest of Europe, the skilled +technique was lost otherwheres, so that later, when Italy, +Germany and England wished to catch up again their +ancient work, they were obliged to ask instruction of the +Franco-Flemish high-warp workers.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>It is not possible in the light of history for either Paris +or Arras to claim the invention of so nearly a prehistoric +art as that of high-warp tapestry, and there is much discussion +as to which of these cities should be given the +honour of superiority and priority in the work of the +Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.</p> + +<p>Factories existed at both places and each had its rules +of manufacture which regulated the workman and stimulated +its excellence. The factories at Paris, however, +were more given to producing copies of carpets brought +from the East by returning crusaders, and these were +intended for floors. The craftsmen were sometimes +alluded to as <i>tapissiers Sarrazinois</i>, named, as is easily +seen, after the Saracens who played so large a part in +the adventurous voyages of the day. But in Paris in +1302, by instigation of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau, +there were associated with these tapissiers or workmen, +ten others, for the purpose of making high-warp tapestry, +and these were bound with all sorts of oaths not to depart +from the strict manner of proceeding in this valued handicraft.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +Indeed, the Articles of Faith, nor the Vows of the +Rosicrucians, could not be more inviolable than the +promises demanded of the early tapestry workers. In +some cases—notably a factory of Brussels, Brabant, in +the Sixteenth Century—there were frightful penalties +attendant upon the breaking of these vows, like the loss +of an ear or even of a hand.</p> + +<p>The records of the undertaking of the Provost Pierre +le Jumeau in introducing the high-warp (<i>haute lisse</i>) +workers into the factory where Sarrazinois and other +fabrics were produced, means only that the improvement +had begun, but not that Paris had never before practised +an art so ancient.</p> + +<p>The name of Nicolas Bataille is one of the earliest +which we can surround with those props of records that +please the searcher for exact detail.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> He was both manufacturer +and merchant and was a man of Paris in the +reign of Charles VI, a king who patronised him so well +that the workshops of Paris benefited largely. The +king’s brother becoming envious, tried to equal him in +personal magnificence and gave orders almost as large +as those of the king. Philip the Hardy, uncle of the +king, also employed this designer whose importance has +not lessened in the descent of the centuries.</p> + +<p>What makes Bataille of special interest to us is that +we cannot only read of him in fascinating chronicles as +well as dry histories, but we can ourselves see his wondrous +works. In the cathedral at Angers hangs a tapestry +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +executed by him; it is a part of the <i>Apocalypse</i> (favourite +subject) drawn by Dourdin, who was artist of the cartoons +as well as artist to Charles V.</p> + +<p>In those days the weaver occupied much the same place +in relation to the cartoonist as the etcher does now to the +painter. That is to say, that because the drawing was +his inspiration, the weaver was none the less an artist +of originality and talent.</p> + +<p>These celebrated hangings at Angers, although commenced +in 1376 for Louis of Anjou, were not completed +in all the series until 1490, therefore Bataille’s work was +on the first ones, finished on Christmas, 1379. The design +includes imposing figures, each seated on a Gothic +throne reading and meditating. The larger scenes are +topped with charming figures of angels in primitive skies +of the “twisted ribbon” style of cloud, angels whose duty +and whose joy is to trump eternally and float in defiance +of natural laws of gravitation.</p> + +<p>The museum at the Gobelins factory in Paris shows +to wondering eyes the other authentic example of late +Fourteenth Century high-warp tapestry, as woven in the +early Paris workshops. It portrays with a lovely naïve +simplicity <i>The Presentation in the Temple</i>. This with +the pieces of the <i>Apocalypse</i> at Angers are all that are +positively known to have come from the Paris workshops +of the late Fourteenth Century.</p> + +<p>History steps in with an event that crushed the industry +in Paris. Just when design and execution were at their +highest excellence, and production was prolific, political +events began to annihilate the trade. The English King, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +Henry V, crossed the Channel and occupied Paris in +1422. Thus, under the oppression of the invaders, the +art of tapestry was discouraged and fell by the way, not +to rise lustily again in Paris for two hundred years.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Eugene Müntz, “La Tapisserie.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> For extensive reading see Guiffrey, “Nicolas Bataille, tapissier parisien,” +and “L’Histoire General de la Tapisserie,” the section called “Les Tapisseries +Francaises.”</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>HETHER Arras began as early as Paris is a +question better left unsettled if only for the +sake of furnishing a subject of happy controversy +between the champions of the two opinions. But +certain it is that with fewer distractions to disturb her +craftsmen, and under the stimulus of certain ducal and +royal patrons, Arras succeeded in advancing the art more +than did her celebrated neighbour. It was Arras, too, +that gave the name to the fabric, a name which appears +in England as arras and in Italy as arazzo, as though there +was no other parent-region for the much-needed and +much-prized stuffs than the busy Flemish town.</p> + +<p>Among the early records is found proof that in 1311, +a countess of the province of Artois, of which Arras was +the capital, bought a figured cloth in that city, and two +years later ordered various works in high warp.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> It is +she who became ruler of the province. To patronise the +busy town of her own domains, Arras, she ordered from +there the hangings that were its specialty. Paris also +shared her patronage. She took as husband Otho, Count +of Burgundy, and set his great family the fashion in the +way of patronising the tapestry looms.</p> + +<p>It was in the time of Charles V of France, that the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +Burgundian duke Philip, called the Hardy, began to +patronise conspicuously the Arras factories. In 1393, +as de Barante delightfully chronicles, the gorgeous equipments +of this duke were more than amazing when he +went to arrange peace with the English at Lelingien.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>The town chosen for the pourparlers, wherein assembled +the English dukes, Lancaster and Gloucester and +their attendants, as well as the cortége attending the Duke +of Burgundy, was a poor little village ruined by wars. +The conferences were held by these superb old fighters +and statesmen in an ancient thatched chapel. To make +it presentable and worthy of the nobles, it was covered +with tapestries which entirely hid the ruined walls. The +subject of the superb pieces was a series of battles, which +made the Duke of Lancaster whimsically critical of a subject +ill-chosen for a peace conference, he suggesting that +it were better to have represented “<i>la Passion de notre +Seigneur</i>.”</p> + +<p>Not satisfied with having the meeting place a gorgeous +and luxurious temple, this Philip, Duke of Burgundy, +demonstrated his magnificence in his own tent, which +was made of wooden planks entirely covered with “toiles +peintes” (authorities state that tapestries with personages +were thus described), and was in form of a château +flanked with towers. As a means of pleasing the English +dukes and the principal envoys, Philip gave to them +superb gifts of tapestries, the beautiful tapestries of +Flanders such as were made only in the territory of the +duke. It is interesting to note this authentic account +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +of the importation of certain Arras tapestries into England.</p> + +<p>Subjects at this time introduced, besides Bible people, +figures of Clovis and of Charlemagne. Two hangings +represented, the one <i>The Seven Cardinal Vices</i>, with their +conspicuous royal exponents in the shape of seven vicious +kings and emperors; the other, <i>The Seven Cardinal Virtues</i>, +with the royalties who had been their notable exponents. +Here is a frank criticism on the lives of kings +which smacks of latter-day democracy. All these tapestries +were enriched with gold of Cyprus, as gold threads +were called.</p> + +<p>This same magnificent Philip the Hardy, had other +treaties to make later on, and seeing how much his tapestries +were appreciated, continued to make presents of +them. One time it was the Duke of Brittany who had +to be propitiated, all in the interests of peace, peace being +a quality much sought and but little experienced at this +time in France. Perhaps this especial Burgundian duke +had a bit of self-interest in his desire for amity with the +English, for he was lord of the Comité of Artois (including +Arras) and this was a district which, because of its +heavy commerce with England, might favour that country. +A large part of that commerce was wool for tapestry +weaving, wool which came from the <i>prés salés</i> of +Kent, where to-day are seen the same meadows, salt with +ocean spray and breezes, whereon flocks are grazing now +as of old—but this time more for mutton chops than for +tapestry wools.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="THE_SACRAMENTS01" id="THE_SACRAMENTS01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry010th.jpg" width="400" height="311" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry010.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE SACRAMENTS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p> + +<p>The history of the Dukes of Burgundy, because their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +patronage was so stimulating to the factories of Flanders, +leads us to recall the horrors of the war with Bajazet, the +terrible Sultan of Turkey, and the way in which this cool +monster bartered human lives for human luxuries. It +was when the flower of France (1396) invaded his country +and was in the power of his hand, that he had the +brave company of nobles pass in review before his royal +couch that he might see them mutilated to the death. +Three or four only he retained alive, then sent one of +these, the Sire de Helly, back to his France with <i>parole +d’honneur</i> to return—to amass, first, as big a ransom as +could be raised; this, if in the Turk’s demanding eyes +it appeared sufficient, he would accept in exchange for +the remaining unhappy nobles.</p> + +<p>Added to the money which de Helly was able to collect, +were superb tapestries of Arras contributed by the +Burgundian duke, Philip the Hardy. It was argued that +of these luxurious hangings, Bajazet had none, for the +looms of his country had not the craft to make tapestries +of personages. Cloth of gold and of silver, considered +an extreme elegance in France, they argued was no rarity +to the terrible Turk, for it was from Damascus in his +part of the world that this precious fabric came most +plentifully. So de Helly took Arras tapestries into +Turkey, a suite representing the history of Alexander the +Great, and the avaricious monarch was persuaded by reason +of this and other ransom to let his prisoners free.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>After the death of Philip the Hardy in 1404, his +accumulated luxuries had to be sold to help pay his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +fabulous debts. To this end his son sold, among other things, +his superb tapestries, and thus they became distributed in +Paris. And yet John without Fear, who succeeded +Philip, continued to stimulate the Arras weavers. In +1409 he ordered five big hangings representing his victories +of Liége, all battle subjects.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>Philip the Good was the next head of the Burgundian +house, and he it was who assisted in the sumptuous preparations +for the entry of the king, Louis XI, into Paris. +The king himself could scarcely equal in magnificence +this much-jewelled duke, whose splendour was a matter +of excitement to the populace. People ran to see him +in the streets or to the church, to feast their eyes on his +cortége, his mounted escort of a hundred knights who +were themselves dukes, princes and other nobles.</p> + +<p>His house, in the old quarter of Paris, where we are +wont to wander with a Baedeker veiled, was the wonder +of all who were permitted to view its interior. Here he +had brought his magnificent Arras tapestries and among +them the set of the <i>History of Gideon</i>, which he had had +made in honour of the order of the Golden Fleece founded +by him at Bruges, in 1429, for, he said, the tale of Gideon +was more appropriate to the Fleece than the tale of Jason, +who had not kept his trust—a bit of unconventionalism +appreciable even at this distance of time.</p> + +<p>Charles le Téméraire—the Bold or rather the foolhardy—how +he used and lost his tapestries is of interest +to us, because his possessions fell into a place where we +can see them by taking a little trouble. Some of them +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +are among the treasures in the museum at Nancy and at +Berne in Switzerland. How they got there is in itself +a matter of history, the history of a war between Burgundy +and Switzerland.</p> + +<p>Like all the line of these half-barbaric, picturesque +dukes, Charles could not disassociate himself from magnificence, +which in those days took the place of comfort. +When making war, he endeavoured to have his camp +lodgment as near as possible reproduce the elegance of +his home. In his campaign against Switzerland, his tent +was entirely hung with the most magnificent of tapestries. +After foolhardy onslaughts on a people whose strength +he miscalculated, he lost his battles, his life—and his +tapestries. And this is how certain Burgundian tapestries +hang in the cathedral at Berne, and in the museums +at Nancy.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>The simple Swiss mountaineers, accustomed more to +expediency than to luxury, are said to have been entirely +ignorant of the value of their spoils of war. Tapestries +they had never seen, nor had they the experienced eye +to discern their beauties; but cloth, thick woollen cloth, +that would protect shivering man from the cold, was a +commodity most useful; so, many of the fine products of +the high-warp looms that had augmented the pride of +their noble possessor, found their way into shops and were +sold to the Swiss populace in any desired length, according +to bourgeois household needs, a length for a warm +bed-cover, or a square for a table; and thus disappeared +so many that we are thankful for the few whole hangings +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +of that time which are ours to inspect, and which represent +the best work of the day both from Arras and from +Brussels, which was then (about 1476) beginning to produce.</p> + +<p>There is a special and local reason why we should be +interested in the products of the high-warp tapestries in +the time of the greatest power of the Dukes of Burgundy. +It is that we can have the happy experience of studying, +in our own country, a set of these hangings, and this without +going farther than to the Metropolitan Museum of +Art in New York, where repose the set called <i>The Sacraments</i>. +(Plates facing pages <a href="#THE_SACRAMENTS01"><b>34</b></a>, +<a href="#THE_SACRAMENTS02"><b>38</b></a> and <a href="#THE_SACRAMENTS03"><b>39</b></a>.) There are +in all seven pieces, although the grounds are well taken +that the set originally included one more. They represent +the four Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Confirmation +and Extreme Unction, first by a series of ideal +representations, then by the everyday ceremonies of the +time—the time of Joan of Arc. Thus we have the early +Fifteenth Century folk unveiled to us in their ideals and +in their practicality. The one shows them to be religionists +of a high order, the other reveals a sumptuous and +elegant scale of living belonging to the nobility who made +resplendent those early times.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 352px;"> +<a name="THE_SACRAMENTS02" id="THE_SACRAMENTS02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry011th.jpg" width="352" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry011.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE SACRAMENTS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Arras Tapestry, about 1430</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 240px;"> +<a name="THE_SACRAMENTS03" id="THE_SACRAMENTS03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry012th.jpg" width="240" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry012.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE SACRAMENTS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Arras Tapestry, about 1430</p> + +<p>The drawing is full of simplicity and honesty, the composition +limited to a few individuals, each one having its +place of importance. In this, the early work differed +from the later, which multiplied figures until whole +groups counted no more than individuals. The background +is a field of conventionalised fleur-de-lis of so +large a pattern as not to interfere with the details thrown +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +against it. Scenes are divided by slender Gothic columns, +and other architectural features are tessellated floors +and a sketchy sort of brick-work that appears wherever +a limit-line is needed. It is the charming naïveté of its +drawing that delights. Border there is none, but its lack +is never felt, for the pictures are of such interest that the +eye needs no barrier to keep it from wandering. Whatever +border is found is a varying structure of architecture +and of lettering and of the happy flowers of Gothic times +which thrust their charm into all possible and impossible +places.</p> + +<p>The dress, in the suite of ideals, is created by the imagining +of the artist, admixed with the fashion of the day; +but in scenes portraying life of the moment, we are given +an interesting idea of how a bride à la mode was arrayed, +in what manner a gay young lord dressed himself on his +wedding morning, and how a young mother draped her +proud brocade. The colouring is that of ancient stained +glass, simple, rich, the gamut of colours limited, but the +manner of their combining is infinite in its power to +please. The conscientiousness of the ancient dyer lives +after him through the centuries, and the fresh ruby-colour, +the golden yellow of the large-figured brocades, +glow almost as richly now as they did when the Burgundian +dukes were marching up and down the land from +the Mediterranean, east of France, to the coast of +Flanders, carrying with them the woven pictures of their +ideals, their religion and their conquests. The weave is +smooth and even, speaking for the work of the tapissier +or weaver, although time has distorted the faces beyond +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +the lines of absolute beauty; and hatching accomplishes +the shading.</p> + +<p>The repairer has been at work on this valuable set, not +the intelligent restorer, but the frank bungler who has +not hesitated to turn certain pieces wrong side out, nor +to set in large sections obviously cut from another tapestry. +It is surmised that the set contained one more piece—it +would be regrettable, indeed, if that missing square +had been cut up for repairs.</p> + +<p>The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns +these tapestries through the altruistic generosity of J. +Pierpont Morgan, Esq. They are the most interesting +primitive work which are on public view in our country, +and awake to enthusiasm even the most insensate dullard, +who has a half hour to stand before them and realise all +they mean in art, in morals and in history.</p> + +<p>To the lives of the Prophets and Saints we can always +turn; from the romance of men and women we can never +turn away. And so when a Gothic tapestry is found that +frankly omits Biblical folk and gives us a true picture +of men and women of the almost impenetrable time back +of the fifteen hundreds, tells us what they wore, in what +manner they comported themselves, that tapestry has a +sure and peculiar value. The surviving art of the Middle +Ages smacks strong of saints, paints at full length the +people of Moses’ time, but unhappily gives only a bust +of their contemporaries.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="FRENCH_TAPESTRY" id="FRENCH_TAPESTRY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry013th.jpg" width="400" height="315" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry013.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">FIFTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH TAPESTRY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Boston Museum of Fine Arts</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="LIFE_OF_CHRIST" id="LIFE_OF_CHRIST"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry014th.jpg" width="400" height="208" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry014.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE LIFE OF CHRIST</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. Boston Museum of Fine Arts</p> + +<p>Hangings portraying secular subjects were less often +woven than those of religion and morals, but also the +former have less lustily outlived the centuries, owing to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +the habit of tearing them from the suspending hooks and +packing them about from château to château, to soften +surroundings for the wandering visitor. Thus it comes +that we have little tapestried record of a time when +knights and ladies and ill-assorted attributes walked hand +in hand, a time of chivalry and cruelty, of roses and war, +of sumptuousness and crudity, of privation and indulgence, +of simplicity and deceit.</p> + +<p>If prowling among old books has tempted the hand to +take from the shelves one of those quaint luxuries known +as a “Book of Hours,” there before the eye lies the spirit +of that age in decoration and design. There, too, lies +much of the old spirit of morality—that, whether genuine +or affected, was bound to be expressed. Morality had a +vogue in those days, was a <i>sine qua non</i> of fashion. That +famous amateur Jean, duc de Berry, uncle of Charles VI +of France, had such a book, “Les Très Riches Heures”; +one was possessed by that gifted Milanese lady whom +Ludovico Sforza put out of the line of Lombardy’s throne. +The wonderful Gothic ingenuousness lies in their careful +paintings, the ingenuousness where virtue is expressed by +beauty, and vice by ugliness, and where, with delightful +seriousness, standing figures overtop the houses they +occupy—the same people, the same battlements, we have +seen on the early tapestries. Weavers must surely have +consulted the lovely books of Gothic miniature, so like is +the spirit of the designs to that in the Gothic fabrics.</p> + +<p>“The beauties of Agnes Sorel were represented on the +wool,” says Jubinal, “and she herself gave a superb and +magnificent tapestry to the church at Loches,” but this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +quaint student is doubtful if the lovely <i>amante du roi</i> +actually gave the tapestries that set forth her own beauties, +which beauty all can see in the quiet marble as she +lies sleeping with her spaniel curled up at her lovely feet +in the big château on the Loire.</p> + +<p>By means of a rare set bought by the Rogers Fund for +the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, we can +see, if not the actual tapestries of fair Agnes Sorel, at least +those of the same epoch and manner. This set is called +<i>The Baillée des Roses</i> and comprises three pieces, fragments +one is inclined to call them, seeing the mutilations +of the ages. (Plate facing page <a href="#LA_BAILLEE_DES_ROSES"><b>42</b></a>.) They were woven +probably before 1450, probably in France, undoubtedly +from French drawings, for the hand and eye of the artist +were evidently under the influence of the celebrated +miniaturist, Jean Fouquet of Tours. Childlike is the +charm of this careful artist of olden times, childlike is his +simplicity, his honesty, his care to retain the fundamental +virtues of a good little boy who lives to the tune of Eternal +Verities.</p> + +<p>These three tapestries of the Roses illustrate so well so +many things characteristic of their day, that it is not time +lost to study them with an eye to all their points. There +is the weave, the wool, the introduction of metal threads, +the colour scale; all these besides the design and the story +it tells.</p> + +<p>The tapestries represent a custom of France in the time +when Charles VII, the Indolent (and likewise through +Jeanne d’Arc, the victorious) had as his favourite the +fascinating Agnes Sorel. During the late spring, when +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +the roses of France are in fullest flower, various peers of +France had as political duty to present to each member +of the Parliament a rose when the members answered in +response to roll call.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="LA_BAILLEE_DES_ROSES" id="LA_BAILLEE_DES_ROSES"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry015th.jpg" width="400" height="336" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry015.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">LA BAILLÉE DES ROSES</p> + +<p class="incaption">French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 371px;"> +<a name="MILLEFLEUR_WITH_ARMS" id="MILLEFLEUR_WITH_ARMS"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry016th.jpg" width="371" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry016.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Cathedral of Troyes</p> + +<p>The great chamber where the body met was for the +occasion transformed into a bower; vines and sprays of +roses covered all the grim walls, as the straying vines in +the tapestry reveal. The host of the day, who might be +a foreign prince or cardinal, or one of the “children of +France,” began the day with giving a great breakfast +which took place in the several chambers. During the +feast the noble host paid a courtly visit to each chamber, +accompanied by a servitor who bore a huge salver on +which were the flowers and souvenirs to be presented. +The air was sweet with blossoms and pungent herbs, music +penetrated from the halls outside as the man of conspicuous +elegance played mock humility and served all with +the dainty tribute of a fragrant tender rose. This part +of the ceremony over, the company moved on to the great +audience chamber, where mass was said.</p> + +<p>Our tapestries show the figures of ladies and gentlemen +present at this pretty ceremony—too pretty to associate +with desperate Jeanne d’Arc, who at that very time was +rousing France to war to throw off the foreign yoke. The +ladies fair and masters bold are intensely human little +people, for the most part paired off in couples as men +and women have been wont to pair in gardens since +Eden’s time. They are dressed in their best, that is evident, +and by their distant, courteous manners show good +society. The faces of the ladies are childlike, dutiful; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +those of the men more determined, after the manner of +men.</p> + +<p>But the interest of the set centres in the tableau wherein +are but three figures, those of two men and a woman. +Here lies a piquant romance. Who is she, the grand +and gracious lady, bending like a lily stalk among the +roses, with a man on either side? A token is being exchanged +between her and the supplicant at her right. +He, wholly elegant, half afraid, bends the knee and fixes +her with a regard into which his whole soul is thrown. +She, fair lady, is inclining, yet withdrawing, eyes of fear +and modesty cast down. Yet whatever of temerity the +faces tell, the hands are carrying out a comedy. Hid in +the shadow of a copious hat, which the gentleman extends, +lurks a rose; proffered by the lady’s hand is a token—fair +exchange, indeed, of lover’s symbols—provided the strong, +hard man to the left of the lady has himself no right of +command over her and her favours. Thus might one +dream on forever over history’s sweets and romance’s gallantries.</p> + +<p>It is across the sea, in the sympathetic Museum of +Cluny that the beauty of early French work is exquisitely +demonstrated. The set of <i>The Lady and the Unicorn</i> is +one of infinite charm. (Plates facing pages <a href="#LADY_AND_UNICORN01"><b>44</b></a> +and <a href="#LADY_AND_UNICORN02"><b>45</b></a>.) +In its enchanted wood lives a noble lady tall and fair, +lithe, young and elegant, with attendant maid and two +faithful, fabulous beasts that uphold the standards of +maidenhood. A simple circle denotes the boundary of +the enchanted land wherein she dwells, a park with noble +trees and lovely flowers, among which disport the little +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +animals that associate themselves with mankind. For +four centuries these hangings have delighted the eye of +man, and are perhaps more than ever appreciated now. +Certain it is that the art student’s easel is often set before +them for copying the quaint design and soft colour.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="LADY_AND_UNICORN01" id="LADY_AND_UNICORN01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry017th.jpg" width="400" height="326" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry017.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE LADY AND THE UNICORN</p> + +<p class="incaption">French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;"> +<a name="LADY_AND_UNICORN02" id="LADY_AND_UNICORN02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry018th.jpg" width="323" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry018.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE LADY AND THE UNICORN</p> + +<p class="incaption">French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris</p> + +<p>As the early worker in wools could not forget the beauties +of earth, the foreground of many Gothic tapestries +is sprinkled with the loved common flowers of every day, +of the field and wood. This is one of the charming +touches in early tapestry, these little flowers that thrust +themselves with captivating inappropriateness into every +sort of scene. The grave and awesome figures in the +<i>Apocalypse</i> find them at their feet, and in scenes of battle +they adorn the sanguinary sod and twinkle between fierce +combatants.</p> + +<p>Occasionally a weaver goes mad about them and refuses +to produce anything else but lily-bells newly sprung +in June, cowslips and daisies pied, rosemary and rue, and +all these in decorous courtesy on a deep, dark background +like twilight on a bank or moonlight in a dell—and lo, +we have the marvellous bit of nature-painting called +<i>millefleurs</i>.</p> + +<p>A Burgundian tapestry that has come to this country to +add to our increasing riches, is the large hanging known +as <i>The Sack of Jerusalem</i>. (Plate facing page <a href="#SACK_OF_JERUSALEM"><b>46</b></a>.) Almost +more than any other it revivifies the ancient times of +Philip the Hardy, John without Fear, and Charles the +Bold, when these dukes, who were monarchs in all but +name, were leading lives that make our own Twentieth +Century fretting seem but the unrest of aspens. Such +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +hangings as this, <i>The Sack of Jerusalem</i>, were those that +the great Burgundian dukes had hung about their tents in +battle, their castles in peace, their façades and bridges in +fêtes.</p> + +<p>The subject chosen hints religion, but shouts bloodshed +and battle. Those who like to feel the texture of old +tapestries would find this soft and pliable, and in +wondrous state of preservation. Its colours are warm +and fresh, adhering to red-browns and brown-reds and +a general mellow tone differing from the sharp stained-glass +contrasts noticed in <i>The Sacraments</i>. Costumes +show a naïve compromise between those the artist knew +in his own time and those he guessed to appertain to the +year of our Lord 70, when the scene depicted was actually +occurring. The tapestry resembles in many ways the +famous tapestries of the Duke of Devonshire which are +known as the Hardwick Hall tapestries. In drawing it +is similar, in massing, in the placing of spots of interest. +This large hanging is a part of the collection at the Metropolitan +Museum of Art in New York.</p> + +<p>The Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibits a primitive +hanging which is probably woven in France, Northern +France, at the end of the Fifteenth Century. (Plate +facing page <a href="#FRENCH_TAPESTRY"><b>40</b></a>.) It represents, in two panels, the power +of the church to drive out demons and to confound the +heathen. Fault can be found with its crudity of drawing +and weave, but tapestries of this epoch can hold a position +of interest in spite of faults.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="SACK_OF_JERUSALEM" id="SACK_OF_JERUSALEM"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry019th.jpg" width="400" height="326" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry019.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL)</p> + +<p class="incaption">Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p> + +<p>A fine piece at the same museum is the long, narrow +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +hanging representing scenes from the life of Christ, with +a scene from Paradise to start the drama. (Plate facing +page <a href="#LIFE_OF_CHRIST"><b>41</b></a>.) This tapestry, which is of great beauty, is subdivided +into four panels by slender columns suggesting a +springing arch which the cloth was too low to carry. All +the pretty Gothic signs are here. The simple flowers upspringing, +the Gothic lettering, the panelling, and a narrow +border of such design as suggests rose-windows or +other lace-like carving. Here is noticeable, too, the +sumptuous brocades in figures far too large for the human +form to wear, figures which diminished greatly a very +few decades later.</p> + +<p>The Institute of Art, Chicago, possesses an interesting +piece of the period showing another treatment of a similar +subject. (Plate facing page <a href="#SCENES_FROM_LIFE_OF_CHRIST"><b>48</b></a>.) In this the columns +are omitted, the planes are increased, and there is +an entire absence of the triptych or altar-piece style of +drawing which we associate with the primitive artists in +painting.</p> + +<p>We have seen in this slight review that Paris was in a +fair way to cover the castle walls and floors of noble lords +with her high loom and <i>sarrazinois</i> products, when the +English occupation ruined the prosperity of the weaver’s +guild. Arras supplied the enormous demand for tapestries +through Europe, and made a lasting fame. But this +little city, too, had to go down before the hard conditions +of the Conqueror. Louis XI, in 1477, possessed himself +of the town after the death of the last-famed Burgundian +duke, Charles the Bold, and under his eccentric persecutions +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +the guild of weavers scattered. He saw too late his +mistake. But other towns benefited by it, towns whither +the tapissiers fled with their art.</p> + +<p>There had also been much trouble between the last +Duke of Burgundy and his Flemish cities. His extravagances +and expeditions led him to make extraordinary +demands upon one town and another for funds, and even +to make war upon them, as at Liége, the battles of which +conflict were perpetuated in tapestries. Let us trust that +no Liégois weaver was forced to the humiliation of weaving +this set.</p> + +<p>This disposition to work to his own ultimate undoing +was encouraged in the duke, wherever possible, by the +crafty Louis XI, who had his own reasons for wishing +the downfall of so powerful a neighbour. And thus it +came that Arras, the great tapestry centre, was at first +weakened, then destroyed by the capture of the town by +Louis XI immediately after the tragic death of the duke +in 1477.</p> + +<p>Thus everything was favourable to the Brussels factories, +which began to produce those marvels of workmanship +that force from the world the sincerest admiration. +It is frankly asserted that toward the end of the century, +or more accurately, during the reigns of Charles VIII +and Louis XII (1483-1515), tapestry attained a degree +of perfection which has never been surpassed.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="SCENES_FROM_LIFE_OF_CHRIST" id="SCENES_FROM_LIFE_OF_CHRIST"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry020th.jpg" width="400" height="213" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry020.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, Chicago</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="HISTORY_OF_VIRGIN" id="HISTORY_OF_VIRGIN"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry021th.jpg" width="400" height="235" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry021.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN</p> + +<p class="incaption">Angers Cathedral</p> + +<p>We have a very clear idea of what use to make of tapestries +in these days—to hang them in a part of the house +where they will be much seen and much protected, on +an important wall-space where their figures become the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +friend of daily life, or the bosky shades of their verdure +invite to revery. They are extended flat against the wall, +or even framed, that not one stroke of the artist’s pencil +or one flash of the weaver’s shuttle be hid. But, many +were their uses and grand were their purposes in the days +when high-warp and low-warp weaving was the important +industry of whole provinces. Palaces and castles +were hung with them, but apart from this was the sumptuous +use of a reserve of hangings for outdoor fêtes and +celebrations of all sorts. These were the great opportunities +for all to exhibit their possessions and to make a +street look almost as elegant and habitable as the grandest +chamber of the king.</p> + +<p>On the occasion of the entry of a certain queen into +Paris, all the way from Porte St. Denis to the Cathedral +of Notre Dame was hung with such specimens of the +weaver’s art as would make the heart of the modern amateur +throb wildly. They were hung from windows, +draped across the fronts of the houses, and fluttered their +bright colours in the face of an illuminating sun that +yet had no power to fade the conscientious work of the +craftsman. The high lights of silk in the weave, and the +enrichment of gold and silver in the pattern caught and +held the sunbeams. In all the cavalcade of mounted +knights and ladies, there was the flashing of arms, the +gleam of jewelled bridles, the flaunting of rich stuffs, +all with a background of unsurpassed blending of colour +and texture. The bridge over the Seine leading to Notre +Dame, its ramparts were entirely concealed, its asperities +softened, by the tapestries which hung over its sides, making +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +the passage over the river like the approach to a +throne, the luxury of kings combined with the beauty of +the flowing river, the blue sky, the tender green of the +trees.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it was so lovely a sight that the king himself +was not content to see it from his honoured but restricted +post, but needs must doff his crown—monarchs wore them +in those fairy days—and fling a leg over a gentleman’s +charger, behind its owner, and thus ride double to see +the sights. So great was his eagerness to enjoy all the +display that he got a smart reproof from an officer of +ceremonies for trespassing.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>When Louis XI was the young king, and had not yet +developed the taste for bloodshed and torture that as a +crafty fox he used later to the horror of his nation, he, +too, had similar festivals with similar decorations. On +one occasion the Pont des Changes was made the chief +point in the royal progress through the streets of Paris. +The bridge was hung with superb tapestries of great size, +from end to end, and the king rode to it on a white +charger, his trappings set with turquoise, with a gorgeous +canopy supported over his head. Just as he reached the +bridge the air became full of the music of singing birds, +twenty-five hundred of them at that moment released, +and all fluttering, darting, singing amid the gorgeous +scene to tickle the fancy of a king.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="DAVID_AND_BATHSHEBA01" id="DAVID_AND_BATHSHEBA01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry022th.jpg" width="400" height="227" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry022.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DAVID AND BATHSHEBA</p> + +<p class="incaption">German Tapestry, about 1450</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 326px;"> +<a name="FLEMISH_TAPESTRY01" id="FLEMISH_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry023th.jpg" width="326" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry023.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500</p> + +<p class="incaption">Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Canon de Haisnes, “La Tapisserie.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> M. de Barante, “Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Froissart, manuscript of the library of Dijon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> De Barante, “Histoire.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See M. Pinchart, “Roger van der Weyden et les Tapisseries de Berne.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Enguerrand de Monstrelet, “Chronicles.”</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>HIGH GOTHIC</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE wonderful time of the Burgundian dukes is +gone; Charles le Téméraire leaves the world at +Nancy, where the pitying have set up a cross in +memory of his unkingly death, and where the lover of +things Gothic may wander down a certain way to the +exquisite portico of the Ducal Palace and, entering, find +the Gothic room where the duke’s precious tapestries +are hung. In this sympathetic atmosphere one may +dream away hours in sheer joy of association with these +shadowy hosts of the past, the relentless slayers in the +battle scenes, relentless moralists in the religious subjects—for +morality plays had a parallel in the morality tapestry, +issuing such rigid warnings to those who make merry +as is seen in <i>The Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets</i>, +<i>The Reward of Virtue</i>, <i>The Triumph of Right</i>, <i>The Horrors +of the Seven Deadly Sins</i>, all of which were popular +subjects for the weaver.</p> + +<p>With the artists who might be called primitives we +have almost finished in the end of the Fifteenth Century. +The simplicity of the very early weavers passed. They +were content with comparatively few figures, and these +so strongly treated that in composition one scarce took +on more importance than another. When Arras and +other Flemish towns, as well as Paris and certain French +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +towns, developed the industry and employed more ambitious +artists, the designs became more crowded, and the +tendency was to multiply figures in an effort to crowd as +many as possible into the space. When architecture appeared +in the design, towers and battlements were +crowded with peeping heads in delightful lack of proportion, +and forests of spears springing from platoons +of soldiers, filled almost the entire height of the cloth. +The naïve fashion still existed of dressing the characters +of an ancient Biblical or classic drama in costumes which +were the mode of the weaver’s time, disregarding the +epoch in which the characters actually lived.</p> + +<p>An adherence to the childlike drawing of the early +workers continues noticeable in their quaint way of putting +many scenes on one tapestry. Interiors are readily +managed, by dividing—as in <i>The Sacraments</i> set in the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York—with slender +Gothic columns, than which nothing could be prettier, +especially when framed in at the top with the Gothic +arch. In outdoor scenes the frank disregard of the probable +adds the charm of audacity. Side by side with a +scene of carnage, a field of blood with victims lying prone, +is inserted an island of flowers whereon youths and dogs +are pleasantly sporting; and adjoining that may be another +section cunningly introduced where a martyred +woman is enveloped in flames which spring from the +ground around her as naturally as grass in springtime.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="DAVID_AND_BATHSHEBA02" id="DAVID_AND_BATHSHEBA02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry024th.jpg" width="400" height="317" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry024.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DAVID AND BATHSHEBA</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="HISTORY_OF_ST_STEPHEN" id="HISTORY_OF_ST_STEPHEN"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry025th.jpg" width="400" height="384" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry025.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN</p> + +<p class="incaption">Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century</p> + +<p>And flowers, flowers everywhere. Those little blossoms +of the Gothic with their perennial beauty, they are +one of the smiles of that far time that shed cheer through +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +the centuries. They are not the grandiose affairs of the +Renaissance whose voluptuous development contains the +arrogant assurance of beauty matured. They do not +crown a column or trail themselves in foliated scrolls; +but are just as Nature meant them to be, unaffected bits +of colour and grace, upspringing from the sod. In the +cathedral at Berne is a happy example of the use of these +sweet flowers, as they appear at the feet of the sacred +group, and as they carry the eye into the sky by means +of the feathery branches like fern-fronds which tops the +scene; but we find them nearer home, in almost every +Gothic tapestry.</p> + +<p>It was about the end of the last Crusade when Italy +began to produce the inspired artists who broke the bonds +of Byzantine traditions and turned back to the inspiration +of all art, which is Nature. Giotto, tending his sheep, +began to draw pictures of things as he saw them, Savonarola +awoke the conscience, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio—a +string of names to conjure with—all roused the intellect. +The dawn of the Renaissance flushed Europe with the +life of civilisation. But before the wonderful development +of art through the reversion to classic lines, came +a high perfection of the style called Gothic, and with that +we are pleased to deal first. It is so full of beauty to +the eye and interest to the intellect that sometimes we +must be dragged away from it to regard the softer lines +of later art, with the ingratitude and reluctance of childhood +when torn from its fairy tales to read of real people +in the commonplace of every day.</p> + +<p>We are now in the time when the perfection of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +production was reached in the tapestries we call Gothic. +Artists had grown more certain of their touch in colour +and design, and weavers worked with such conscientious +care as is now almost unknown, and produced a quality +of tapestry superior to that of their forebears. The +Fifteenth Century and the first few years of the Sixteenth +were spent in perfecting the style of the preceding century, +and so great was the perfection reached, that it was +impossible to develop further on those lines.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed from their importance that +Brussels and Bruges were the sole towns of weavers. +There were many high-warp looms, and low-warp as +well, in many towns in Flanders and France, and there +were also beginnings in Spain, England and Germany. +Italy came later. The superb set in the Cluny Museum +in Paris, <i>The Lady and the Unicorn</i>, than which nothing +could be lovelier in poetic feeling as well as in technique, +is accorded to French looms. But as it is impossible in +a cursory survey to mention all, the two most important +cities are dwelt upon because it is from them that the +greatest amount of the best product emanated.</p> + +<p>Tapestries could not well decline with the fortunes of +a town, for they were a heavy article of commerce at the +time when Louis XI attacked Arras. Trade was made +across the Channel, whence came the best wool for their +manufacture; they were bought by the French monarchs +and nobility; many drifted to Genoa and Italy, to be sold +by the active merchants of the times to whoever could +buy. When, therefore, Arras was crushed, her able +workmen flew to other centres of production, principally +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +in Flanders, notably to Bruges and Brussels, and helped +to bring these places into their high position.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 207px;"> +<a name="VERDURE" id="VERDURE"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry026th.jpg" width="207" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry026.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VERDURE</p> + +<p class="incaption">French Gothic Tapestry</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 303px;"> +<a name="ECCE_HOMO" id="ECCE_HOMO"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry027th.jpg" width="303" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry027.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">“ECCE HOMO”</p> + +<p class="incaption">Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p> + +<p>Stories of kings and their magnificence breathe ever +of romance, but kings could not be magnificent were it +not for the labour of the conscientious common people, +those who go daily to their task, asking nothing better +than to live their little span in humble endeavour. +The weavers, the tapissiers of that far-away time in +Flanders are intensely appealing now when their beautiful +work hangs before us to-day. They send us a +friendly message down through the centuries. It is this +makes us inquire a bit into the conditions of their lives, +and so we find them scattered through the country north +of France working with single-hearted devotion toward +the perfection of their art. That they arrived there, we +know by such tapestries as are left us of their time.</p> + +<p>Bruges was the home of a movement in art similar to +that occurring in Italy. Old traditions of painting were +being thrown aside—the revolution even attacking the +painter’s medium, tempera, which was criticised, discarded +and replaced by oil on the palettes. Memling, +the brothers Van Eyck, were painting things as they saw +them, not as rules prescribed. Bernard Van Orley was +at work with bold originality.</p> + +<p>It were strange if this Northern school of painters had +not influenced all art near by. It is to these men that +Brussels owes the beauty of her tapestries in that apogee +of Gothic art which immediately preceded the introduction +of the Renaissance from Italy.</p> + +<p>Cartoons or drawings for tapestries took on the rules +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +of composition of these talented and original men. Easily +distinguishable is the strong influence of the religious +feeling, the fidelity to standards of the church. When +a rich townsman wished to express his praise or gratitude +to God, he ordered for the church an altar-piece or dainty +gilded Gothic carving to frame the painted panels of +careful execution. When Jean de Rome executed a cartoon, +he treated it in much the same way; built up an +airy Gothic structure and filled the spaces with pretty +pictures. The so-called Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan’s +shows this treatment at its best. Unhappily, the +atelier of Jean de Rome or Jan von Room is too sketchily +portrayed in the book of the past; its records are faint +and elusive. We only hear now and then an interested +allusion, a suggestion that this or that beautiful specimen +of work has come from his atelier.</p> + +<p>Cartoons at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century +were not all divided into their different scenes by Gothic +column and arch. In much of the fine work there was +no division except a natural one, for the picture began to +develop the modern scheme of treating but one scene in +one picture. Although this might be filled with many +groups, yet all formed a harmonious whole. The practice +then fell into disuse of repeating the same individual +many times in one picture.</p> + +<p>A good example of the change and improvement in +drawing which assisted in making Brussels’ supremacy +and in bringing Gothic art to perfection, is the fine hanging +in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. (Plate +facing page <a href="#CROSSING_RED_SEA"><b>57</b></a>.) It depicts with beautiful naïveté and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +much realism the discomfiture of Pharaoh and his army +floundering in the Red Sea, while the serene and elegant +children of Israel contemplate their distress with well-bred +calm from the flowery banks of an orderly park.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="ALLEGORICAL_SUBJECT" id="ALLEGORICAL_SUBJECT"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry028th.jpg" width="400" height="273" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry028.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="CROSSING_RED_SEA" id="CROSSING_RED_SEA"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry029th.jpg" width="400" height="292" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry029.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CROSSING THE RED SEA</p> + +<p class="incaption">Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts</p> + +<p>This tapestry illustrates so many of the important features +of work during the first period of Brussels’ +supremacy that it is to be lingered over, dissected and +tasted like a dessert of nuts and wine. Should one speak +first of the cartoon or of the weave, of the artist or of the +craftsmen? If it is to be the tapissier, then to him all +credit, for in this and similar work he has reached a care +in execution and a talent in translation that are inspired. +Such quantity of detail, so many human faces with their +varying expressions, could only be woven by the most +adroit tapissier.</p> + +<p>The drawing shows, first, one scene of many groups +but a sole interest, with none but probable divisions. +Much grace and freedom is shown in the attitudes of the +persons on the shore, and strenuous effort and despair +among the engulfed soldiers. Extreme attention to detail, +the making one part as finished as another, even to +the least detail, is noticeable. The exaggerated patterns +of the stuffs observable in earlier work is absent, and a +sense of proportion is displayed in dress ornament. The +free movement of men and beasts, and the variety of +facial expression all show the immense strides made in +drawing and the perfection attained in this brilliant +period.</p> + +<p>It was a time when the artist perfected the old style +and presaged the new, the years before the Renaissance +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +had left its cradle and marched over Europe. This perfection +of the Gothic ideal has a purity and simplicity +that can never fail to appeal to all who feel that sincerity +is the basic principle of art as it is of character. The +style of Quentin Matsys, of the Van Eycks, was the mode +at the end of the Fifteenth Century and the beginning of +the Sixteenth, and after all this lapse of time it seems to +us a sweet and natural expression of admirable human +attributes.</p> + +<p>In the new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, +New York, the labels of certain exhibits, purchases and +loans allude briefly to “studio of Jean de Rome.” It is an +allusion which especially interests us, as our country now +holds examples of this atelier which make us wish to +know more about its master. He was a designer in the +marvellous transition period of about 1500, when art +trembled between the restraint of ecclesiastic Gothic and +the voluptuous freedom of the Renaissance; hesitated between +the conventions of religion and the abandonment +to luxury, to indulgence of the senses. It is the fashion +to regard periods of transition as times of decadence, of +false standards of hybrid production, but at least they are +full of deepest interest to the student of design who finds +in the tremulous dawn of the new idea a flush which +beautifies the last years of the old method.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="KINGDOM_OF_HEAVEN" id="KINGDOM_OF_HEAVEN"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry030th.jpg" width="400" height="328" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry030.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., +New York</p> + +<p>Attributed to this newly unearthed studio of Jean de +Rome hangs a marvellous tapestry in the new wing alluded +to, one which deserves repeated visits. (Plate facing +page <a href="#KINGDOM_OF_HEAVEN"><b>58</b></a>.) Indeed, to see it once creates the desire to +see it again, so beautiful is it in drawing and so exquisite +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +in colour and weave. It is suggested that Quentin +Matsys is responsible for the drawing, and it is known +that only Bruges or Brussels could produce such perfection +of textile. Indeed, Jean de Rome is by some authorities +spoken of as Jean de Brussels, for it is there that he +worked long and well, assisting to produce those wonders +of textile art that have never been surpassed, not even by +the Gobelins factory in the Seventeenth Century. The +tapestry in the Metropolitan Museum is now the property +of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., but began life as the +treasure of the King and Queen of Spain who, at the +time when Brussels was producing its best, were sitting +firmly on a throne but just wrested from the Saracenic +occupancy. Spain, while unable to establish famous +and enduring tapestry factories of her own, yet +was known always as a lavish buyer. Later, Cardinal +Mazarin, with his trained Italian eye, detected at once +the value of the tapestry and became possessed of it, counting +it among his best treasures of art. It is a woven representation +of the triptych, so favourite in the time of the +Van Eycks, and is almost as rich with gold as those ancient +altar decorations. The tapestry is variously called +<i>The Kingdom of Heaven</i>, and <i>The Adoration of the +Eternal Father</i> and is the most beautiful and important +of its kind in America. Fortunate they who can go to +the museum to see it—only less fortunate than those who +can go to see it many times.</p> + +<p>In the private collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., +of Chicago, are three examples of great perfection. They +belonged to the celebrated art collection of Baron Spitzer, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +which fact, apart from their beauty, gives them renown. +The first of these (plate facing page <a href="#FLEMISH_TAPESTRY02"><b>60</b></a>) is an appearance +of Christ to the Magdalen after the Entombment, +and is Flemish work of late in the Fifteenth Century. It +is woven in silk and gold with infinite skill. With exquisite +patience the weaver has brought out the crowded +detail in the distance; indeed, it is this background, +stretching away to the far sky, past the Tomb, beyond +towns and plains of fruited trees to yet more cities set on +a hill, that constitutes the greatest charm of the picture, +and which must have brought hours of happy toil to the +inspired weaver.</p> + +<p>The second tapestry of Mr. Ryerson’s three pieces is also +Flemish of the late Fifteenth Century. (Plate facing +page <a href="#HOLY_FAMILY"><b>61</b></a>.) This small group of the Holy Family shows +at its best the conscientious work of the time, a time +wherein man regarded labour as a means of worshipping +his God. The subject is treated by both artist and weaver +with that loving care which approaches religion. The +holy three are all engaged in holding bunches of grapes, +while the Child symbolically spills their juice into a +chalice. Other symbols are found in the book and the +cross-surmounted globe. A background of flat drapery +throws into beautiful relief the inspired faces of the +group. Behind this stretches the miniature landscape, +but the foreground is unfretted by detail, abounding in +the repose of the simple surfaces of the garments of +Mother and Child. By a subtle trick of line, St. Joseph +is separated from the holier pair. The border is the +familiar well-balanced Gothic composition of flower, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +fruit, and leaf, all placed as though by the hand of Nature. +The materials used are silk and gold, but one might well +add that the soul of the weaver also entered into the fabric.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="FLEMISH_TAPESTRY02" id="FLEMISH_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry031th.jpg" width="400" height="399" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry031.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the +Spitzer Collection</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 377px;"> +<a name="HOLY_FAMILY" id="HOLY_FAMILY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry032th.jpg" width="377" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry032.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE HOLY FAMILY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, +Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection</p> + +<p>The third piece from the Spitzer collection bears all +those marks of exquisite beauty with which Italy was +teeming in the Fifteenth Century. (Colour plate facing +page <a href="#THE_ANNUNCIATION"><b>82</b></a>.) Weavers from Brussels went down into Italy +and worked under the direction of Italian artists who +drew the designs. Andrea Mantegna was one of these. +The patron of the industry was the powerful Gonzaga +family. This tapestry of <i>The Annunciation</i> which Mr. +Ryerson is so fortunate as to hang in his collection, is +decorated with the arms of the Gonzaga family. The +border of veined marble, the altar of mosaics and fine +relief, the architecture of the outlying baptistry, the +wreathed angel, all speak of Italy in that lovely moment +when the Gothic had not been entirely abandoned and +the Renaissance was but an opening bud.</p> + +<p>The highest work of painter and weaver—artists both—continued +through thirty or forty years. Pity it is, the +time had not been long enough for more remains of it to +have come to us than those that scantily supply museums. +After the Gothic perfection came the great change made +in Flanders by the introduction of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>It came through the excellence of the weavers. It was +not the worth of the artists that brought Brussels its greatest +fame, but the humbler work of its tapissiers. Their +lives, their endeavours counted more in textile art than +did the Flemish school of painting. No such weavers +existed in all the world. They were bound together as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +a guild, had restrictions and regulations of their own that +would shame a trades union of to-day, and in change of +politics had scant consideration from new powers. But +in the end they were the ones to bring fame to the Brussels +workshops.</p> + +<p>In 1528 they were banded together by organisation, +and from that time on their work is easily followed and +identified. It was in that year that a law was made compelling +weavers—and allowing weavers—to incorporate +into the encompassing galloon of the tapestry the Brussels +Brabant mark of two B’s with a shield between. And it +was about this time and later that the celebrated family +of weavers named Pannemaker came into prominence +through the talent of Wilhelm de Pannemaker, he who +accompanied the Emperor Charles V on his expedition +to Tunis.</p> + +<p>This expedition flaunts itself in the set of tapestries +now in Madrid. (Plate facing page <a href="#CONQUEST_OF_TUNIS"><b>62</b></a>.) The emperor +seems, from our point of view, to have done it all with +dramatic forethought. There was his special artist on +the spot, Jan Vermeyen, to draw the superb cartoons, and +accompanying him was Wilhelm de Pannemaker, the +ablest weaver of his day, to set the loom and thrust the +shuttle. Granada was the place selected for the weaving, +and the finest of wool was set aside for it, besides lavish +amounts of silk, and pounds of silver and gold. In three +years, by the help of eighty workmen, Pannemaker completed +his colossal task. Such was the master-weaver of +the Sixteenth Century.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 310px;"> +<a name="CONQUEST_OF_TUNIS" id="CONQUEST_OF_TUNIS"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry033th.jpg" width="310" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry033.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL)</p> + +<p class="incaption">Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal Collection at Madrid</p> + +<p>As for Pannemaker’s imperial patron, John Addington +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +Symonds discriminatingly says of him: “Like a gale +sweeping across a forest of trees in blossom, and bearing +their fertilising pollen to far distant trees, the storm of +Charles Fifth’s army carried far and wide through Europe +the productive energy of the Renaissance.”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">B</span>RUSSELS in 1515, with her workmen at the +zenith of their perfection, was given the order to +weave the set of the <i>Acts of the Apostles</i> for the +Pope to hang in the Sistine Chapel. (Plate facing page +<a href="#DEATH_OF_ANANIAS"><b>64</b></a>.) The cartoons were by the great Raphael. Not +only did he draw the splendid scenes, but with his exquisite +invention elaborated the borders. Thus was set in +the midst of the Brussels ateliers a pattern for the new +art that was to retire the nice perfection of the previous +school of restraint. From that time, all was regulated +by new standards.</p> + +<p>Before considering the change that came to designs +in tapestry, it is necessary that both mind and eye should +be literally savants in the Gothic. Without this the +greatest point in classifying and distinguishing is missed. +The dainty grace of the verdure and flowers, the exquisite +models of the architectural details, the honest, simple +scheme of colour, all these are distinguishing marks, but +to them is added the still greater one of the figures and +their grouping. In the very early work, these are few +in number, all equally accented in size and finish, but +later the laws of perspective are better understood, and +subordinates to the subject are drawn smaller. This gives +opportunity for increase in the number of personages, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +for the introduction of the horses and dogs and little wild +animals that cause a childish thrill of delight wherever +they are encountered, so like are they to the species that +haunt childhood’s fairyland.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="DEATH_OF_ANANIAS" id="DEATH_OF_ANANIAS"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry034th.jpg" width="400" height="278" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry034.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DEATH OF ANANIAS.—FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY RAPHAEL</p> + +<p class="incaption">From the Palace of Madrid</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="STORY_OF_REBECCA01" id="STORY_OF_REBECCA01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry035th.jpg" width="400" height="281" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry035.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE STORY OF REBECCA</p> + +<p class="incaption">Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, +Esq., Boston</p> + +<p>Indeed, the Gothic tapestries more than any other existing +pictures take us back to that epoch of our lives when +we lived in romance, when the Sleeping Beauty hid in +just such towers, when the prince rode such a horse and +appeared an elegant young knight. The inscrutable +mystery of those folk of other days is like the inscrutable +mystery of that childhood time, the Mediæval time of the +imagination, and those of us who remember its joys gaze +silent and happy in the tapestry room of the Ducal Palace +at Nancy, or in Mary’s Chamber at Holyrood, or in +any place whatever where hang the magic pictured +cloths.</p> + +<p>When the highest development of a style is reached +a change is sure to come. It may be a degeneration, or +it may be the introduction of a new style through some +great artistic impulse either native or introduced by contact +with an outside influence. Fortunately, the Gothic +passed through no pallid process of deterioration. The +examples that nest comfortably in the museums of the +world or in the homes of certain fortunate owners, do +not contain marks of decadence—only of transition. It +is a style that was replaced, but not one that died the +death of decadence.</p> + +<p>It is with reluctance that one who loves the Gothic +will leave it for the more recent art of the Renaissance. +Its charm is one that embodies chasteness, grace, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +simplicity, one that is so exquisitely finished, and so individual +that the mind and eye rest lovingly upon its decorative +expressions. It is averred that the introduction of the +revived styles of Greece and Rome into France destroyed +an art superior. One is inclined to this opinion in studying +a tapestry of the highest Gothic expression, a finished +product of the artist and the craftsman, both having given +to its execution their honest labour and highest skill. Unhappily +it is often, with the tapestry lover, a case similar +to that of the penniless boy before the bakeshop window—you +may look, but you may not have,—for not +often are tapestries such as these for sale. Only among +the experienced dealer-collectors is one fortunate enough +to find these rare remnants of the past which for colour, +design and texture are unsurpassed.</p> + +<p>But the Gothic was bound to give way as a fashion +in design. Politics of Europe were at work, and men +were more easily moving about from one country to +another. The cities of the various provinces over which +the Burgundian dukes had ruled were prevented by +natural causes, from being united. Arras, Ghent, Liége +instead of forming a solidarity, were separate units of +interest. This made the subjugation of one or the other +an easy matter to the tyrant who oppressed. As Arras +declined under the misrule of Charles le Téméraire +(whose possessions at one time outlined the whole northern +and eastern border of France) Brussels came into +the highest prominence as a source of the finest tapestries.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="THE_CREATION" id="THE_CREATION"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry036th.jpg" width="400" height="245" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry036.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE CREATION</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="ORIGINAL_SIN" id="ORIGINAL_SIN"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry037th.jpg" width="400" height="266" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry037.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE ORIGINAL SIN</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century</p> + +<p>The great change in tapestries that now occurs is the +same that altered all European art and decoration and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +architecture. Indeed it cannot be limited to these evidences +alone, for it affected literature, politics, religion, +every intellectual evidence. Man was breaking his bonds +and becoming freed for centuries to come. The time +was well-named for the new birth. Like another Birth +of long ago, it occurred in the South, and its influence +gradually spread over the entire civilised world. The +Renaissance, starting in Italy, gradually flushed the whole +of Europe with its glory. Artists could not be restrained. +Throbbing with poetry to be expressed, they threw off +design after design of inspired beauty and flooded the +world with them. The legitimate field of painting was +not large enough for their teeming originality which pre-empted +also the field of decorative design as well. Many +painters apprenticed themselves to goldsmiths and silversmiths +to become yet more cunning in the art of minute +design, and the guilds of Florence held the names best +known in the fine arts.</p> + +<p>Tapestry weaving seems a natural expression in the +North, the impulsive supplying of a local need. Possibly +Italy felt no such need throughout the Middle Ages. +However that may be, when her artists composed designs +for woven pictures there were no permanent artisans at +home of sufficient skill to weave them.</p> + +<p>But up in the North, craftsmen were able to produce +work of such brilliant and perfect execution that the great +artists of Italy were inspired to draw cartoons. And +so it came, that to make sure of having their drawings +translated into wool and silk with proper artistic feeling, +the cartoons of Raphael were bundled off by trusty +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +carriers to the ateliers of Flanders. Thus Italy got her +tapestries of the Renaissance, and thus Flanders acquired +by inoculation the rich art of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>The direct cause of the change in Flemish style of +tapestries was in this way brought about by the Renaissance +of Italy. New rules of drawing were dominating. +Changes were slower when travelling was difficult, and +the average of literacy was low; but gradually there came +creeping up to Brussels cartoon after cartoon in the new +method, for her skilled workmen to transpose into wool +and silk and metal, “thread of Arras,” and “gold and +silver of Cyprus.” Italy had the artists, Brussels had the +craftsmen—what happier combination could be made +than the union of these two? Thus was the great change +brought about in tapestries, and this union is the great +fact to be borne in mind about the difference between the +Gothic tapestries and those which so quickly succeeded +them.</p> + +<p>From now on the old method is abandoned, not only in +Brussels, but everywhere that the high-warp looms are +set up. The “art nouveau” of that day influenced every +brush and pencil. The great crowding of serried hosts +on a single field disappeared, and fewer but perfect figures +played their parts on the woven surface. Wherever +architectural details, such as porticoes or columns, were +introduced, these dropped the old designs of “pointed” +style or battlements, and took on the classic or the high +Renaissance that ornaments the façade of Pavia’s Certosa. +One by one the wildwood flowers receded before +the advance of civilisation, very much as those in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +veritable land are wont to do, and their place was taken +by a verdure as rich as the South could produce, with +heavy foliage and massive blossoms.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 363px;"> +<a name="MELEAGER_AND_ATALANTA" id="MELEAGER_AND_ATALANTA"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry038th.jpg" width="363" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry038.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">MELEAGER AND ATALANTA</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. Woven in Paris workshops +by Charles de Comans</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 309px;"> +<a name="PUNIC_WAR_SERIES" id="PUNIC_WAR_SERIES"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry039th.jpg" width="309" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry039.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">PUNIC WAR SERIES</p> + +<p class="incaption">Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, +Esq., Boston</p> + +<p>It is impossible to overestimate the importance to Brussels +of the animating experience and distinguished commission +of executing the set of tapestries for the Sistine +Chapel after cartoons by Raffaelo Sanzio. The date is +one to tie to (1515) and the influence of the work was +far-reaching. The Gothic method could no longer continue.</p> + +<p>The Renaissance spread its influence, established its +standards and introduced that wave of productiveness +which always followed its introduction. There are many +who doubt the superiority of the voluptuous art of the +high Renaissance. There are those who prefer (perhaps +for reasons of sentiment) the early Gothic, and many +more who love far better the sweet purity of the early +Renaissance. Before us Raphael presents his full figures +replete with action, rich with broad, open curves in +nudity, and magnificent with lines of flowing drapery. +To him be accorded all due honour; but, if it is the privilege +of the artist’s spirit to wander still on earth, he must +find his particular post-mortem punishment in viewing +the deplorable school of exaggeration which his example +founded. Who would not prefer one of the chaste +tapestries of perfected Gothic to one of those which followed +Raphael, imitating none of his virtues, exaggerating +his faults? It is these followers, the virilities of +whose false art is as that of weeds, who have come almost +to our own day and who have succeeded in spoiling the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +historical aspect of the New Testament for many an +imaginative Sunday-school attendant by giving us Bible +folk in swarthy undress, in lunatic beards and in unwearable +drapings. These terrible persons, descendants of +Raphael’s art, can never stir a human sympathy.</p> + +<p>Just here a word must be said of the workmen, the +weavers of Brussels. For them certain fixed rules were +made, but also they were allowed much liberty in execution. +The artist might draw the big cartoons and thus +become the governing influence, but much of the choice +of colour and thread was left to the weaver. This made +of him a more important factor in the composition than +a mere artisan; he was, in fact, an artist, must needs be, +to execute a work of such sublimity as the Raphael set.</p> + +<p>And as a weaver, his patience was without limit. +Thread by thread, the warp was set, and thread by thread +the woof was woven and coerced into place by the relentless +comb of the weaver. Perhaps a man might make +a square foot, by a week of close application; but “how +much” mattered nothing—it was “how well” that counted. +Haste is disassociable from labour of our day; we might +produce—or reproduce—tapestries as good as the old, +but some one is in haste for the hanging, and excellency +goes by the board. The weaver of those days of perfection +was content to be a weaver, felt his ambition gratified +if his work was good.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 384px;"> +<a name="EPISODE_IN_LIFE_OF_CAESAR" id="EPISODE_IN_LIFE_OF_CAESAR"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry040th.jpg" width="384" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry040.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CÆSAR</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, Florence</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="WILD_BOAR_HUNT" id="WILD_BOAR_HUNT"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry041th.jpg" width="400" height="346" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry041.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">WILD BOAR HUNT</p> + +<p class="incaption">Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, +Florence</p> + +<p>Peter van Aelst was the master chosen to execute the +Raphael tapestries, and the pieces were finished in three +or four years. Those who think present-day prices high, +should think on the fact that Pope Leo X paid $130,000 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +for the execution of the tapestries, which in 1515 counted +for more than now. Raphael received $1,000 each for +the cartoons, almost all of which are now guarded in +England. The tapestries after a varied history are resting +safely in the Vatican, a wonder to the visitor.</p> + +<p>When Van Aelst had finished his magnificent work, the +tapestries were sent to Rome. Those who go now to the +Sistine Chapel to gaze upon Michael Angelo’s painted +ceiling, and the panelled sidewalls of Botticelli and other +cotemporary artists, are more than intoxicated with the +feast. But fancy what the scene must have been when +Pope Leo X summoned his gorgeous guard and cardinals +around him in this chapel enriched also with the splendour +of these unparalleled hangings.</p> + +<p>And thus it came that Italy held the first place—almost +the only place—in design, and Brussels led in manufacture.</p> + +<p>In 1528 appeared a mark on Brussels’ tapestries which +distinguished them from that time on. Prior to that their +works, except in certain authenticated instances, are not +always distinguishable from those of other looms—of +which many existed in many towns. The mark alluded +to is the famous one of two large B’s on either side of a +shield or scutcheon. This was woven into a plain band +on the border, and the penalty for its misuse was the no +small one of the loss of the right hand—the death of the +culprit as a weaver. This mark and its laws were intended +to discourage fraud, to promote perfection and to +conserve a high reputation for weavers as well as for +dealers.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>HEN the Raphael cartoons first came to Brussels +the new method was a little difficult for +the tapissier. His hand had been accustomed +to another manner. He had, too, been allowed much liberty +in his translations—if one may so call the art of +reproducing a painted model on the loom. He might +change at will the colour of a drapery, even the position of +a figure, and, most interesting fact, he had on hand a supply +of stock figures that he might use at will, making for +himself suitable combination. The figures of Adam and +Eve gave a certain cachet to hangings not entirely secular +and these were slipped in when a space needed filling. +There were also certain lovely ladies who might at one +time play the rôle of attendant at a feast <i>al fresco</i>, at +another time a character in an allegory. The weaver’s +hand was a little conventional when he began to execute +the Raphael cartoons, but during the three years required +for their execution he lost all restriction and was ready +for the freer manner.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA01" id="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry042th.jpg" width="400" height="270" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry042.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</p> + +<p class="incaption">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA02" id="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry043th.jpg" width="400" height="329" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry043.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</p> + +<p class="incaption">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed the Flemish artists were content +to let the Italians entirely usurp them in the drawing +of cartoons. The lovely refinement of the Bruges +school having been thrust aside, the Fleming tried his +hand at the freer method, not imitating its classicism but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +giving his themes a broader treatment. The Northern +temperament failed to grasp the spirit of the South, and +figures grew gross and loose in the exaggerated drawing. +Borders, however, show no such deterioration; the attention +to detail to which the old school was accustomed +was here continued and with good effect. No stronger +evidence is needed than some of these half savage portrayals +of life in the Sixteenth Century to declare the +classic method an exotic in Flanders.</p> + +<p>But with the passing of the old Gothic method, there +was little need for other cartoonists than the Italian, so +infinitely able and prolific were they. Andrea del Sarto, +Titian, Paolo Veronese, Giulio Romano, these are among +the artists whose work went up to Brussels workshops +and to other able looms of the day. We can fancy +the fair face of Andrea’s wife being lovingly caressed +by the weaver’s fingers in his work; we can imagine the +beauties of Titian, the sumptuousness of Veronese’s +feasts, and the fat materialism of Giulio Romano’s heavy +cherubs, all contributing to the most beautiful of textile +arts.</p> + +<p>Still earlier, Mantegna supplied a series of idealised +Pompeian figures exquisitely composed, set in a lacy +fancy of airy architectural detail, in which he idealised +all the gods of Olympus. Each fair young goddess, each +strong and perfect god, stood in its particular niche and +indicated its <i>penchant</i> by a tripod, a peacock, an apple +or a caduceus, as clue to the proper name. Such airy +beauty, such dainty conception, makes of the gods rulers of +æsthetics, if not of fate. This series of Mantegna was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +the inspiration two centuries later of the <i>Triumphs of +the Gods</i>, and similar hangings of the newly-formed +Gobelins.</p> + +<p>Giulio Romano drew, among other cartoons, a set of +<i>Children Playing</i>, which were the inspiration later at the +Gobelins for Lebrun’s <i>Enfants Jardiniers</i>.</p> + +<p>As classic treatment was the mode in the Sixteenth +Century, so classic subject most appealed. The loves and +adventures of gods and heroes gave stories for an infinite +number of sets. As it was the fashion to fill a room with +a series, not with miscellaneous and contrasting bits, several +tapestries similar in subject and treatment were a +necessity. The gods were carried through their adventures +in varying composition, but the borders in all the +set were uniform in style and measurement.</p> + +<p>In those prolific days, when ideas were crowding fast +for expression, the border gave just the outlet necessary +for the superfluous designs of the artist. He was wont +to plot it off into squares with such architectonic fineness +as Mina da Fiesole might have used, and to make of +each of these a picture or a figure so perfect that in +itself it would have sufficient composition for an entire +tapestry. All honour to such artists, but let us never +once forget that without the skill and talent of the +master-weaver these beauties would never have come +down to us.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA03" id="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry044th.jpg" width="400" height="263" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry044.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</p> + +<p class="incaption">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA04" id="VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA04"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry045th.jpg" width="400" height="330" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry045.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VERTUMNUS AND POMONA</p> + +<p class="incaption">First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid</p> + +<p>The collection of George Blumenthal, Esquire, of New +York, contains as beautiful examples of Sixteenth Century +composition and weaving as could be imagined. +Two of these were found in Spain—the country which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +has ever hoarded her stores of marvellous tapestries. +They represent the story of <i>Mercury</i>. (<a href="#HERSE_AND_MERCURY"><b>Frontispiece.</b></a>) +The cartoon is Italian, and so perfect is its drawing, so +rich in invention is the exquisite border, that the name of +Raphael is half-breathed by the thrilled observer. But +if the artist is not yet certainly identified, the name of +the weaver is certain, for on the galloon he has left his +sign. It is none other than the celebrated Wilhelm de +Pannemaker.</p> + +<p>In addition to this is the shield and double B of the +Brussels workshop, which after 1528 was a requirement +on all tapestries beyond a certain small size. In 1544 +the Emperor Charles V made a law that the mark or +name of the weaver and the mark of his town must be +put in the border. It was this same Pannemaker of the +Blumenthal tapestries who wove in Spain the <i>Conquest +of Tunis</i> for Charles V. (Plate facing page <a href="#CONQUEST_OF_TUNIS"><b>62</b></a>.)</p> + +<p>Mr. Blumenthal’s tapestries must have carried with +them some such contract for fine materials as that which +attended the execution of the <i>Tunis</i> set, so superb are +they in quality. Indeed, gold is so lavishly used that +the border seems entirely made of it, except for the delicate +figures resting thereon. It is used, too, in an unusual +manner, four threads being thrown together to +make more resplendent the weave.</p> + +<p>The beauty of the cartoon as a picture, the decorative +value of the broad surfaces of figured stuffs, the marvellous +execution of the weaver, all make the value of these +tapestries incalculable to the student and the lover of +decorative art. Mr. Blumenthal has graciously placed +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +them on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, +New York. Fortunate they who can absorb their beauty.</p> + +<p>That treasure-house in Madrid which belongs to the +royal family contains a set which bears the same ear-marks +as the Blumenthal tapestries. It is the set called +<i>The Loves of Vertumnus and Pomona</i>. (Plates facing +pages <a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA01"><b>72</b></a>, <a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA02"><b>73</b></a>, +<a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA03"><b>74</b></a> and <a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA04"><b>75</b></a>.) Here is the same manner of +dress, the same virility, the same fulness of decoration. +Yet the Mercury is drawn with finer art.</p> + +<p>The delight in perfected detail belonging to the Italian +school of artists resulted in an arrangement of <i>grotesques</i>. +Who knows that the goldsmith’s trade was not +responsible for these tiny fantastics, as so many artists +began as apprentices to workers in gold and silver? This +evidence of talented invention must be observed, for it +set the fashion for many a later tapestry, notably the +<i>Grotesque Months</i> of the Seventeenth Century. Mingled +with verdure and fruit, it is seen in work of the Eighteenth +Century. But in its original expression is it the most +talented. There we find that intellectual plan of design, +that building of a perfect whole from a subtle combination +of absolutely irreconcilable and even fabulous objects. +Yet all is done with such beguiling art that both +mind and eye are piqued and pleased with the impossible +blending of realism and imagination.</p> + +<p>Bacchiacca drew a filigree of attenuated fancies, threw +them on a ground of single delicate colour, and sent them +for weave to the celebrated masters, John Rost and Nicholas +Karcher. (Plates facing pages <a href="#ITALIAN_TAPESTRY01"><b>84</b></a> +and <a href="#ITALIAN_TAPESTRY02"><b>85</b></a>.) These +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +men at that time (1550) had set their Flemish looms in +Italy.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BED_TAPESTRIES" id="BED_TAPESTRIES"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry046th.jpg" width="400" height="238" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry046.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED</p> + +<p class="incaption">Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 243px;"> +<a name="STORY_OF_REBECCA02" id="STORY_OF_REBECCA02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry047th.jpg" width="243" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry047.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE STORY OF REBECCA</p> + +<p class="incaption">Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, +Esq., Boston</p> + +<p>And so it came that the Renaissance swept all before +it in the world of tapestry. More than that, with the +increase of culture and of wealth, with the increased +mingling of the peoples of Europe after the raid of +Charles V into Italy, the demand for tapestries enormously +increased. They were wanted for furnishing of +homes, they were wanted as gifts—to brides, to monarchs, +to ambassadors. And they were wanted for splendid +decoration in public festivals. They had passed beyond +the stage of rarity and had become almost as much a +matter of course as clothing.</p> + +<p>Brussels being in the ascendency as a producer, the +world looked to her for their supply, and thereby came +trouble. More orders came than it was possible to fill. +The temptation was not resisted to accept more work than +could be executed, for commercialism has ever a hold. +The result was a driving haste. The director of the +ateliers forced his weavers to quick production. This +could mean but one thing, the lessening of care in every +department.</p> + +<p>Gradually it came about that expedition in a tapissier, +the ability to weave quickly, was as great a desideratum +as fine work. Various other expedients were resorted to +beside the Sixteenth Century equivalent of “Step lively.” +Large tapestries were not set on a single loom, but +were woven in sections, cunningly united when finished. +In this manner more men could be impressed into the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +manufacture of a single piece. A wicked practice was +introduced of painting or dyeing certain woven parts in +which the colours had been ill-selected.</p> + +<p>All these things resulted in constantly increasing restrictions +by the guild of tapissiers and by order of royal +patrons. But fraud is hard to suppress when the animus +of the perpetrator is wrong. Laws were made to stop +one fault after another, until in the end the weavers were +so hampered by regulations that work was robbed of all +enthusiasm or originality.</p> + +<p>It was at this time that Brussels adopted the low-warp +loom. In other words, after a brilliant period of prolific +and beautiful production, Brussels began to show signs +of deterioration. Her hour of triumph was past. It had +been more brilliant than any preceding, and later times +were never able to touch the same note of purity coupled +with perfection. The reason for the decline is known, +but reasons are of scant interest in the face of the deplorable +fact of decadence.</p> + +<p>The Italian method of drawing cartoons was adopted +by the Flemish cartoonists at this time, but as it was an +adoption and not a natural expression of inborn talent, +it fell short of the high standard of the Renaissance. But +that is not to say that we of to-day are not ready to worship +the fruit of the Italian graft on Flemish talent. A +tapestry belonging to the Institute of Art in Chicago well +represents this hybrid expression of drawing. (Plate +facing page <a href="#BRUSSELS_TAPESTRY"><b>78</b></a>.) The principal figures are inspired by +such as are seen in the <i>Mercury</i> of Mr. Blumenthal’s collection, +or the <i>Vertumnus and Pomona</i> series, but there +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +the artist stopped and wandered off into his traditional +Flemish landscape with proper Flemings in the background +dressed in the fashion of the artist’s day.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 310px;"> +<a name="BRUSSELS_TAPESTRY" id="BRUSSELS_TAPESTRY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry048th.jpg" width="310" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry048.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="MEETING_OF_ANTONY_AND_CLEOPATRA" id="MEETING_OF_ANTONY_AND_CLEOPATRA"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry049th.jpg" width="400" height="336" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry049.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA</p> + +<p class="incaption">Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon attributed +to Rubens</p> + +<p>The border was evidently inspired by Raphael’s classic +figures and arabesques, but the column of design is naïvely +broken by the far perspective of a formal garden. The +Italian cartoonist would have built his border, figure and +arabesque, one above another like a fantastic column +(<i>vide</i> Mr. Blumenthal’s <i>Mercury</i> border). The Fleming +saw the intricacy, the multiplied detail, but missed +the intellectual harmony. But, such trifles apart, the +Flemish examples of this style that have come to us are +thrilling in their beauty of colour, and borders such as +this are an infinite joy. This tapestry was woven about +the last quarter of the Sixteenth Century by a weaver +named Jacques Geubels of Brussels, who was employed +by Carlier, a merchant of Antwerp.</p> + +<p>As the fruit of the Renaissance graft on Flanders coarsened +and deteriorated, a new influence arose in the Low +Countries, one that was bound to submerge all others. +Rubens appeared and spread his great decorative surfaces +before eyes that were tired of hybrid design. This great +scene-painter introduced into all Europe a new method +in his voluptuous, vigorous work, a method especially +adapted to tapestry weaving. It is not for us to quarrel +with the art of so great a master. The critics of painting +scarce do that; but in the lesser art of tapestry the change +brought about by his cartoons was not a happy one.</p> + +<p>His great dramatic scenes required to be copied directly +from the canvas, no liberty of line or colour could +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +be allowed the weaver. In times past, the tapissier—with +talent almost as great as that of the cartoonist—altered +at his discretion. Even he to whom the Raphael +cartoons were entrusted changed here and there the work +of the master.</p> + +<p>But now he was expected to copy without license for +change. In other words, the time was arriving when +tapestries were changing from decorative fabrics into +paintings in wool. It takes courage to avow a distaste +for the newer method, seeing what rare and beautiful +hangings it has produced. But after a study of the purely +decorative hangings of Gothic and Renaissance work, how +forced and false seem the later gods. The value of the +tapestries is enormous, they are the work of eminent men—but +the heart turns away from them and revels again +in the Primitives and the Italians of the Cinque Cento.</p> + +<p>Repining is of little avail. The mode changes and +tastes must change with it. If the gradual decadence +after the Renaissance was deplorable, it was well that a +Rubens rose in vigour to set a new and vital copy. To +meet new needs, more tones of colour and yet more, were +required by the weaver, and thus came about the making +of woven pictures.</p> + +<p>As one picture is worth many pages of description, it +were well to observe the examples given (plate facing +page <a href="#MEETING_OF_ANTONY_AND_CLEOPATRA"><b>79</b></a>) of the superb set of <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, a +series of designs attributed to Rubens, executed in Brussels +by Gerard van den Strecken. This set is in the Metropolitan +Museum of Art, New York.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>ITALY</h3> + +<h4>FIFTEENTH THROUGH SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES</h4> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE history of tapestry in Italy is the story of the +great families, their romances and achievements. +These families were those which furnished rulers +of provinces—kings, almost—which supplied popes as +well, and folk who thought a powerful man’s pleasurable +duty was to interest himself seriously in the arts.</p> + +<p>With the fine arts all held within her hand, it was but +logical that Italy should herself begin to produce the +tapestries she was importing from the land of the barbarians +as those beyond her northern borders were arrogantly +called. First among the records is found the name +of the Gonzaga family which called important Flemish +weavers down to Mantua, and there wove designs of +Mantegna, in the highest day of their factory’s production, +about 1450.</p> + +<p>Duke Frederick of Urbino is one of the early Italian +patrons of tapestry whose name is made unforgettable in +this connexion by the product of the factory he established +toward the end of the Fifteenth Century, at his court in +the little duchy which included only the space reaching +from the Apennines to the Adriatic and from Rimini to +Ancona. The chief work of this factory was the <i>History +of Troy</i> which cost the generous and enthusiastic duke a +hundred thousand dollars.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +The great d’Este family was one to follow persistently +the art, possibly because it habited the northern part of +the peninsula and was therefore nearer Flanders, but more +probably because the great Duke of Ferrara was animated +by that superb pride of race that chafes at rivalry; this, +added to a wish to encourage art, and the lust of possession +which characterised the great men of that day.</p> + +<p>It was the middle of the Sixteenth Century that Ercole +II, the head of the d’Este family, revived at Ferrara the +factory of his family which had suffered from the wars. +The master-weavers were brought from Flanders, not only +to produce tapestries almost unequalled for technical perfection, +but to instruct local weavers. These two important +weavers were Nicholas and John Karcher or Carcher +as it is sometimes spelled, names of great renown—for a +weaver might be almost as well known and as highly esteemed +as the artist of the cartoons in those days when +artisan’s labour had not been despised by even the great +Leonardo. The foremost artist of the Ferrara works was +chosen from that city, Battista Dosso, but also active as +designer was the Fleming, Lucas Cornelisz. In Dosso’s +work is seen that exquisite and dainty touch that characterises +the artists of Northern Italy in their most perfect +period, before voluptuous masses and heavy scroll-like +curves prevailed even in the drawing of the human figure.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="THE_ANNUNCIATION" id="THE_ANNUNCIATION"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry050th.jpg" width="400" height="258" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry050.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE ANNUNCIATION</p> + +<p class="incaption">Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., +Chicago</p> + +<p>The House of Este had a part to play in the visit of the +Emperor Charles V when he elected to be crowned with +Lombardy’s Iron Crown, in 1530, at Bologna instead of +in the cathedral at Monza where the relic has its home. +“Crowns run after me; I do not run after them,” he said, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +with the arrogance of success. At this reception at +Bologna we catch a glimpse of the brilliant Isabella +d’Este amid all the magnificence of the occasion. It +takes very little imagination to picture the effect of the +public square at Bologna—the same buildings that stand +to-day—the square of the Palazzo Publico and the Cathedral—to +fancy these all hung with the immense woven +pictures with high lights of silk and gold glowing in the +sun, and through this magnificent scene the procession +of mounted guards, of beautiful ladies, of church dignitaries, +with Charles V as the central object of pomp, wearing +as a clasp to the cope of state the great diamond found +on the field of Marat after the defeat of the Duke of +Burgundy. The members of the House of Este were +there with their courts and their protégés, their artists +and their literati, as well as with their display of riches +and gaiety.</p> + +<p>The manufactory at Ferrara was now allowed to sell +to the public, so great was its success, and to it is owed +the first impetus given to the weaving in Italy and the +production of some of the finest hangings which time has +left for us to enjoy to-day. It is a sad commentary on +man’s lust of novelty that the factory at Ferrara was ultimately +abandoned by reason of the introduction into the +country of the brilliant metal-illuminated leathers of +Cordova. The factory’s life was comprised within the +space of the years 1534 to 1597, the years in which lived +Ercole II and Alfonso II, the two dukes of the House of +Este who established and continued it.</p> + +<p>It was but little wonder that the great family of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +Medici looked with envious eyes on any innovation or +success which distinguished a family which so nearly approached +in importance its own. When Ercole d’Este +had fully proved the perfection of his new industry, the +weaving of tapestry, one of the Medici established for +himself a factory whereby he, too, might produce this +form of art, not only for the furtherance of the art, but +to supply his own insatiable desires for possession.</p> + +<p>The <i>Arazzeria Medicea</i> was the direct result of the +jealousy of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1537-1574. +It was established in Florence with a success to +be anticipated under such powerful protection, and it +endured until that patronage was removed by the extinction +of the family in 1737.</p> + +<p>It was to be expected that the artists employed were +those of note, yet in the general result, outside of delicate +grotesques, the drawing is more or less the far-away echo +of greater masters whose faults are reproduced, but +whose inspiration is not obtainable. After Michael +Angelo, came a passion for over-delineation of over-developed +muscles; after Raphael—came the debased +followers of his favourite pupil, Giulio Romano, who +had himself seized all there was of the carnal in Raphael’s +genius. But if there is something to be desired in the +composition and line of the cartoons of the Florentine +factory, there is nothing lacking in the consummate skill +of the weavers.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="ITALIAN_TAPESTRY01" id="ITALIAN_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry051th.jpg" width="400" height="309" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry051.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="ITALIAN_TAPESTRY02" id="ITALIAN_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry052th.jpg" width="400" height="217" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry052.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost</p> + +<p>The same Nicholas Karcher who set the standard in +the d’Este works, gave of his wonderful skill to the Florentines, +and with him was associated John Rost. These +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +were both from Flanders, and although trade regulations +for tapestry workers did not exist in Italy, Duke Cosimo +granted each of these men a sufficient salary, a habitat, +as well as permission to work for outsiders, and in addition +paid them for all work executed for himself.</p> + +<p>The subjects for the set of tapestries had entirely left +the old method of pious interpretation and of mediæval +allegory and revelled in pictured tales of the Scriptures +and of the gods and heroes of mystical Parnassus and of +bellicose Greece, not forgetting those dainty exquisite impossibilities +called grotesques. It was about the time of +the death of Cosimo I (1574), the founder of the +Medicean factory, that a new and unfortunate influence +came into the directorship of the designs. This was +the appointment of Stradano or Johan van der Straaten, +to give his Flemish name, as dominating artist.</p> + +<p>He was a man without fine artistic feeling, one of those +whose eye delighted in the exaggerations of decadence +rather than in the restraint of perfect art. He was inspired, +not by past perfection of the Italians among +whom he came to live, but by those of the decline, and +on this he grafted a bit of Northern philistinism. His +brush was unfortunately prolific, and at this time the fine +examples of weaving set by Rost and Karcher had been +replaced by quicker methods so that after 1600 the tapestries +poured out were lamentably inferior. Florentine +tapestry had at this time much pretence, much vulgar +display in its drawing, missing the fine virtues of the +time when Cosimo I dictated its taste, the fine virtues of +“grace, gaiety and reflectiveness.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +Leo X, the great Medicean pope, was elected in 1513, +he who ordered the great Raphael set of the <i>Acts of the +Apostles</i>, but it was before the establishment of important +looms in Italy, so to Flanders and Van Aelst are due the +glory of first producing this series which afterward was +repeated many times, in the great looms of Europe. Leo +X emulated in the patronage of the arts his father +Lorenzo, well-named Magnificent. What Lorenzo did +in Florence, Leo X endeavoured to do in Rome; make +of his time and of his city the highest expression of culture. +His record, however, is so mixed with the corruption +of the time that its golden glory is half-dimmed. +It was from the licentiousness of cardinals and the +wanton revels of the Vatican in Leo’s time that young +Luther the “barbarian” fled with horror to nail up his +theses on the doors of the churches in Wittenberg.</p> + +<p>The history of tapestry in Italy at the Seventeenth +Century was all in the hands of the great families. Italy +was not united under a single royal head, but was a heterogeneous +mass of dukedoms, of foreign invaders, with +the popes as the head of all. But Italy had experienced +a time of papal corruption, which had, as its effect, wars +of disintegration, the retarding of that unity of state +which has only recently been accomplished. State +patronage for the factories was not known, that steady +beneficent influence, changeless through changing reigns. +Popes and great families regulated art in all its manifestations, +and who shall say that envy and rivalry did not +act for its advancement.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="ITALIAN_VERDURE" id="ITALIAN_VERDURE"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry053th.jpg" width="400" height="257" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry053.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p>The desire to imitate the cultivation and elegance of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +Italy was what made returning invaders carry the Renaissance +into the rest of Europe; and in a lesser degree the +process was reversed when, in the Seventeenth Century, +a cardinal of the House of Barberini visited France and, +on viewing in the royal residences a superb display of +tapestries, his envy and ambition were aroused to the extent +of emulation. He could not, with all his power, +possess himself of the hangings that he saw, but he could, +and did, arrange to supply himself generously from another +source. He was the powerful Francesco Barberini, +the son of the pope’s brother (Pope Urban VIII, +1623-1644), and it was he who established the Barberini +Library and built from the ruins of Rome’s amphitheatres +and baths the great palace which to-day still dominates +the street winding up to its aristocratic elegance. +It was to adorn this palace that Cardinal Francesco established +ateliers and looms and set artists and weavers to +work. This tapestry factory is of especial interest to +America, for some of its chief hangings have come to rest +with us. <i>The Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus +Christ</i>, one set is called, and is the property of the Cathedral +of St. John, the Divine, in New York, donated by +Mrs. Clarke.</p> + +<p>Cardinal Francesco Barberini chose as his artists those +of the school of Pietro di Cortona with Giovanni Francesco +Romanelli as the head master. The director of the +factory was Giacomo della Riviera allied with M. +Wauters, the Fleming.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The former was especially concerned +with the pieces now owned by the Cathedral of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +St. John, the Divine, in New York, and which are signed +with his name. Romanelli was the artist of the cartoons, +and his fame is almost too well known to dwell upon. +His portrait, in tapestry, hangs in the Louvre, for in +Paris he gained much fame at the Court of Louis XIV, +where he painted portraits of the Grand Monarch, who +never wearied of seeing his own magnificence fixed on +canvas.</p> + +<p>It was the hard fate of the Barberini family to lose +power and wealth after the death of their powerful member, +Pope Urban VIII, in 1644. Their wealth and influence +were the shining mark for the arrows of envy, +so it was to be expected that when the next pope, Innocent +X, was elected, they were robbed of riches and +driven out of the country into France. This ended for +a time the work of the tapestry factory, but later the +family returned and work was resumed to the extent of +weaving a superb series picturing scenes especially connected +with the glory of the family, and entitled <i>History +of Urban VIII</i>.</p> + +<p>Although Italy is growing daily in power and riches +under her new policy of political unity, there were +dreary years of heavy expense and light income for many +of her famous families, and it was during such an era +that the Barberini family consented to let their tapestries +pass out from the doors of the palace they were woven to +decorate. In 1889, the late Charles M. Ffoulke, Esq., +became the possessor of all the Barberini hangings, and +added them to his famous collection. Thus through the +enterprise and the fine artistic appreciation of Mr. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +Ffoulke, is America able to enjoy the best expression of +Italian tapestry of the Seventeenth Century.</p> + +<p>The part that Venice ever played in the history of tapestry +is the splendid one of consumer. In her Oriental +magnificence she exhibited in palace and pageant the +superb products of labour which others had executed. +Without tapestries her big stone palaces would have +lacked the note of soft luxury, without coloured hangings +her balconies would have been but dull settings for languid +ladies, and her water-parades would have missed +the wondrous colour that the Venetian loves. Yet to her +rich market flowed the product of Europe in such exhaustless +stream that she became connoisseur-consumer +only, nor felt the need of serious producing. Workshops +there were, from time to time, but they were as easily +abandoned as they were initiated, and they have left little +either to history or to museums. Venice was, in the Sixteenth +Century, not only a buyer of tapestries for her own +use, but one of the largest markets for the sale of hangings +to all Europe. Men and monarchs from all Christendom +went there to purchase. The same may be said +of Genoa, so that although these two cities had occasional +unimportant looms, their position was that of middleman—vendors +of the works of others. In addition to +this they were repairers and had ateliers for restoring, +even in those days.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> E. Müntz, “La Tapisserie.”</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>FRANCE</h3> + +<h4>WORKING UP TO GOBELINS FACTORY</h4> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>N following the great sweep of tapestry production +we arrive now in France, there to stay until the +Revolution. The early beginnings were there, +briefly rivalling Arras, but Arras, as we have seen, caught +up the industry with greater zeal and became the ever-famous +leader of the Fifteenth Century, ceding to Brussels +in the Sixteenth Century, whence the high point of +perfection was carried to Paris and caused the establishment +of the Gobelins. The English development under +James I, we defer for a later considering.</p> + +<p>Francis I stands, an over-dressed, ever ambitious figure, +at the beginning of things modern in French art. He +still smacks of the Middle Ages in many a custom, many +a habit of thought; his men clank in armour, in his +châteaux lurk the suggestion of the fortress, and his common +people are sunk in a dark and hopeless oppression. +Yet he himself darts about Europe with a springing gait +and an elegant manner, the type of the strong aristocrat +dispensing alike arts of war and arts of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>Was it his visits, bellicose though they were, to Italy +and Spain, that turned his observant eye to the luxury of +woven story and made him desire that France should produce +the same? The Sforza Castle at Milan had walls +enough of tapestry, the pageants of Leonardo da Vinci, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +organised at royal command of the lovely Beatrice d’Este, +displayed the wealth of woven beauty over which Francis +had time to deliberate in those bad hours after the +battle at Milan’s noted neighbour, Pavia.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="FINDING_OF_MOSES" id="FINDING_OF_MOSES"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry054th.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry054.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE FINDING OF MOSES</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. The Louvre Museum</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="TRIUMPH_OF_JUNO" id="TRIUMPH_OF_JUNO"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry055th.jpg" width="400" height="375" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry055.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">TRIUMPH OF JUNO</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins under Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>The attention of Francis was also turned much to +Spain through envy of that extraordinary man of luck +and ability, the Emperor Charles V, and from whom he +made abortive and sullen efforts to wrest Germany, Italy, +anything he could get. In his imprisonment in Madrid, +Francis had time in plenty on which to think of many +things, and why not on the wonderful tapestries of which +Spain has always had a collection to make envious the +rest of Europe. He might forget his two poor little +boys who were left as hostages on his release, but he forgot +not whatever contributes to the pleasure of life. +That peculiarity was one which was yielding luscious +fruit, however, for Francis was the bearer of the torch +of the Renaissance which was to illumine France with +the same fire that flashed and glowed over Italy. This +is a fact to remember in regard to the class of designs of +his own and succeeding periods in France.</p> + +<p>How he got his ideas we can reasonably trace, and the +result of them was that he established a royal tapestry +factory in beautiful Fontainebleau, which lies hid in +grateful shade, stretching to flowered fields but a reasonable +distance from the distractions of Paris.</p> + +<p>It pleased Francis—and perhaps the beautiful Diane +de Poitiers and Duchesse d’Étampes—to critique plays in +that tiny gem of a theatre at the palace, or to feed the +carp in the pool; but also it gave him pleasure to wander +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +into the rooms where the high-warp looms lifted their +utilitarian lengths and artists played at magic with the +wools.</p> + +<p>Alas, one cannot dress this patronage of art with too +much of disinterestedness, for these marvellous weavings +were for the adornment of the apartments of the very +persons who caused their productions.</p> + +<p>The grand idea of state ateliers had not yet come to +bless the industry. For this reason the factory at Fontainebleau +outlasted the reign of its founder, Francis I, +but a short time.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, examples of its works are still to be seen +and are of great beauty, notably those at the Museum of +the Gobelins in Paris. That a series called the <i>History +of Diana</i> was produced is but natural, considering the +puissance at court of the famous Diane de Poitiers.</p> + +<p>When Francis’ son, Henri II, enfeebled in constitution +by the Spanish confinement, inherited the throne, it was +but natural that he should neglect the indulgences of +his father and prefer those of his own. The Fontainebleau +factory strung its looms and copied its cartoons and +produced, too, certain hangings for Henri’s wife, the terrible +Catherine de Medici, on which her vicious eyes +rested in forming her horrid plots; but Henri had ambitions +of his own, small ambitions beside those which +had to do with jealousy of Charles Quint. He let the +factory of Francis I languish, but carried on the art under +his own name and fame.</p> + +<p>To give his infant industry a home he looked about +Paris and decided upon the Hôpital de la Trinité, an +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +institution where asylum was found for the orphans of +the city who seem, in the light of the general brutality +of the time, to have been even in more need of a home +than the parentless child of modern civilisation. A part +of the scheme was to employ in the works such children +as were sufficiently mature and clever to work and to +learn at least the auxiliary details of a craft that is also +an art.</p> + +<p>In this way the sixty or so of the orphans of La Trinité +were given a means of earning a livelihood. Among +them was one whose name became renowned. This was +Maurice du Bourg, whose tapestries surpassed all others +of his time in this factory—an important factory, as being +one of the group that later was merged into the +Gobelins.</p> + +<p>It must be remembered in identifying French tapestries +of this kind that things Gothic had been vanquished +by the new fashion of things Renaissance, and that all +models were Italian. Giulio Romano and his school of +followers were the mode in France, not only in drawing, +but in the revival of classic subject. This condition in +the art world found expression in a set of tapestries from +the factory of La Trinité that are sufficiently celebrated +to be set down in the memory with an underscoring. +This set was composed of fifteen pieces illustrating in +sweeping design and gorgeous colouring the <i>History of +Mausolus and Artemisia</i>. Intense local and personal +interest was given to the set by making an open secret +of the fact that by Artemisia, the Queen of Halicarnassus, +was meant the widowed Queen of France, Catherine +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +de Medici, who adored posing as the most famous of +widows and adding ancient glory to her living importance. +To this <i>History</i> French writers accord the important +place of inspirer of a distinctively French Renaissance.</p> + +<p>The weaver being Maurice du Bourg, the chief of the +factory of La Trinité, the artists were Henri Lerambert +and Antoine Carron, but the set has been many times +copied in various factories, and Artemisia has symbolised +in turn two other widowed queens of France.</p> + +<p>Into the throne of France climbed wearily a feeble +youth always under the influence of his mother, Catherine +de Medici; and then it was filled by two other incapable +and final Orleans monarchs, until at last by virtue +of inheritance and sword, it became the seat of that grand +and faulty Henri IV, King of Navarre. By fighting he +got his place, and the habit being strong upon him, he +was in eternal conflict. Some there be who are developed +by sympathy, but Henri IV was developed by opposition, +and thus it was that although opposed in the +matter by his Prime Minister, Sully, he established factories +for the weaving of tapestries in both high and low +warps.</p> + +<p>With the desire to see the arts of peace instead of evidences +of war throughout his kingdom just rescued from +conflict, he took all means to set his people in the ways +of pleasing industry. The indefatigable Sully was +plucking the royal sleeve to follow the path of the plough, +to see man’s salvation, material and moral, in the ways +of agriculture. But Henri favoured townspeople as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +well as country people, and with the Edict of Nantes, +releasing from the bondage of terror a large number of +workers, he showed much industry in encouraging tapestry +factories in and near Paris, and as these all lead to +Gobelins we will consider them.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="TRIUMPH_OF_GODS01" id="TRIUMPH_OF_GODS01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry056th.jpg" width="400" height="312" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry056.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL)</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins, Seventeenth Century</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="TRIUMPH_OF_GODS02" id="TRIUMPH_OF_GODS02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry057th.jpg" width="400" height="233" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry057.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL)</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins Tapestry</p> + +<p>Henri IV, notwithstanding his Prime Minister Sully’s +opposition to what he considered a favouring of vicious +luxury, began to occupy himself in tapestry factories as +early in his reign as his people could rise from the +wounds of war. Taking his movements chronologically +we will begin with his establishment in 1597 (eight years +after this first Bourbon took the throne) of a high-warp +industry in the house of the Jesuits in the Faubourg St. +Antoine, associating here Du Bourg of La Trinité and +Laurent, equally renowned, and the composer of the St. +Merri tapestries.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>Flemish workers in Paris were at this same time, about +1601, encouraged by the king and under protection of +his steward. These Flemings were the nucleus of a great +industry, for it was over them that two famous masters +governed, namely, François de la Planche and Marc Comans +or Coomans. In 1607 Henri IV established the +looms which these men were called upon to direct.</p> + +<p>These two Flemings, great in their art, were men of +family and of some means, for their first venture in the +manufacture of tapestry was a private enterprise like any +of to-day. They looked to themselves to produce the +money for the support of the industry. Combining +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +qualities of both the artist and the business man, they +took on apprentices and also established looms in the +provinces (notably Tours and Amiens) where commercialism +was as prominent as in modern methods; that is +to say, that by turning off a lot of cheaper work for +smaller purses, a quick and ready market was found +which supplied the money necessary for the production +of those finer works of art which are left to delight us +to-day.</p> + +<p>This manner of procedure of De la Planche and Comans +has an interest far deeper than the mere financial +venture of the men of the early Seventeenth Century, because +it forces upon us the fact that at that time, and +earlier, no state ateliers existed. It was Henri IV who +first saw the wisdom of using the public purse in advancing +this industry. He established Du Bourg in the +Louvre. With Henri Laurent he was placed in the +Tuileries, in 1607, and that atelier lasted until the ministry +of Colbert in the reign of Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>In about 1627 the great De la Planche died and his +son, Raphael, established ateliers of his own in the Faubourg +St. Germain, turning out from his looms productions +which were of sufficient excellence to be confused +with those of his father’s most profitable factory. +Chronologically this fact belongs later, so we return to +the influence of Henri IV and the master gentleman +tapissiers, De la Planche and Comans.</p> + +<p>The very name of the old palace, Les Tournelles, calls +up a crowd of pictures: the death of Henri II at the +tournament in honour of the marriage of his son with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +Marie Stuart, the subsequent razing of this ancient home +of kings by Catherine de Medici, and its reconstruction +in its present form by Henri IV. It is here that Richelieu +honoured the brief reign of Louis XIII by a statue, +and it is here that Madame de Sevigné was born. But +more to our purpose, it was here that, in 1607, Henri IV +cast his kingly eye when establishing a certain tapestry +factory. It was here he placed as directors the celebrated +Comans and De la Planche. It happened in time, +that the looms of Les Tournelles were moved to the +Faubourg St. Marceau and these two men came in +time to direct these and all other looms under royal +patronage.</p> + +<p>Examples are not wanting in museums of French work +of this time, showing the development of the art and the +progress that France was making under Henri IV, whose +energy without limit, and whose interests without number, +would to-day have given him the epithet of strenuous.</p> + +<p>Under his reign we see the activity that so easily led +France up to the point where all that was needed was +the assembling of the factories under the direction of one +great master. The factories flourishing under Henri IV +were La Trinité, the Louvre, the Savonnerie, the Faubourg +St. Marceau and one in the Tuileries. But it +needed the power of Louis XIV to tie all together in the +strength of unity.</p> + +<p>The assassin Ravaillac, fanatically muttering through +the streets of Paris, alternately hiding and swaggering +throughout the loveliest month of May, when he thrust +his murderous dagger through the royal coach, not only +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +gave a death blow to Henri IV, but to many of these +industries that the king had cherished for his people +against the opposition of his prime minister. The tale of +tapestry is like a vine hanging on a frame of history, and +frequent allusion therefore must be made to the tales of +kings and their ministers.</p> + +<p>As it is not always a monarch, but often the power +behind the throne that rules, we see the force of Richelieu +surging behind the reign of the suppressed Louis +XIII, whose rule followed that of the regretted Henri +IV. The master of the then new Palais-Royal had +minor interests of his own, apart from his generous plots +of ruin for the Protestants, for all the French nobility, +and for the House of Austria to which the queen belonged. +Luxurious surroundings were a necessity to this +man, refined in the arts of cruelty and of living. It was +no wonder that under him tapestry weaving was not allowed +to die, but was fostered until that day when the +Grand Monarch would organise and perfect.</p> + +<p>In 1643, Louis XIV came to the throne under the guidance +of Anne of Austria, but it was many years before +he was able to make his influence appreciable. Meanwhile, +however, others were fostering the elegant industry. +It was as early as 1647 that two celebrated tapestry +weavers came to Paris from Italy. They were Pierre +Lefèvre or Lefebvre and his son Jean. The first of these +was the chief of a factory in Florence, whither he presently +returned. Jean Lefebvre stayed in Paris, won his +way all the better for being released from parental rule, +and in time received the great honour of being appointed +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +one of the directors of the Gobelins, when that factory +was finally organised as an institution of the state.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 309px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_BORDER" id="GOBELINS_BORDER"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry058th.jpg" width="309" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry058.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 296px;"> +<a name="CHILDREN_GARDENING01" id="CHILDREN_GARDENING01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry059th.jpg" width="296" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry059.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CHILDREN GARDENING</p> + +<p class="incaption">After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri +Quatre, Pau</p> + +<p>During the regency of Louis XIV there were also factories +outside of Paris. The high-warp looms of Tours +were of such notable importance that the great Richelieu +placed here an order for tapestries of great splendour +with which to soften his hours of ease. Rheims Cathedral +still harbours the fine hangings which were woven +for the place they now adorn, an unusual circumstance in +the world of tapestry. These hangings (<i>The Story of +Christ</i>) were woven at Rheims, where the factory existed +well known throughout the first half of the Seventeenth +Century. The church had previously ordered tapestries +from another town executed by one Daniel Pepersack, +and so highly approved was his work that he was made +director of the Rheims factory.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>A factory which lasted but a few years, yet has for us +a special interest, is that of Maincy, founded in 1658. +It is here that we hear of the great Colbert and of Lebrun, +whose names are synonymous with prosperity of +the Gobelins. For the factory at Maincy, Lebrun made +cartoons of great beauty, notably that of <i>The Hunt of +Meleager</i>, which now hangs in the Gobelins Museum +in Paris. Louis Blamard was the director of the workmen, +who were Flemish, and who were afterwards called +to Paris to operate the looms of the newly-formed Gobelins, +and the reason of the transference forms a part of +the history of the great people of that day.</p> + +<p>Richelieu in dying had passed over his power to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +Mazarin, who had used it with every cruelty possible to the +day. He had coveted riches and elegance and had possessed +himself of them; had collected in his palace the +most beautiful works of art of his day or those of a previous +time. After Mazarin came Foucquet, the great, the +iconoclastic, the unfortunate.</p> + +<p>It was at Foucquet’s estate of Vaux near Maincy that +this tapestry factory of short duration was established and +soon destroyed. The powerful Superintendent of Finance, +with his eye for the beautiful and desire for the +luxury of kings, built for himself such a château as only +the magnificence of that time produced. It was situated +far enough from Paris to escape any sort of ennui, and +was surrounded by gardens most marvellous, within a +beauteous park. It lay, when finished, like a jewel on +the fair bosom of France. The great superintendent +conceived the idea of pleasing the young king, Louis XIV, +by inviting the court for a wondrous fête in its lovely +enclosure.</p> + +<p>Foucquet was a man of the world, and of the court, +knew how to please man’s lighter side, and how to use +social position for his own ends. France calls him a +“dilapidateur,” but when his power and incidentally the +revenues of state, were laid out to produce a day of pleasure +for king and court, his taste and ability showed such +a fête as could scarce be surpassed even in those days of +artistic fêtes champêtres.</p> + +<p>The great gardens were brought into use in all the +beauty of flower and vine, of lawn and bosquet, of terrace +and fountain. When the guests arrived, weary of town +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +life, they were turned loose in the enchanting place like +birds uncaged, and to the beauty of Nature was added +that of folk as gaily dressed as the flowers. The king +was invited to inspect it all for his pleasure, asked to +feast in the gardens, and to repose in the splendid château.</p> + +<p>He was young then, in the early twenties, and luxury +was younger then than now, so he was pleased to spend +the time in almost childish enjoyments. A play <i>al fresco</i> +was almost a necessity to a royal garden party, which was +no affair of an hour like ours in the busy to-day, but extended +the livelong day and evening. Molière was ready +with his sparkling satires at the king’s caprice, and into +the garden danced the players before an audience to whom +vaudeville and <i>café chantant</i> were exclusively a royal +novelty arranged for their delectation.</p> + +<p>It is easy to see the elegant young king and his court +in the setting of a sophisticated out-of-doors, wandering +on grassy paths, lingering under arches of roses, plucking +a flower to nest beside a smiling face, stopping where +servants—obsequious adepts, they were then—supplied +dainty things to eat and drink. Madame de Sevigné was +there, she of the observant eye, an eye much occupied at +this time with the figure of Superintendent Foucquet, the +host of this glorious occasion. This gracious lady lacked +none of the appearance of frivolity, coiffed in curls, +draped in lace and soft silks, but her mind was deeply +occupied with the signs of the times. All the elegance +of the château, all the seductive beauty of terrace, garden, +and bosquet, all the piquant surprises of play and pyrotechnics, +what were they? Simply the disinterested +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +effort of a subject to give pleasure to His Majesty, the +King.</p> + +<p>There were those present who had long envied +Foucquet, with his ever-increasing power and wealth, his +ability to patronise the arts, to collect, and even to establish +his tapestry looms like a king, for his own palace and +for gifts. This grand fête in the lovely month of June +did more than shower pleasure, more than gratify the lust +of the eye. In effect, it was a gathering of exquisite +beauties and charming men, lost in light-hearted play; in +reality, it proved to be an incitive to envy and malice, and +a means to ruin.</p> + +<p>Among the observant guests at this wondrous fête +champêtre was Colbert, young, ambitious, keen. He +was not slow to see the holes in Foucquet’s fabric, nor +were others. And so, whispers came to the king. +Foucquet’s downfall is the old story of envy, man trying +to climb by ruining his superiors, hating those whose +magnificence approaches their own. Foucquet’s unequalled +entertainment of the king was made to count as +naught. Louis, even before leaving for Paris, had begun +to ask whence came the money that purchased this +wide fertile estate stretching to the vision’s limit, the +money that built the château of regal splendour, +the money that paid for the prodigal pleasures of that +day of delights? Foucquet thought to have gained the +confidence and admiration of the king. But, on leaving, +Louis said coldly, “We shall scarce dare ask you to our +poor palace, seeing the superior luxury to which you are +accustomed.” A fearful cut, but only a straw to the fate +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +which followed, the investigations into the affairs of +Superintendent Foucquet. His arrest and his conviction +followed and then the eighteen dreary years of imprisonment +terminating only with the superintendent’s life. +Madame de Sevigné saw him in the beginning, wept for +her hero, but after a while she, too, fell away from his +weary years.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 269px;"> +<a name="CHILDREN_GARDENING02" id="CHILDREN_GARDENING02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry060th.jpg" width="269" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry060.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CHILDREN GARDENING</p> + +<p class="incaption">After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri +Quatre, Pau</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 284px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_GROTESQUE" id="GOBELINS_GROTESQUE"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry061th.jpg" width="284" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry061.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS GROTESQUE</p> + +<p class="incaption">Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris</p> + +<p>With his arrest came the end of the glories of the +Château of Vaux near Maincy, and so, too, came an end +to the factory where so fine results had been obtained in +tapestry weaving. Yet the effort was not in vain, for +some of the tapestries remain and the factory was the +school where certain celebrated men were trained.</p> + +<p>It may easily have been that Louis XIV discovered on +that day at Vaux the excellence of Lebrun whom he +made director at the Gobelins in Paris when they were +but newly formed. Foucquet, wasting in prison, had +many hours in which to think on this and on the advancement +of the very man who had been keenest in running +him to cover, the great Colbert. It was well for France, +it was well for the artistic industry whose history occupies +our attention, that these things happened; but we, +nevertheless, feel a weakness towards the man of genius +and energy caged and fretted by prison bars, for he had +shown initiative and daring, qualities of which the world +has ever need.</p> + +<p>Foucquet’s factory lasted three years. It was directed +by Louis Blamard or Blammaert of Oudenarde, and employed +a weaver named Jean Zègre, who came from the +works at Enghien, works sufficiently known to be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +remarked. Lebrun composed here and fell under the +influence of Rubens, an influence that pervaded the +grandiose art of the day. The earliest works of Lebrun, +three pieces, were later used to complete a set of Rubens’ +<i>History of Constantine</i>. <i>The Muses</i> was a set by Lebrun, +also composed for the Château of Vaux. The +charm of this set is a matter for admiration even now +when, alas, all is destroyed but a few fragments.</p> + +<p>The disgrace of Foucquet was the last determining +cause of the establishment of the Gobelins factory under +Louis XIV, an act which after this brief review of Paris +factories (and an allusion to sporadic cases outside of +Paris) we are in position at last to consider. Pursuit of +knowledge in regard to the Gobelins factory leads us +through ways the most flowery and ways the most stormy, +through sunshine and through the dark, right up to our +own times.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY01" id="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry062th.jpg" width="400" height="311" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry062.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV</p> + +<p class="incaption">Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 278px;"> +<a name="VILLAGE_FETE" id="VILLAGE_FETE"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry063th.jpg" width="278" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry063.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE VILLAGE FÊTE</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> For the facts here cited see E. Müntz, “Histoire de la Tapisserie,” and Jules +Guiffrey, “Les Gobelins.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See Loriquet, “Les Tapisseries de Notre Dame de Rheims.”</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE GOBELINS FACTORY, 1662</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">C</span>OLBERT saw the wisdom of taking direction +for the king, Louis XIV, of the looms of Foucquet’s +château. Travel being difficult enough +to make desirable the concentration of points of interest, +Colbert transferred the looms of Vaux to Paris. To do +this he had first to find a habitat, and what so suitable +as the Hotel des Gobelins, a collection of buildings on +the edge of Paris by which ran a little brook called +the Bièvre. The Sieur Leleu was then the owner, and +the sale of the buildings was made on June 6, 1662.</p> + +<p>This was the beginning only of the purchase, for Louis +XIV added adjoining houses for the various uses of the +large industries he had in mind, for the development of +arts and crafts of all sorts, and for the lodging of the +workers.</p> + +<p>The story of the original occupants of the premises is +almost too well known to recount. The simple tale of +the conscientious “dyers in scarlet” is told on the marble +plaque at the present entry into the collection of buildings +still standing, still open to visitors. It is a tale with +a moral, an obvious simple moral with no need of Alice’s +Duchess to point it out, and it smacks strong of the honesty +of a labour to which we owe so much.</p> + +<p>Late in the Fifteenth Century the brothers Gobelin +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +came to the city of Paris to follow their trade, which +was dyeing, and their ambition, which was to produce +a scarlet dye like that they had seen flaunting in the glowing +city of Venice. The trick of the trade in those days +was to find a water of such quality that dyes took to it +kindly. The tiny river, or rather brook, called the +Bièvre, which ran softly down towards the Seine had the +required qualities, and by its murmuring descent, Jean +and Philibert pitched the tents of their fortune.</p> + +<p>They succeeded, too, so well that we hear of their descendants +in later centuries as having become gentlemen, +not of property only, but of cultivation, and far removed +from trades or bartering. Their name is ever famous, +for it tells not only the story of the two original dyers, +but of their subsequent efforts in weaving, and finally it +has come to mean the finest modern product of the hand +loom. Just as Arras gave the name to tapestry in the +Fourteenth Century, so the Gobelins has given it to the +time of Louis XIV, even down to our own day—more +especially in Europe, where the word tapestry is far less +used than here.</p> + +<p>The tablet now at the Gobelins—let us re-read it, for +in some hasty visit to the Latin Quarter we may have overlooked +it. Translated freely it reads, “Jean and Philibert +Gobelin, merchant dyers in scarlet, who have left their +name to this quarter of Paris and to the manufacture of +tapestries, had here their atelier, on the banks of the +Bièvre, at the end of the Fifteenth Century.”</p> + +<p>Another inscription takes a great leap in time, skips +over the centuries when France was not in the lead in this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +art, and recommences with the awakening strength under +the wise care of Henri IV. It reads:</p> + +<p>“April 1601. Marc Comans and François de la +Planche, Flemish tapestry weavers, installed their ateliers +on the banks of the Bièvre.”</p> + +<p>“September 1667, Colbert established in the buildings +of the Gobelins the manufacture of the furniture +(<i>meubles</i>) of the Crown, under the direction of Charles +Lebrun.”</p> + +<p>The tablet omits the date that is fixed in our mind as +that of the beginning of the modern tapestry industry in +France, the year 1662, but that is only because it deals +with a date of more general importance, the time when +the Gobelins was made a manufactory of all sorts of +gracious products for the luxury of palaces and châteaux, +not tapestries alone, but superb furniture, and metal work, +inlay, mounting of porcelains and all that goes to furnish +the home of fortunate men.</p> + +<p>In that year of 1667 was instituted the ateliers supported +by the state, not dependent upon the commercialism +of the workers. This made possible the development +of such men as Boulle with his superb furniture, of Riesner +with his marquetry, of Caffieri with his marvels in +metal to decorate all <i>meubles</i>, even vases, which were then +coming from China in their beauty of solid glaze or +eccentric ornament.</p> + +<p>Here lies the great secret of the success of Louis XIV +in these matters, with the coffers of the Crown he rewarded +the artists above the necessity of mere living, and +freed each one for the best expression of his own especial +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +art. The day of individual financial venture was gone. +The tapestry masters of other times had both to work +and to worry. They had to be artists and at the same time +commercial men, a chimerical combination.</p> + +<p>The expense of maintaining a tapestry factory was an +incalculable burden. A man could not set up a loom, +a single one, as an artist sets up an easel, and in solitude +produce his woven work of art. Other matters go to the +making of a tapestry than weaving, matters which have +to do with cartoons for the design, dyes, wools, threads, +etc.; so that many hands must be employed, and these +must all be paid. The apprentice system helped much, +but even so, the master of the atelier was responsible for +his finances and must look for a market for his goods.</p> + +<p>What a relief it was when the king took all this responsibility +from the shoulders and said to the artists and +artisans, “Art for Art’s sake,” or whatever was the equivalent +shibboleth of that day. Here was comfort assured +for the worker, with a housing in the Gobelins, or in that +big asylum, the Louvre, where an apartment was the +reward of virtue. And now was a market assured for a +man’s work, a royal market, with the king as its chief, +and his favourites following close.</p> + +<p>The ateliers scattered about Paris were allied in spirit, +were all the result of the encouragement of preceding +monarchs, but it remained for Le Grand Monarque to +gather all together and form a state solidarity.</p> + +<p>Kings must have credit, even though others do the +work. It was the labour of the able Colbert to organise +this factory. He was in favour then. It was after his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +acuteness had helped in deposing the splendid brigand +Foucquet, and his power was serving France well, so well +that he brought about his head the inevitable jealousy +which finally threw him, too, into unmerited disgrace.</p> + +<p>Colbert, then, although a Minister of State, head of +the Army of France, and a few other things, had the fate +of the Gobelins in his hand. As the ablest is he who +chooses best his aids, Colbert looked among his countrymen +for the proper director of the newly-organised institution. +He selected Charles Lebrun.</p> + +<p>The very name seems enough, in itself. It is the concrete +expression of ability, not only as an artist, but as +a leader of artists, a director, an assembler, a blender. +He called to the Gobelins, as addition to those already +there, the apprentices from La Trinité, the weavers from +the Faubourg St. Germain, and from the Louvre. He +established three ateliers of high-warp under Jean Jans, +Jean Lefebvre and Henri Laurent; also two ateliers of +low-warp under Jean Delacroix and Jean-Baptiste +Mozin. When charged with the decoration of Versailles +he had under his direction fifty artists of differing +scopes, which alone would show his power of assembling +and leading, of blending and ordering. Workers at the +Gobelins numbered as many as two hundred fifty, and +apprentices were legion.</p> + +<p>Ten or twelve important artists composed the designs +for tapestries, yet the mind of Lebrun is seen to dominate +all; his genius was their inspiration. It was he whose +influence pervaded the decorative art of the day. More +than any others in that grand age he influenced the tone +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +of the artistic work. We may say it was the king, we +may have styles named for the king, but it was Lebrun +who made them what they were. The spirit of the time +was there, monarch and man made that, but it was Lebrun +who had the talent to express it in art. It was a +time when France was fully awake, more fully awake +than Italy who had, in fact, commenced the somnolence +of her art; she was strong with that brutal force that is +recently up from savagery, and she took her grandeur +seriously.</p> + +<p>At least that was the attitude of the king. No lightness, +no effervescing cynical humour ever disturbed the +heavy splendour of his pose. And this grand pose of +the king, Lebrun expressed in the heavy sumptuousness +of decoration. The tapestries of that time show the mood +of the day in subject, in border and in colour. All is +superb, grandiose.</p> + +<p>Rubens, although not of France, dominated Europe +with his magnificence of style, a style suited to the time, +expressing force rather than refinement, yet with a splendid +decorative value in the art we are considering. +Flanders looked to him for inspiration, and his lead was +everywhere followed. His virile work had power to +inspire, to transmit enthusiasm to others, and thus he was +responsible for much of the improvement in decorative +art, the re-establishment of that art upon an intellectual +basis. Designs from his hands were full, splendid and +self-assertive; harmony and proportion were there. A +study of the <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i> series and of the plates +given in this volume will establish and verify this.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="RUBENS_DESIGN01" id="RUBENS_DESIGN01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry064th.jpg" width="400" height="333" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry064.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DESIGN BY RUBENS</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="RUBENS_DESIGN02" id="RUBENS_DESIGN02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry065th.jpg" width="400" height="355" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry065.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DESIGN BY RUBENS</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +Lebrun’s century was the same as that of Rubens, but +the former had the fine feeling for art of the Latin, who +knows that its first province is to please. A comparison +between the two men must not be carried too far, for +Rubens was essentially a painter, attacking the field of +decoration only with the overflow of imagination, while +Lebrun’s life and talent were wholly directed in the way +of beautifying palaces and châteaux. Yet Rubens’ work +gave a fresh impulse to tapestry weaving in Brussels +while Lebrun was inspiring it in France.</p> + +<p>Lebrun had, then, to direct the talent and the labour +of an army of artists and artisans, and to keep them working +in harmony. It was no mean task, for one artist alone +was not left to compose an entire picture, but each was +taken for his specialty. One artist drew the figures, another +the animals, another the trees, and another the architecture; +but it was the director, Lebrun, who composed +and harmonised the whole. Thus, although the number +of tapestries actually composed by him is few, it was his +great mind that ordered the work of others. He was the +leader of the orchestra, the others were the instruments +he controlled.</p> + +<p>It was while at Vaux that Lebrun had more time for +his own composition. He there produced a series called +<i>Les Renommés</i>, masterpieces of pure decorative composition. +These were designed as portières for the Château +of Maincy. They came to be models for the Gobelins, +and were woven to hang at royal doors, the doors of +Foucquet being at this time dressed with iron bars.</p> + +<p>The Gobelins wove seventy-two sets after this beautiful +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +model which had made Lebrun’s début as an artist. +Foucquet had given him a more pretentious work; it was +to complete a suite, the <i>History of Constantine</i>, after +Raphael. Rubens had given a fresh flush of popularity +to this subject, which again became the mode. The <i>History +of Meleager</i> was begun at Vaux and finished at the +Gobelins. Later, Vaux forgotten, or at least a thing of +the past, Lebrun’s decorative genius found expression in +the series called <i>The Months</i> or <i>The Royal Residences</i>, +of which there were twelve hangings.</p> + +<p>In these last the scheme is the perfection of decoration, +with the subject well subdued, yet so subtly placed that +notwithstanding its modesty, the eye promptly seeks it. +The castle in the distance, the motive holding aloft the +sign of the Zodiac, are seen even before the splendid columns +and the foliage of the middle-ground.</p> + +<p>Such a hanging has power to play pretty tricks with +the imagination of him who gazes upon it. The columns, +smooth and solid, declare him at once to be in a +place of luxury. Beyond the foreground’s columns, but +near enough for touching, are trees to make a pleasant +shade, and beyond, in the far distance, is the château set +in fair gardens, even the château where the lovely Louise +de la Vallière held her court until conscience drove her +to the convent.</p> + +<p>The set of most renown, woven under Lebrun’s generalship, +was that splendid advertisement of the king’s +magnificence known as the <i>History of the King</i>. Louis +demanded above all else that he should appear splendidly +before men. He was jealous of the magnificence of all +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +kings and emperors, whether living or dead. Even Solomon’s +glory was not to typify greater than his. With +this end in view, pomp was his pleasure, ceremony was +his gratification. Add to these an insatiable vanity that +knows not the disintegrating assaults of a sense of humour, +and we have a man to be fed on profound adulation.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="RUBENS_DESIGN03" id="RUBENS_DESIGN03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry066th.jpg" width="400" height="379" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry066.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DESIGN BY RUBENS</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 270px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY02" id="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry067th.jpg" width="270" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry067.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Royal Collection, Madrid</p> + +<p>The subjects for the <i>History of the King</i> were chosen +from official solemnities during the first twelve years of +his reign. Lebrun’s task, into which he threw his whole +soul, was to celebrate the power and the glory of his +master, to show the king in perpetual picture as the greatest +living personage, and to still his fears with regard to +long defunct royal rivals. His life as a man was pictured, +his marriage, his treaties with other nations, and +his actions as a soldier in the various battles or military +conquests. In the latter affairs he had not even been +present, but poet’s license was given where the glorification +of the king was concerned. The flattery that surrounds +a king thus gave him reason to think that his +persecutions in the Palatinate and his constant warfare +were greatly to his glory.</p> + +<p>It is the tapestry in this set that is called <i>Visit of +Louis XIV to the Gobelins</i> that interests us strongly, +as being delightfully pertinent to our subject. The picture +shows the king in chary indulgence standing just +within the court of the Royal Factory, while eager masters +of arts and crafts strenuously heap before him their +masterpieces. (Plate facing page <a href="#LOUIS_XIV_VISITING"><b>114</b></a>.)</p> + +<p>The borders of these sumptuous hangings are to be +enjoyed when the original set can be seen, for the borders +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +are Lebrun’s special care. The three pieces added late +in the reign are drawn with different borders, and no +stronger example of deteriorating change can be given, +the change in the composition of the border which took +place after the passing of Lebrun. The pieces in the +set of the <i>Life of the King</i> numbered forty; with the addition +of the later ones, forty-three. They were repeated +many times in the succeeding years, but on low-warp, +reduced in size, and without the superb decorative border +which was composed by Lebrun’s own hand for the +original series.</p> + +<p>François de la Meulen was Lebrun’s able coadjutor +in the direction of this famous set. Eight artists accustomed +to the work were charged with the cartoons, but +Lebrun headed it all. It is interesting to note that the +temptation to sport in the fields of pure decoration, led +him into the personal composition of the border. These +borders are the very acme of perfection in decoration, +full of strength, of grace, and of purity. They suggest +the classic, yet are full of the warm blood of the hour; +they are Greek, yet they are French, and they foreshadow +the centuries of beautiful design which France supplies +to the world.</p> + +<p>The colouring of these tapestries seems to us strong, +but it is not a strength of tone that offends, rather it adds +force to the subject. The charge is made that in this +suite the deplorable change had taken place which lifted +tapestries from their original intent and made of them +paintings in wool. That change certainly did come later, +as we shall see and deplore, but at present the colours +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +kept comparatively low in number. The proof of this +was that only seventy-nine tones were discoverable when +the Gobelins factory in recent years examined this hanging +for the purposes of reproducing it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="LOUIS_XIV_VISITING" id="LOUIS_XIV_VISITING"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry068th.jpg" width="400" height="273" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry068.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV</p> + +<p>Lebrun’s task in this series seems to us far more simple +in point of picturesqueness than it did to him, for the +affairs of the time were those depicted. They were the +events of the moment, and the personages taking part in +them were given in recognisable portraiture. Figure a +tapestry of to-day depicting the laying of a cornerstone +by our National President, every one in modern dress, +every face a portrait, and Lebrun’s task appears in a +new light. Yet he was able to accomplish it in a way +which gratified the overfed vanity of Louis and which +more than gratifies the art lover of to-day.</p> + +<p>The set called the <i>History of Alexander</i> is one of Lebrun’s +famous works. In subject it departs from the +affairs of the time of the Sun King, to portray the Greek +Conqueror, to whom Louis liked to be compared. For +us the classic dress is less piquant than the gorgeous +toilettes of France in the Seventeenth Century, and the +battle of the Granicus is less engaging than scenes from +the life of Louis XIV. But this is a famous set, and +paintings of the same may be found in the Louvre.</p> + +<p>Originally the tapestries were but five, but the larger +ones having been divided into three each, the number is +increased. The Gobelins factory wove several sets, and, +the model becoming popular, it was copied many times +in Brussels and elsewhere, often with distressing alterations +in drawing, in border, and in colour.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +There were other suites produced at the Gobelins at +this wonderful time of co-operation between Colbert, the +minister, and Lebrun, the artist. Colbert, in his wisdom +of state economy, had repaired the ravages of the previous +ministry, and had the coffers full for the government’s +necessities and the king’s indulgences. Well for the liberal +arts, that he counted these among the matters to be +fostered in this wonderful time, which rises like a mountain +ridge between feudal savagery and modern civilisation.</p> + +<p>But Colbert, powerful as was his position, had yet to +suffer by reason of the despotism of the absolute monarch +who ruled every one within borders of bleeding France. +Louis began, before youth had left him, the terrible persecution +of the people in the name of religion, and established +also an indulgent left-hand court. The prodigious +expenditures for these were bound to be liquidated by +Colbert. Faithful to his master, he produced the money.</p> + +<p>The charm of royalty surrounded Louis, he was idealised +by a people proud of his position as the most magnificent +monarch of Europe; but Colbert was denounced +as a tax collector and a persecutor, yet suffered in silence, +if he might protect his king. Before he died, Louvois +had undermined his credit even with the king, and his +funeral at night, to avoid a mob, was a pathetic fact. +France has now reinstated him, say modern men—but +that is the irony of fate.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>THE GOBELINS FACTORY (<i>Continued</i>)</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">C</span>OLBERT died most inopportunely in 1684 and +was succeeded by his enemy, and for that matter, +the enemy of France, the man of jealousy and +cruelty, Louvois. He had long hated Colbert for his +success, counting as an affront to himself Colbert’s marvellous +establishment of a navy which he felt rivalled in +importance the army, over which the direction was his +own.</p> + +<p>On finding Colbert’s baton in his hand, it was but +human to strike with it as much as to direct, and one +of his blows fell upon the head of the Gobelins, Lebrun. +Thus history is woven into tapestry. Lebrun was not +at once deposed; first his magnificent wings were clipped, +so that his flights into artistic originality were curtailed. +This petty persecution had a benumbing effect. New +models were not encouraged. Strangely enough, the +scenes that glorified the king were no longer reproduced, +nor those of antique kings like Alexander, whose greatness +Louis was supposed to rival.</p> + +<p>It is not possible to tell the story of tapestry without +telling the story of the times, for the lesser acts are but +the result of the greater. There are matters in the life +of Louis XIV that are inseparable from our account. +These are the associating of his life with that of the three +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +women whom he exalted far higher than his queen, Marie +Thérèse, the well-known, much-vaunted mesdames, de la +Vallière, de Montespan and de Maintenon.</p> + +<p>Even before the death of Colbert, Louvois, with his +army, had encouraged the religious persecutions and wars +of the king, and shortly after, the widow of the poet +Scarron became the royal spouse. Relentless, indeed, +were the persecutions then. It was in the same year of +the marriage that Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, +through the hand of the weak Le Tellier, an action which +gave Louvois ample excuse for depleting the state coffers. +Making military expense an excuse, he turned his blighting +hand toward the Gobelins and restricted the director, +Lebrun, even to denying him the golden threads so necessary +for the production of the sumptuous tapestries.</p> + +<p>And so for a time the productions of the looms lacked +their accustomed elegance. Under Madame de Maintenon, +the spirit of a morose religion pervaded the court. +All France was suffering under it, and in its name unbelievable +horrors were perpetrated in every province. +Paris was not too well informed of these to interfere with +bourgeois life, but at court the hypocritical soul of +Madame de Maintenon made self-righteousness a virtue.</p> + +<p>An almost laughable result of this pious rectitude was +a certain order given at the Gobelins. Madame de Maintenon +had thrust her leading nose between the doors of the +factory and had scented outraged modesty in the reproduction +there of the tapestries woven from models of +Raphael, Giulio Romano and the classicists, cartoons in +great favour after the hampering of Lebrun’s imagination. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +The naked gods from Olympus must be clothed, +said this pious and modest lady.</p> + +<p>This was very well for her rôle, as her influence over +the king lay deep-rooted in her pose of heavy virtue; +but at the Gobelins, the tapestry-makers must have +laughed long and loud at the prudery which they were +set to further by actually weaving pictured garments and +setting them into the hangings where the lithe limbs of +Apollo, and Venus’ lovely curves, had been cut away. +The hanging called <i>The Judgment of Paris</i> is one of those +altered to suit the refinement of the times.</p> + +<p>Louvois’ dominance lasted as long as Lebrun, so the +genius of the latter never reasserted itself in the factory. +Two methods of supply for designs came in vogue, and +mark the time. One was to turn to the old masters of +Italy’s high Renaissance for drawings. This brought +a quantity of drawings of fables and myths into use, so +that palace walls were decorated with Greek gods instead +of modern ones. Raphael, as a master in decoration, was +carefully copied, also other men of his school. The second +source of cartoons was chosen by Louvois, who +searched among previous works for the most celebrated +tapestries and had them copied without change.</p> + +<p>Thus came the Gobelins to reproduce hangings that +had not originated in their ateliers. All this traces the +change that came from the clipping of Lebrun’s wings +of genius. Identification marks they are, when old +tapestries come our way.</p> + +<p>Pierre Mignard succeeded Lebrun as director of the +Gobelins after the death of the greatest genius of decoration +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +in modern times. Lebrun had seen such prosperity +of tapestry weaving that eight hundred workers had +scarcely been enough to supply the tapestries ordered. +When Mignard came for his five years of direction, things +had mightily changed, and he did nothing to revive or +encourage the work. He owed his appointment entirely +to Louvois, whose protégé he had long been. The same +year, 1691, saw the death of them both.</p> + +<p>Until 1688 the factory was at its best time of productiveness, +reaching the perfection of modern drawing in +its cartoons, and, in its weaving, equalling the manner of +Brussels in the early Sixteenth Century.</p> + +<p>From then on began the decline, for the reasons so +forcibly written on pages of history. The French king’s +ambition to conquer, his animosity—jealousy, if you +will—toward Holland, his unceasing conflict with England, +added to his fierce attacks on religionists, especially +in the Palatinate—all these things required the most stupendous +expenditures. The Mississippi was now discovered, +the English colonists were in conflict with the +French, here in America, and the New World was becoming +too desirable a possession for Louis to be willing +to cede his share without a struggle; and thus came the +expense of fighting the English in that far land which +was at least thirty days’ sail away.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Mignard worked against odds too great for +even a strong director. Such drains on the state treasury +as were made by the self-indulgent court, and by the +political necessities, demanded not only depriving the +Gobelins of proper expensive materials, but in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +department of furniture and ornaments, demanded also the +establishment of a sinister melting pot, a hungry mouth +that devoured the precious metals already made more +precious by the artistic hands of the gold-working artists.</p> + +<p>Mignard’s futile work was finished by his demise in +1695. Such was then the pitiable conditions at the +Gobelins that it was not considered worth while to fill +his place. Thus ended the first period of that beautiful +conception, art sustained by the state, artists relieved +from all care except that of expressing beauty.</p> + +<p>The ateliers were closed; the weavers had to seek other +means of gaining their living. The busy Gobelins, a +very Paradise of workers, an establishment which felt +itself the pride of Paris and the pet of the king, full of +merry apprentices and able masters, this happy solidarity +fell under neglect. The courtyards were lonely; the +Bièvre rippled by unused; the buildings were silent and +deserted. Some of the workers were happy enough to +be taken in at Beauvais, some returned to Flanders, but +many were at the miserable necessity of dropping their +loved professions and of joining the royal troops, for +which the relentless ambition of the king had such large +and terrible use.</p> + +<p>The time when the factory remained inactive were the +dolorous years from 1694 to 1697. It was in the latter +year that peace was signed in the Holland town of Ryswick, +which ended at least one of Louis’ bloody oppressions, +the fierce attacks in the Palatinate.</p> + +<p>The place of Colbert was never filled, so far as the +Gobelins was concerned. Louvois had not its interests +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +in his hard hands, nor had his immediate followers in +state administrations up to 1708, which included Mansard +(of the roofs) and the flippity courtesan, the Duc d’Antin. +But power was later given to Jules Robert de Cotte +to raise the fallen Gobelins by his own wise direction, +assisted by his father’s political co-operation (1699-1735). +Once again can we smile in thinking of the factory +where the wares of beauty were produced. Of +course, the artists flocked to the centre, eager to express +themselves. The one most interesting to us was Claude +Audran. Others there were who contributed adorable +designs and helped build up the most exquisite expressions +of modern art, but, alas, their modesty was such that +their names are scarce known in connexion with the art +they vivified.</p> + +<p>The aged Louis was ending his forceful reign in increasing +weakness, deserted at the finish by all but the +rigid de Maintenon; and four-year-old Louis, the grandson +of the Grand Dauphin, was succeeding under the +direction of the Regent of Orleans. New monarchs, new +styles, the rule was; for the newly-crowned must have his +waves of flattery curling about the foot of the throne. +Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque, lived to his pose of +heavy magnificence even in the furnishing and decorating +of the apartments where he ruled as king and where he +lived as man. Sumptuous splendour, expressed in heavy +design, in deep colouring, with much red and gold, these +were the order of the day, and best expressed the reign.</p> + +<p>But with Philip as regent, and the young king but a +baby, a gayer mood must creep into the articles of beauty +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +with which man self-indulgently decorates his surroundings. +Pomp of a heavy sort had no place in the regent’s +heart. He saw life lightly, and liked to foster the belief +that a man might make of it a pretty play.</p> + +<p>Thus, given so good excuse for a new school of decoration, +Claude Audran snatched up his talented brush +and put down his dainty inspirations with unfaltering +delicacy of touch. He wrote upon his canvas poems in +life, symphonies in colour, created a whole world of tasteful +fancy, a world whose entire intent was to please. He +left the heavy ways of pomp and revelled in a world +where roses bloom and ribbons flutter, where clouds are +strong to support the svelte deity upon them, and where +the rudest architecture is but an airy trellis.</p> + +<p>The classic, the Greek, he never forgot. It was ever +his inspiration, his alphabet with which he wrote the +spirit of his composition, but it was a classic thought +played upon with the most talented of variations. Pure +Greek was too cold and chaste for the temper of the time +in which he lived and worked and of which he was the +creature; and so his classic foundation was graced with +curves, with colour, with artful abandon, and all the +charming fripperies of one of the most exquisite periods +of decoration. Gods and goddesses were a necessary part +of such compositions, and a continual playing among +amorini, but such deities lived not upon Olympus, nor +anywhere outside France of the Eighteenth Century. +The heavy human forms made popular by the inflation +of the Seventeenth Century were banished to some dark +haven reserved for by-gone modes, and these new gods +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +were exquisite as fairies while voluptuous as courtesans. +They were all caught young and set, while still adolescent +and slender, in suitable niches of delicate surroundings.</p> + +<p>The talent of Audran, not content with figures alone, +was lavishly expended on those ingenious decorative designs +which formed the frame and setting of the figures, +the airy world in which they lived and in the borders that +confined the whole.</p> + +<p>Only a study of tapestries or their photographs can +show the radical depth of the change from the styles prevailing +under the influence of Madame de Maintenon to +those produced by Audran and his school under the +regence. The difference in character of the two dominations +is the very evident cause. It is as though the +severe moral pose of de Maintenon had suppressed a +whole Pandora’s box of loves and graces who, when the +lid was lifted by the Regent, flew, a happy crew, to fix +themselves in dainty decorative effect, trailing with them +their complement of accessory flowers, butterflies, clouds +and tempered grotesques.</p> + +<p>Philippe d’Orleans, under the influence of the corrupt +cleverness of Cardinal du Bois, celebrated the few years +of his regency by bankrupting France with John Law’s +financial fallacies (this was the time of the South Sea +Bubble and the Mississippi scheme) and by returning to +Spain her princess as unsuited for the boy king’s mate—with +war as the natural result of that insult.</p> + +<p>But he also let artists have their way, and the style that +they supplied him, shows a talented invention unsurpassed. +Audran we will place at the top, but only to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +fix a name, for there was a whole army of men composing +the tapestry designs that so delighted the people of those +days and that have gone on thrilling their beholders for +two hundred years, and which distinguish French designs +from all others—which give them that indefinable quality +of grace and softness that we denominate French. Wizards +in design were the artists who developed it and those +who continue it in our own times.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE GOBELINS FACTORY (<i>Continued</i>)</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>UDRAN had in his studio André Watteau, whose +very name spells sophisticated pastorals of exceeding +loveliness. Watteau worked with Audran +when he was producing his most inspired set of tapestry, +on which we must dwell for a bit for pure pleasure. +This set is called the <i>Portières des Dieux</i>.</p> + +<p>That they were portières, only door-hangings, is a fact +too important to be slipped by. It denotes one of the +greatest changes in tapestries when the size of a hanging +comes down from twenty or thirty feet to the dimensions +of a doorway. It speaks a great change in interiors, and +sets tapestries on a new plane. Later on, they are still +further diminished. But the sadness of noting this +change is routed by the thrills of pleasure given by the +exquisite design, colour and weave.</p> + +<p>The <i>Portières of the Gods</i> was, then, a series of eight +small hangings, four typifying the seasons and four the +elements, with an appropriate Olympian forming the +central point of interest and the excuse for an entourage +of thrilling and graceful versatility. This set has been +copied so many times that even the most expert must fail +in trying to identify the date of reproduction. Two hundred +and thirty times this set is known to have been reproduced, +and such talented weavers were given the task as +Jans and Lefebvre.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 331px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY03" id="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry069th.jpg" width="331" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry069.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +In this exquisite period, which might be called the +adolescence of the style Louis XV, Audran and his collaborators +produced another marvellous and inspired set +of portières. These were executed for the Grand +Dauphin, to decorate his room in the château at Meudon, +and were called the <i>Grotesque Months in Bands</i>. The +most self-sufficient of pens would falter at a description +of design so exquisite, which is arranged in three panels +with a deity in each, a composition of extraordinary +grace above and below them, and a bordering band of +losenge or diaper, on which is set the royal double L +and the significant dolphin who gave his name to kings’ +sons. The exquisite art of Audran and of the regence +cannot be better seen than in this set of tapestries which +was woven but once at the royal factory, although repeated +many times elsewhere with the border altered, +Audran’s being too personal for other chambers than +that of the prince for whom it was composed. Recently +copies have been made without border.</p> + +<p>The name of the artist, Charles Coypel, must not be +overlooked, for it was he who composed the celebrated +suite of <i>Don Quixote</i>. Twenty-eight pieces composed +the series, and they were drawn with that exquisite combination +of romantic scenes and fields of pure decorative +design that characterised the charm of the regence. In +the centre of each piece (small pieces compared to those +of Louis XIV) was a scene like a painting representing +an incident from the adventure of the humorously pathetic +Spanish wanderer; and this was surrounded with +so much of refined decoration as to make it appear but a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +medallion on the whole surface. This set was so important +as to be repeated many times and occupied the +factory of the Gobelins from 1718 to 1794. Charles +Coypel was but twenty when he composed the first design +for this suite. Each year thereafter he added a new design, +not supplying the last one until 1751. But, while +all honour is due Coypel, Audran and Le Maire and +their collaborators must be remembered as having composed +the borders, the pure decorative work which expresses +the tender style of transition, the suggestive period +of early spring that later matured into the fulsome +Rococo. America is enriched by five of these exquisite +pieces through Mr. Morgan’s recent purchase.</p> + +<p>But while artists were producing purity in art, those +in political power were, with ever-increasing effect, +plunging morals into the mud. Philippe, the Regent, +died, the corrupt Duke of Bourbon took the place of minister, +and poor Louis XV was still but thirteen years old, +and unavoidably influenced by the lives of those around +him. Even the Gobelins was under the hand of the +shallow Duke d’Antin. Yet even when the king matured +and became himself a power for corruption, the +artists of the Gobelins reflected only beauty and light. +It is to their credit.</p> + +<p>It is an ungrateful task to pick flaws with a period so +firmly enthroned in the affections as that of the regence +and the early years of the reign of Louis XV. The beauties +of its pure decoration lead us into Elysian fields that +are but reluctantly left behind. But the designs and +tapestry weavers of that time left us two distinct classes +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +of production, and to be learned in such matters, the +amateur contemplates both. This second style is ungrateful +because it trains us away from art, delicate and ingenious, +and plants us before enormous woven paintings.</p> + +<p>Now it never had been the intention of tapestry to +replace painting. Whenever it leaned that way a deterioration +was evident. It was by the lure of this fallacy +that Brussels lost her pre-eminence. It was through this +that the number of tones was increased from the twenty +or more of Arras to the twenty thousand of the Gobelins. +It was through this that the true mission of tapestry was +lost, which was the mission of supplying a soft, undulating +lining to the habitat of man, and flashes of colour for his +pageants.</p> + +<p>Under Louis XIV the pictures came thick and fast, as +we have seen, but in deep-toned, simple colour-scheme. +Now, with the De Cottes as directors at the Gobelins, and +with a new reign begun, more pictures were called for.</p> + +<p>The splendid <i>History of the King</i> of Louis XIV +could not be forgotten; the history of his successor must +be similarly represented, and what could this be but a +series of woven paintings. The flower of the time was +an exquisitely complicated decoration on a small scale. +The larger expression was not spontaneous.</p> + +<p>Louis XV, poor boy, was not old enough to have had +many events outside the nursery, so it took imagination—perhaps +that of the elegant profligate, Duke d’Antin—to +suggest an occasion of appropriate splendour and significance. +The official reception of the Turkish ambassador +in 1721 was the subject chosen, and under the direction +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +of Charles Parrocel became a superb work, full of court +magnificence of the day and a valuable portrayal to us +of the boyhood of the king.</p> + +<p>The same type of big picture was continued in the series +of <i>Hunts of Louis XV</i>, lovely forest scenes wherein +much unsportsmanlike elegance displays itself in the persons +of noble courtiers. The Duc d’Antin favoured +these and they were reproduced until 1745.</p> + +<p>It is probable that the Bible fell into neglect in those +days, too heavy a volume for pointed, perfumed fingers +accustomed to no books at all. Bossuet, Voltaire, were +they not obliged to set to the sonorous music of their +voices the reforming and satirical attacks on manners and +morals of the aristocrats at a time when books lay all +unread? But at the Gobelins ateliers the Bible, wiped +clean of dust, was much consulted for inspiration in cartoons. +Charles Coypel dipped into the Old Testament, +and Jouvenet into the New, with the result of several +suites of tapestries of great elegance—all of which might +much better have been painted on canvas and framed.</p> + +<p>Charles Coypel, the talented member of a talented family +of painters, also made popular the heroine <i>Armide</i>, +who seemed almost to come of the Bible, since Tasso had +set her in his Christian <i>Jerusalem Delivered</i>. The seductive +palace and entrancing gardens where Renaud +was kept a prisoner, gave opportunity for fine drawing +in this set.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 313px;"> +<a name="HUNTS_OF_LOUIS_XV" id="HUNTS_OF_LOUIS_XV"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry070th.jpg" width="313" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry070.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">HUNTS OF LOUIS XV</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="ESTHER_AND_AHASUERUS" id="ESTHER_AND_AHASUERUS"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry071th.jpg" width="400" height="316" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry071.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; G. Audran, weaver</p> + +<p>The Iliad of Homer came in for its share of consideration +at the hands of Antoine and Charles Coypel, who +made of it a set of five scenes. It was Romanelli, the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +Italian, who painted a similar set, a hundred years before, +for Cardinal Barberini, which set came to America in +the Ffoulke collection. After the death, in 1730, of the +Duke d’Antin, that interesting son of Madame de Montespan, +several directors had the management of the +Gobelins in hand, the Count of Vignory and the Count +of Angivillier being the most important prior to the Revolution. +These were men who held the purse-strings of +the state, and could thereby foster or crush a state institution, +but the direction of the Gobelins itself, as a factory, +was in the hands of architects, beginning with +the able De Cotte. As the factory had many ateliers, +these were each directed by painters, among whom +appear such interesting men of talent as Oudry, Boucher, +Hallé.</p> + +<p>Although d’Antin was dead when it commenced, he +is accredited with having inspired and ordered the important +hanging known as the <i>History of Esther</i>. (Plate +facing page <a href="#ESTHER_AND_AHASUERUS"><b>131</b></a>.) The first piece, from cartoons by Jean +François de Troy, was sent to the weavers in 1737, and the +last piece, which was painted in Rome, was finished in +1742. This set shows as ably as any can, the magnificent +style of production of the period. It had from the beginning +an immense popularity and was copied many +times. Even now it is a favourite subject for those whose +perverted taste leads them into the dubious art of copying +tapestry in paints on cloth.</p> + +<p>The serious accusation against this set, which in composition +seems much like the tableaux in grand opera, +is that it invades the art of painting. And that is the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +fault of woven art at that period. The decline in tapestry +in Paris began when both weavers and painters struggled +for the same results, the weavers quite forgetting +the strength and beauty that were peculiar to their art +alone.</p> + +<p>This fault cannot be laid to the weavers only, who numbered +such men as Neilson the able Scot, and Cozette, +who, with wondrous touch, wove the set of <i>Don Quixote</i>; +nor were the artists at fault, for they included +such men as Audran and Boucher. No, it was the +director who blighted and subverted talent, and the vitiated +public taste that shifted restlessly and demanded +novelty. The novelty that came in large hangings was +a suppressing of the delicate subjects that delight the imagination +by their playful grace, their association of +human life with all that is gaily exquisite. The mode +was for leaving the land of idealised mythology, for discarding +the flowers, the scrolls, the happy loves and +charming crew that lived among them, and for plunging +into Roman history, real and ugly, enwrapped in drapings +too full, cumbered with forced accessory, or into such +mythology as is represented in <i>Cupid and Psyche</i>. +(Plate facing page <a href="#CUPID_AND_PSYCHE"><b>132</b></a>.)</p> + +<p>The <i>History of Esther</i> illustrates the loss of imagination +sustained by the border which had come to be a mere +woven imitation, in shades of brown and yellow, of a +carved and gilded, wooden frame. At the close of the +reign of Louis XV, borders were frankly abandoned altogether. +Compare this state of things with the days when +Audran and Coypel were producing the sets of <i>The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +Seasons</i>, <i>The Months</i>, and <i>Don Quixote</i>. It is aridness compared +to talented invention.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;"> +<a name="CUPID_AND_PSYCHE" id="CUPID_AND_PSYCHE"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry072th.jpg" width="280" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry072.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CUPID AND PSYCHE</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 276px;"> +<a name="CATHERINE_OF_RUSSIA" id="CATHERINE_OF_RUSSIA"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry073th.jpg" width="276" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry073.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA</p> + +<p class="incaption">Gobelins under Louis XVI.</p> + +<p>The top note of the imitation of painting was struck +when the Gobelins set the task of becoming a portrait +maker. (Plate facing page <a href="#CATHERINE_OF_RUSSIA"><b>133</b></a>.) The work was done, +it was bound to be, as royalty backed the demand. Portraits +were woven of Louis XV (to be seen now at +Versailles), and his queen, of Louis XVI and Marie +Antoinette, and others less well known. A better scheme +for limiting the talent of the weaver could not have been +suggested by his most ingenious enemy. He was a man +of talent or his art had not reached so high, and as such +must be untrammelled; but here was given him a work +where personal discretion was not allowed, where he must +copy tone for tone, shade by shade, the myriad indefinite +blendings of the brush.</p> + +<p>It is this practice, pursued to its end, that has made of +the tapestry weaver a mere part of a machine, and tapestry-making +a lost art, to remain in obscurity until weavers +return to the time before the French decadence.</p> + +<p>The temper of those who hold in their hands the direction +of the people, these are the determining causes of +the products of that age. If d’Angivillier was responsible +for displacing a transcendent art with a false one, +if he routed a dainty mythology and its accessories with +the heavy effort and paraphernalia of the Romans, on +whom shall we place the entirely supportable responsibility +of diminishing tapestries from noble draperies +down to mere furniture coverings?</p> + +<p>The result came happily, with much fluttering of fans, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +dropping of handkerchiefs, with powder, patches, intrigues, +naughty sports, and a general necessity for a gay +company to divide itself into groups of four or two—a +lady and a cavalier, forsooth—the inevitable man and +maid. In the time of the preceding king, Louis XIV, +the court lived in masses. Life was a pageant, a grand +one, moving in slow dignity of gorgeous crowds, but a +pageant on which beat the fierce light of a throne jealous +of its grandeur. No chance was here for sweet escape +and no chance for light communing.</p> + +<p>But all that saw a change. The needs of the lighter +court and the lighter people, were for reminders that life +is a merry dance in which partners change often, and sitting-out +a figure with one of them is part of the game.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the huge apartments were not to the taste of +Regent Philippe, and certainly they were not convenient +to the life of the king when he came to man’s estate. So, +down came the ceiling’s height, and closer drew the walls, +until the model of the Petit Trianon was reached and considered +the ideal—if that were not indeed the miniature +Swiss Cottage.</p> + +<p>What place had an acre of tapestry in these little rooms? +How could yards of undulating colour hang over walls +that were already overlaid with the most exquisite low +relief in wood that has ever been carved this side of the +Renaissance in Italy? No place for it whatever. So, +out with it—the fashions have changed.</p> + +<p>But there was the furniture. That, too, was smaller +than hitherto. But this was the day of artists skilled in +small design, and they must fill the need.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>THE GOBELINS FACTORY (<i>Continued</i>)</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>ND so it came about that tapestry fell from the +walls, shrunk like a pricked balloon and landed +in miniature on chairs, sofas and screens.</p> + +<p>How felt the artists about this domesticating of their +art? We are not told of the wry face they made when, +with ideals in their souls, they were set to compose chair-seats +for the Pompadour. Her preference was for +Boucher. Perhaps his revenge showed itself by treating +the bourgeoise courtisane to a bit of coarseness now and +then, slyly hid in dainties.</p> + +<p>The artist, Louis Tessier, appeased himself by composing +for furniture a design of simple bouquets of flowers +thrown on a damask background; but, with such +surety of hand, such elegance, are these ornaments designed +and composed, that he who but runs past them +must feel the power of their exquisite beauty.</p> + +<p>In this manufacture of small pieces the Gobelins factory +unhappily put itself on the same footing as Beauvais +and much confusion of the products has since resulted. +The dignity of the art was lowered when the size and +purpose of tapestries were reduced to mere furniture coverings. +The age of Louis XV, looked at decoratively, +was an age of miniature, and the reign that followed was +the same. When small chambers came into vogue, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +furniture diminished to suit them, and not only were walls +too small for tapestries to hang on, but chairs, sofas and +screens offered less space than ever before for woven designs, +now preciously fine in quality and minutiæ.</p> + +<p>Tapestry weaving now entered the region of fancy-work +for the drawing-room’s idle hour, and we see even +the king himself, lounging idly among his favourite companions, +working at a tiny loom, his latest pretty toy. +Compare this trifling with the attitude of Henri IV and +Louis XIV toward tapestry weaving, and we have the +situation in a nutshell.</p> + +<p>Louis XV passed from the scene, likewise the charming +bits of immorality who danced through his reign. +However much we may disapprove their manner of life, +we are ever glad that their taste sanctioned—more than +that—urged, the production of a decorative style almost +unsurpassed. To the artists belong the glory, but times +were such that an artist must die of suppression if those +in power refuse to patronise his art. So we are glad that +Antoinette Poisson appreciated art, and that Jeanne Verbernier +made of it a serious consideration, for, what was +liked by La Pompadour and Du Barry must needs be +favoured by the king.</p> + +<p>When Louis XVI came to the throne, the return to +antiquity for inspiration had already begun, but did not +fully develop until later on, when David became court +painter under Napoleon. Yet the tonic note of decoration +was classic. Designs were still small and details +were from Greek inspiration. As tapestries were still but +furniture coverings, this was not to be regretted, for nothing +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +could be better suited to small spaces, nor could drawing +be more exquisitely pure and chaste than when copied +from Greek detail.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 332px;"> +<a name="CHAIR_OF_TAPESTRY" id="CHAIR_OF_TAPESTRY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry074th.jpg" width="332" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry074.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY04" id="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY04"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry075th.jpg" width="400" height="311" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry075.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISÉE. STYLE LOUIS XV</p> + +<p>Count d’Angivillier kept the Gobelins factory from all +originality, sanctioned only the small wares for original +work, and forced a slavish copying of paintings for the +larger pieces. It is not deniable that some beautiful +hangings were produced, but the sad result is that pieces +of so many tones lose in value year by year, through the +gentle, inexorable touch of time; and, more deplorable +yet, the ambition and the originality of the master-weavers +was deprived of its very life-blood, and in time was +utterly atrophied.</p> + +<p>In the time of Louis XVI, when Marie Antoinette was +in the flower of her inconsiderate elegance, the note of +the day was for art to be small, but perfect; the worth of +a work of art was determined by its size—in inverse +ratio. It was a time lively and intellectual and frivolous, +and its art was the reflection of its desire for concentrated +completeness.</p> + +<p>In the reign of Louis XVI ripened, not the art of Louis +XIV, but the political situation whose seeds he had +planted. The idea of revolution which started in the +little-considered American colonies, took hold of the +thinkers of France, even to the king of little power. But +instead of being a theory of remedy for important men +to discuss, it acted as a fire-brand thrown among the inflammable, +long-oppressed Third Estate—with results +deplorable to the art which occupies our attention.</p> + +<p>The Gobelins was already suffering at the début of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +Revolution. Its management had been relegated to men +more or less incapable; its art standards had been forced +lower and lower. Added to that its operatives were engaged +at lessened rates and often had to whistle for their +pay at that. The contractors asked for nothing better +than to be engaged as masters of ateliers at fixed rates.</p> + +<p>Then came the full force of the Revolution with such +deplorable and tragic results for the Gobelins. In the +madness of the time the workers here were not exempt +from the terrible call of Robespierre. The almoner of +the factory was arrested, and at the end of two months not +even a record existed of his execution, which took place +among the daily feasts of La Guillotine. A high-warp +weaver named Mangelschot met the same fate. Jean +Audran, once contractor for high-warp, then placed at +the head of the factory, was arrested, but escaped with +imprisonment only.</p> + +<p>During his absence he was replaced as head by Augustin +Belle, whose respect for the Republic and for his +head made him curry favour with the mob in a manner +most deplorable. He caused the destruction by fire of +many and many a superb tapestry at the Gobelins, giving +as his reason that they contained emblems of royalty, +reminders of the hated race of kings. The amateur can +almost weep in thinking of this ruthless waste of beauty.</p> + +<p>It was a celebrated bonfire that was built in the courtyard +of the Gobelins when, by order of the Committee on +Selection, all things offensive to an over-sensitive republican +irritability were heaped for the holocaust. As the +Gobelins was instituted by a king, patronised by kings, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +its works made in the main for palaces and pageants after +the taste of kings, it was only too easy to find tapestries +meet for a fire that had as object the destruction of articles +displaying monarchical power.</p> + +<p>During the four horrid years when terror reigned, the +workers at the Gobelins continued under a constant +threat of a cessation of work. Not only was their pay +irregular, but it was often given in paper that had sadly +depreciated in value. Then the decision was made to +sell certain valuable tapestries and pay expenses from this +source of revenue. But, alas, in those troublous times, +who had heart or purse to acquire works of art. A whole +skin and food to sustain it, were the serious objects of +life.</p> + +<p>Under the Directory, funds were scarce in bleeding +France, and all sorts of ways were used to raise them. +In the past times when Louis XIV had by relentless extravagance +and wars depleted the purse, he caused the +patiently wrought precious metals to be melted into bullion. +Why not now resort to a similar method? So +thought a minister of one of the Two Chambers, and +suggested the burning of certain tapestries of the royal +collection in order that the gold and silver used in their +weaving might be converted into metal.</p> + +<p>Sixty pieces, the most superb specimens of a king’s collection, +were transported to the court of La Monnaie, +and there burned to the last thread the wondrous work +of hundreds of talented artists and artisans. The very +smoke must have rolled out in pictures. The money +gained was considerable, 60,000 livres, showing how +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +richly endowed with metal threads were these sumptuous +hangings. The commission sitting by, judicial, dispassionate, +presided with cold dignity over the sacrifice, and +pronounced it good.</p> + +<p>A hundred workers only remained at the Gobelins +which had once been a happy hive of more than eight +times that number, and these were constrained to follow +orders most objectionable and restrictive. Models to +copy were chosen by a jury of art, and such were its prejudices +that but little of interest remained. Ancient religious +suites, and royal ones were disapproved. New +orders consisted of portraits. But if we thought it a prostitution +of the art to weave portraits of Louis XV in royal +costume, or Marie Antoinette in the loveliness of her +queenly fripperies, what can be said of the low estate of +a factory which must give out a portrait of Marat or +Lepelletier, even though the great David painted the design +to be copied. The hundred men at the Gobelins +must have worked but sadly and desultorily over such +scant and distasteful commissioning.</p> + +<p>There were works upon the looms when the Commission +began inspecting the works of art to see if they were +proper stuff for the newly-made Republic to nurse upon. +In September, 1794, they found and condemned twelve +large pieces on the looms unfinished, and on which work +was immediately suspended. Of three hundred and +twenty-one models examined, which were the property of +the factory, one hundred and twenty were rejected. In +fact, only twenty were designated as truly fit for production, +not falling under the epithets “anti-republican, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +fanatic or insufficient.” The latter description was applied +to all those exquisite fantasies of art that make the +periods Louis XV and Louis XVI a source of transcendent +delight to the lover of dainty intellectual design, and +include particularly the work of Boucher.</p> + +<p>The mental and moral workings of the commission on +art may be tested by quoting from their own findings on +the <i>Siege of Calais</i>, a hanging by Berthélemy, depicting +an event of the Fourteenth Century. This is what the +temper of the times induced the Commission—among +whom were artists too—to say: “Subject regarded as +contrary to republican ideas; the pardon accorded to +the people of Calais was given by a tyrant through the +tears and supplications of the queen and child of a despot. +Rejected. In consequence the tapestry will be arrested +in its execution.”</p> + +<p>The models allowed in this benumbing period were +those of hunting scenes, and antique groups such as the +<i>Muses</i>, or scenes from the life of Achilles.</p> + +<p>A vicious system of pay was added to the vicious system +of art restriction. And so fell the Gobelins, to revive +in such small manner as was accorded it in the Nineteenth +Century.</p> + +<p>Its great work was done. It had lifted up an art which +through inflation or barrenness Brussels had let train on +the ground like a fallen flag, and it had given to France +the glory of acquiring the highest period of perfection.</p> + +<p>To France came the inspiration of gathering the industry +under the paternal care of the government, of +relieving it from the exigencies of private enterprise +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +which must of necessity fluctuate, of keeping the art in +dignified prosperity, and of devoting to its uses the highest +talent of both art and industry.</p> + +<p>The Revolution and the Directory both hesitated to kill +an institution that had brought such glory to France, that +had placed her above all the world in tapestry producing. +But what deliberate intent did not accomplish, came +near being a fact through scant rations. Operators at the +Gobelins were irregularly paid, and the public purse +found onerous the burden of support.</p> + +<p>But with the coming of Napoleon the personal note was +struck again. A man was at the head, a man whose ambition +invaded even the field of decoration. The Emperor +would not be in the least degree inferior in splendour +to the most magnificent of the hereditary kings of France. +The Gobelins had been their glory, it should add to his.</p> + +<p>Louis David was the painter of the court, he whose +head was ever turned over his shoulder toward ancient +Greece and Rome, who not only preferred that source of +inspiration, but who realised the flattery implied to the +Emperor by using the designs of the countries he had +conquered. It was a graceful reminder of the trophies +of war.</p> + +<p>So David not only painted Josephine as a lady of Pompeii +elongated on a Greek lounge, but he set the classic +style for the Gobelins factory when Napoleon gave to +the looms his imperial patronage. It was David who had +found favour with Revolutionary France by his untiring +efforts to produce a style differing fundamentally from +the style of kings, when kings and their ways were +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +unpopular. Technical exactness, with classic motives, +characterises his decorative work for the Gobelins.</p> + +<p>The Emperor was hot for throne-room fittings that +spoke only of himself and of the empire he had built. +David made the designs, beautiful, chaste, as his invention +ever was, and dotted them with the inevitable bees +and eagles. Percier, the artist, helped with the painting, +but the throne itself was David’s and shows his talent in +the floating Victory of the back and the conventionalised +wreaths of the seat. The whole set, important enough +to mention, embraced eight arm chairs and six smaller +ones, besides two dozen classic seats of a kingly pattern, +and screens for fire and draughts, all with a red background +on which was woven in gold the pattern of wreaths +and branches of laurel and oak.</p> + +<p>The Emperor made the Gobelins his especial care. He +committed it to the discretion of no one, but was himself +the director, and allowed no loom to set up its patterns +unsanctioned by his order. Even his campaigns left this +order operative. Is it to his credit as a genius, or his discredit +as a tyrant, that the chiefs of the Gobelins had to +follow him almost into battle to get permission to weave +a new hanging?</p> + +<p>Portraits were woven—but let us not dwell on that. +That portraits were woven at the Gobelins (portraits as +such, not the resemblance of one figure out of a mass to +some great personage) brings ever a sigh of regret. It +is like the evidence of senility in some grand statesman +who has outlived his vigour. It is like the portrait of your +friend done in butter, or the White House at Washington +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +done in a paste of destroyed banknotes. In other words, +there is no excuse for it while paint and canvas exist.</p> + +<p>Napoleon’s own portrait was made in full length twice, +and in bust ten times. The Empress was pictured at full +length and in bust, and the young King of Rome came in +for one portrait. The summit of bad art seemed reached +when it was proposed to copy in wool a painting of portrait +busts, carved in marble. This work was happily +unfinished when the empire gave place to the next form +of government.</p> + +<p>It is unthinkable that Napoleon would not want his +reign glorified in manner like to that of hereditary kings +with pictured episodes, the conquests of his life, dramatic, +superb. David the court painter, supplied his canvas +<i>Napoleon Crossing the Alps</i>, and others followed. +Copying paintings was the order at the Gobelins, remember, +and that kind of work was done with infinite skill. +Numbers of grand scenes were planned, some set up on +the looms, but the great part were not done at all. Napoleon’s +triumph was full but brief; the years of his reign +were few. He interrupted work on large hangings by +his impatience to have the throne-room furniture ready +for the reception of Europe’s kings and ambassadors. +And when the time came that another man received in +that room, the big series of hangings which were to picture +his reign, even as the <i>Life of the King</i> pictured that +of Louis XIV, were scarcely begun.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>BEAUVAIS</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>NOTHER name to conjure with, after Gobelins +is Beauvais. In general it means to us squares of +beautiful foliage,—foliage graceful, acceptably +coloured, and of a pre-Raphaelite neatness. But it is not +limited to that class of work, nor yet to the chair-coverings +for which the factory of Beauvais is so justly celebrated. +This factory has woven even the magnificent +series of Raphael, the designs without which the Sistine +Chapel was considered incomplete. But this is anticipating, +and an inquiry into how these things came about +is a pleasure too great to miss.</p> + +<p>The factory at Beauvais was founded by Colbert, under +Louis XIV, in 1664. In that respect it resembles the +Gobelins factory, but there existed an enormous difference +which had to do with the entire fate of the enterprise. +The Gobelins was founded for the king; Beauvais +was founded for commerce. The Gobelins was royally +conceived as a source of supply for palaces and +châteaux of royalty and royalty’s friends. Beauvais was +intended to supply with tapestry any persons who cared +to buy them, to the end that profit (if profit there were) +should be to the good of the country.</p> + +<p>So the factory was founded at Beauvais as being convenient +to Paris, although it was not known as a place +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +where the industry had flourished hitherto, notwithstanding +the old tapestries still in the cathedral which are accorded +a local origin in the first half of the Sixteenth +Century. And the king granted it letters patent, and +large sums of money to start the enterprise, which had +to be given a building, and men to manage it and to work +therein, and materials to work with, in fact, the duplicate +in less degree of the appropriations for the Gobelins, +except that the furniture department was omitted.</p> + +<p>The idea was practically the same as that in the mind +of the paternal Henri IV when he united the scattered +factories with royal interest and patronage, but with always +the large end in view of benefiting his people +financially, as well as in the province of art. With our +modern republican views we can criticise the disinterestedness +of a monarch who maintains a factory at enormous +public expense exclusively for the indulgence of +kings.</p> + +<p>And yet, it seems impossible to make both an artistic +and commercial success of a tapestry factory—at least this +is the conclusion to which one is forced in a study of the +Beauvais factory.</p> + +<p>Louis Hinart was the man appointed to construct the +buildings and to stock them, and the royal appropriation +therefor, was 60,000 livres. He was to engage a hundred +workers for the first year, more to be added; and special +prizes were temptingly offered for workmen coming from +other countries, and to the contractor for each tapestry +sold for exportation.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="HENRI_IV_BEFORE_PARIS" id="HENRI_IV_BEFORE_PARIS"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry076th.jpg" width="400" height="399" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry076.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="HENRI_IV_AND_GABRIELLE" id="HENRI_IV_AND_GABRIELLE"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry077th.jpg" width="400" height="390" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry077.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D’ESTRÉES</p> + +<p class="incaption">Design by Vincent</p> + +<p>Thus was trade to be encouraged, and the venture put +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +on its feet commercially. But alas, the factory was not +a success. Tapestries were woven, hundreds of them, and +they delight us now wherever we can find them, whether +low warp or high, whether large pieces with figures or +smaller pieces almost entirely verdure of an entrancing +kind. But the orders for large hangings, the heavy patronage +from outside France, was of the imagination only, +and the verdures for home consumption did not meet the +expenses of the factory. After twenty years of struggle, +Hinart was completely ruined and ceded the direction +of the factory to a Fleming of Tournai, Philip Béhagle. +As most of the workers were Flemish, this was probably +not disagreeable to them.</p> + +<p>Béhagle, more energetic than Hinart, with a gift for +initiative, set the high-warp looms to work with extraordinary +activity. As though he would rival the great +Gobelins itself, he reproduced the most ambitious of +pieces, the Raphael series, <i>Acts of the Apostles</i>, and a long +list of ponderous groups wherein oversized gods disport +themselves in a heavy setting of architecture and voluminous +draperies. He also produced some contemporary +battle scenes which are now in the royal collection of +Sweden.</p> + +<p>Not content with copying, Béhagle set up a school of +design in the factory, realising that the base of all decorative +art was design. Le Pape was the artist set over it. +From this grew many of the lovely smaller patterns which +have made the factory famous. Its garlands have ever +been inspired, and its work on borders is of exquisite conception +and execution.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +It is considered a great fact in the history of the factory +that the king paid it a visit in 1686; that he paraded and +rested his important person under the shade of the living +verdure in its garden. But it seems more to the point that +Béhagle made for it a success both artistic and commercial, +and this continued as long as he had breath.</p> + +<p>Also was it a feather in his cap that at the time when +the Gobelins factory was sighing and dying for lack of +funds, the provincial factory of Beauvais not only remained +prosperous, but opened its doors to many of the +starving operatives from the Gobelins ateliers, thus saving +them from the horrid fate of joining the Dragonades, +as some of their fellows had done.</p> + +<p>But the followers of the able Béhagle had not his capability. +After his twenty years of prosperity the factory +languished under the direction of his widow and sons, +and that of the brothers Filleul, and Micou, up to the time +when the Regent Philip was fumbling the reigns of government, +and when everything but scepticism and Les +Precieuses was sinking into feeble disintegration. The +factory became a financial failure from which the regent +had not power to lift it.</p> + +<p>Again we see the name of the son of Madame de Montespan, +the Duke d’Antin, who was at this time director +of buildings for the crown and in this capacity had the +power of choosing the directors of both the Gobelins and +Beauvais. The place of director at Beauvais was empty; +d’Antin must have the credit of filling it wisely with the +painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry. He was a man endowed +with the sort of energy we are apt to consider modern and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +American. He already occupied a high place in the +Gobelins, and retained it, too, while he lifted Beauvais +from the Slough of Despond, and carried it to its most +brilliant flowering.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY01" id="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry078th.jpg" width="400" height="378" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry078.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY02" id="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry079th.jpg" width="400" height="276" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry079.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI</p> + +<p class="incaption">Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York</p> + +<p>It is only as the history of a factory touches us that +we are interested in its changes. The result of Oudry’s +direction is one that we see so frequently in a small way +that it is agreeable to recognise its cause. Oudry was +pre-eminently a painter of animals. Add to this the +tendency to draw cartoons in suites and the demand for +furniture coverings, and at once we have the <i>raison d’être</i> +of the design seen over and over again nowadays on old +tapestried chairs, the designs picturing the <i>Fables of La +Fontaine</i>. These were the especial work of Oudry who +composed them, who put into them his best work as animal +painter, and who set them on the looms of Beauvais many +times.</p> + +<p>They had a success immediate. They became the fashion +of the day, and the pride of the factory. If the artist +had drawn with inspiration, the weavers copied with a +fidelity little short of talent. So it is not surprising that +a set of sofa and chairs on which these tapestries are displayed +brings now an average of a thousand dollars a +piece, even though the furniture frames are not excessively +rich.</p> + +<p>Beauvais set the fashion for this suite, but as success +has imitators who hope for success, many factories both in +and out of France copied this series. How shall we know +the true from the false? By that sixth sense that has its +origin in a taste at once instinctive and cultivated.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +Oudry drew hangings for the small panelled spaces of +the walls, to accompany this set of <i>Fables</i>. He also +painted scenes from Molière’s comedies, which at least +show him master of the human figure as well as of the +lines of animals.</p> + +<p>We are now, it must be remembered, in the time of +Louis XV, the time of beautiful gaiety and light sarcasm, +of epigramme, and miniature, and of all that declared +itself <i>multum in parvo</i>. Therefore it was that even wall-hangings +were reduced in size and polished, so to speak, +to a perfection most admirable. Paintings were copied, +actually copied, on the looms, but however much the fact +may be deplored that tapestry had wandered far from its +original days of grand simplicity, it were unjust not to +recognise the exquisite perfection of the manner in vogue +in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, and of the perfection +of the craftsman.</p> + +<p>The pieces of Beauvais that are accessible to us are +indeed charming to live with, especially the verdures of +Oudry on which he left the trace of his talent, never omitting +the characteristic fox or dog, or ducks, or pheasants +that give vital interest to a peep into the enchanted woodland. +At the same time the factory of Aubusson, and +looms in Flanders, were throwing upon the market a +quantity of verdures, of which the amateur must beware. +Oudry verdures or outdoor scenes are but few in model, +and beautifully woven.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 313px;"> +<a name="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY03" id="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry080th.jpg" width="313" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry080.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV</p> + +<p>In the prosperity of Beauvais, ambition carried Oudry +into a gay rivalry with the Gobelins. Charles Coypel +had gained fame by a set of hangings in which scenes were +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +taken from Don Quixote. Oudry asked himself why he +should not rival them at Beauvais. The result was a +similar series, but composed by Charles Natoire, the +artist who had drawn a set of <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i> for +the Gobelins. The same idea extended to the furniture +coverings which ran to this design as well as to the <i>Fables</i>. +Thus originated a set familiar to those of us nowadays +who covet and who buy the rare old bits that the niggard +hand of the past accords to the seeker after the ancient.</p> + +<p>Exquisite indeed are the hangings by the great interpreter +of the spirit of his time, François Boucher. His +designs broke from the limit of the Gobelins, and were +woven at Beauvais with the care and skill required for +proper interpretation of his land of mythology. Such +flushed skies of light, such clean, soft trees waving against +them and such human elegance and beauty grouped beneath, +have seldom been reproduced in tapestry, and almost +make one wonder if, after all, the weavers of the +Eighteenth Century were not right in copying a finished +painting rather than in interpreting a decorative cartoon. +But such thoughts border on heresy and schism; away +with them.</p> + +<p>Casanova, Leprince, and a host of others are tacked onto +the list of artists who painted models. We can no longer +call them cartoons, so changed is the mode for Beauvais. +But Oudry and Boucher are pre-eminent.</p> + +<p>To the former, who was director as well as artist, is +attributed the fame of the factory and the resulting commercial +success. The factory had a house for selling its +wares under the very nose of the Gobelins; had another +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +in the enemy’s country, Leipzig. And kings were the +patrons of these, as we know through the royal collections +in Italy, and Stockholm, where the King of Sweden was +an important collector.</p> + +<p>It was in 1755 that Beauvais found itself without the +support of its leaders. Both Oudry and his partner in +business matters, Besnier, had died. And we are well on +toward the time when kingly support was a feeble and +uncertain quantity. The factory lacked the inspiration +and patronage to continue its importance.</p> + +<p>In a few years more fell the blight of the Revolution. +The factory was closed.</p> + +<p>It re-opened again under new conditions, but its brilliant +period was past. Will the conditions recur that can +again elevate to its former state of perfection this factory +that has given such keen delight, whose ancient works are +so prized by the amateur? It has given us thrilling examples +of the highly developed taste of tapestry weaving +of the Eighteenth Century, it has left us lovable designs +in miniature. We repulse the thought that these things +are all of the past. The factory still lives. Will not the +Twentieth Century see a restoration of its former prestige?</p> + +<p>If it were only for the reproduction of the sets of furniture +of the style known as Louis XVI, the Beauvais loom +would have sufficient reason for existing at the present +day. Scenes from Don Quixote, however, and the pictured +fables of La Fontaine which we see on old chairs, +seem to need age to ripen them. These sets, when made +new, shown in all the freshness and unsoiled colour, and +unworn wool, and unfaded silk do not give pleasure.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY04" id="BEAUVAIS_TAPESTRY04"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry081th.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry081.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 276px;"> +<a name="CHAIR_COVERING" id="CHAIR_COVERING"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry082th.jpg" width="276" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry082.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">CHAIR COVERING</p> + +<p class="incaption">Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +But the familiar garlands and scrolls adapted from the +Greek, that were woven for the court of Marie Antoinette, +these are ever old and ever new, like all things vital. On +a background of solid colour, pale and tawny, is curved the +foliated scroll to reach the length of a sofa, and with this +is associated garlands or sprays of flowers that any flower-lover +would worship. Nothing more graceful nor more +tasteful could be conceived, and by such work is the Beauvais +factory best known, and on such lines might it well +continue.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>AUBUSSON</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">P</span>ERHAPS because of certain old and elegant carpets +lying under-foot in the glow and shadows of +old drawing-rooms that we love, the name of Aubusson +is one of interesting meaning. And yet history of +tapestry weaving at Aubusson lacks the importance that +gilds the Gobelins and Beauvais.</p> + +<p>It just escaped that <i>sine qua non</i>, the dower of a king’s +favour. But let us be chronological, and not anticipate.</p> + +<p>If antiquity is the thing, Aubusson claims it. There is +in the town this interesting tradition that when the invincible +Charles Martel beat the enemies of Christianity and +hammered out the word peace with his sword-blade, a lot +of the subdued Saracens from Spain remained in the +neighbourhood. It was at Poitiers in 732 that the final +blow was given to show the hordes of North Africa that +while a part of Spain might be theirs, they must stop below +the Pyrenees.</p> + +<p>When swords are put by, the empty hand turns to its +accustomed crafts of peace. Poitiers is a weary journey +from Africa if the land ways are hostile, and all to be +traversed afoot. Rather than return, the conquered Saracens +stayed, so runs the legend of Aubusson, and quite +naturally fell into their home-craft of weaving. They +had a pretty gift indeed to bestow, for at that time, as in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +ages before, the world’s best fabrics came from the luxurious +East. And so the Saracens, defeated at Poitiers +by Charles Martel, wandered to nearby Aubusson, wove +their cloths and gave the town the chance to set its earliest +looms at a date far back in the past.</p> + +<p>The centuries went on, however, without much left +in the way of history-fabric or woven fabric until we approach +the time when tapestry-history begins all over +France, like sparse flowers glowing here and there in the +early spring wood.</p> + +<p>When the Great Louis, with Colbert at his sumptuous +side, was by way of patronising magnificently those arts +which contributed to his own splendour, he set his all-seeing +eye upon Aubusson, and thought to make it a royal +factory.</p> + +<p>He was far from establishing it—that was more than +accomplished already, not so much by the legendary +Saracens as by the busy populace who had as early as +1637 as many as two thousand workers. Going back a +little farther we find a record of four tapestries woven +there for Rheims.</p> + +<p>It was, perhaps, this very prosperity, this ability to +stand alone that made Louis and Colbert think it worth +while to patronise the works at Aubusson. But it must +be said that at this time (1664) the factory was deteriorating. +Tapestry works are as sensitive as the veriest +exotic, and without the proper conditions fail and fade. +The wrong matter here was primarily the cartoons, which +were of the poorest. No artist controlled them, and the +workers strayed far from the copy set long before. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +Added to that, the wool was of coarse, harsh quality and +the dyeing was badly done. All three faults remediable, +thought the two chief forces in the kingdom.</p> + +<p>So Louis XIV announced to the sixteen hundred +weavers of Aubusson that he would give their works the +conspicuous privilege of taking on the name of the Royal +Manufactory at Aubusson. And, moreover, he declared +his wish to send them an artist to draw worthily, and a +master of the important craft of dyeing fast and lovely +colours.</p> + +<p>Colbert drew up a series of articles and stipulations, +long papers of rules and restrictions which were considered +a necessary part of fine tapestry weaving. These +papers are tiresome to read—the constitution of many a +nation or a state is far less verbose. They give the impression +that the craft of tapestry weaving is beset with +every sort of small deceit, so protection must be the arrangement +between master and worker, and between the +factory and the great outside world, lying in wait to tear +with avaricious claws any fabric, woven or written, that +this document leaves unprotected. You get, too, the impression +that weavers took themselves a little too seriously. +There must have been other arts and crafts in the world +than theirs, but if so these men of long documents ignored +it.</p> + +<p>Aubusson, then, took heart at the encouragement of the +king and his prime minister, enjoyed their fine new title +to flaunt before the world which lacked it, pored over +their new Articles of Faith, and awaited the new artist +and the new alchemist of colours.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +But Louis XIV was a busy man, and Paris presented +enough activity to consume all his hours but the scant +group he allowed himself for sleep. So Aubusson was +forgot. Wars and pleasures both ravaged the royal purse, +and no money was left for indulgences to a tapestry factory +lying leagues distant from Paris and the satisfying +Gobelins.</p> + +<p>Then came the agitation of religious conflict during +which Louis XIV was persuaded, coerced, nagged into +the condition of mind which made him put pen to the +Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the document that is +ever playing about the fortunes of tapestry weaving. +This was in 1685. Aubusson had struggled along on hope +for twenty years, under its epithet Royal, but now it had +to lose its best workers to the number of two hundred. +The Protestants had ever been among the best workers in +Louis’ kingdom, and by his prejudice he lost them. Germany +received some of the fugitives, notably, Pierre Mercier.</p> + +<p>Near Aubusson were Felletin and Bellegarde, the three +towns forming the little group of factories of La Marche. +When the king’s act brought disaster to Aubusson, her +two neighbours suffered equally.</p> + +<p>There was also another reason for a sagging of prosperity. +Beauvais was rapidly gaining in size and importance +under the patronage of the king and the wise +rule of its administrators. Beauvais with her high- and +low-warp looms, her artists from Paris and her privilege +to sell in the open market, lured from Aubusson the +patronage that might have kept her strong.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +Thus things went on to the end of the Seventeenth Century +and the first quarter of the Eighteenth. Then in +1731 came deliverers in the persons of the painters, Jean +Joseph du Mons and Pierre de Montezert, and an able +dyer who aided them. Prosperity began anew. Not the +prosperity of the first half of the Seventeenth Century, +which was its best period, but a strong, healthy productiveness +which has lasted ever since. Two articles of faith +it adheres to—that the looms shall be invariably low, and +that the threads of the warp shall be of wool and wool +only.</p> + +<p>Large quantities of strong-colour verdures from La +Marche and notably from Aubusson are offered to the +buyer throughout France. They are as easily adapted +to the wood panels of a modern dining-room as is stuff by +the yard, the pattern being merely a mass of trees divisible +almost anywhere. The colour scheme is often worked +out in blues instead of greens; a narrow border is on undisturbed +pieces, and the reverse of the tapestry is as full +of loose threads as the back of a cashmere rug. For the +most part these fragments are the work of the Eighteenth +Century. Older ones, with warmer colours introduced +bring much higher prices.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>SAVONNERIE</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HOSE who hold by the letter, leave out the velvety +product of La Savonnerie from the aristocratic +society of hangings woven in the classic +stitch of the Gobelins. They have reason. Yet, because +the weave is one we often see in galleries, also on furniture +both old and new, it is as well not to ignore its productions +in lofty silence.</p> + +<p>Besides, it is rather interesting, this little branch of an +exotic industry that tried to run along beside the greater +and more artistic. It never has tried to be much higher +than a man’s feet, has been content for the most part to +soften and brighten floors that before its coming were left +in the cold bareness of tile or parquet. It crept up to +the backs and seats of chairs, and into panelled screens +a little later on, but never has it had much vogue on the +walls.</p> + +<p>When we go back to its beginnings we come flat against +the Far East, as is usual. The history of the fabric which +is woven with a pile like that of heavy wool velvet, and +which is called Savonnerie, runs parallel to the long story +of tapestry proper, but to make its scant details one short +concrete chronicle it is best to put them all together.</p> + +<p>From the East, then, came the idea of weaving in that +style of which only the people of the East were masters. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +Oriental rugs as such were not attempted in either colour +or design, but one of the rug stitches was copied.</p> + +<p>We have to run back to the time of Henri IV, a pleasing +time to turn to with its demonstration of how much +a powerful king loved the welfare of his people. When +he interested himself in tapestry, one of the three important +existing factories was stationed in the Louvre. This +was primarily for the hangings properly called tapestry, +but in the same place were looms for the production of +work “after the fashion of Turkey.” Sometimes it was +called work of “long wool” (<i>longue laine</i>) and sometimes +also “<i>a la façon de Perse, ou du Levant</i>,” as well as “of +the fashion of Turkey,”—all names giving credit to the +East from whence the stitch came by means of crusades, +invasions and other storied movements of the people of +a dim past.</p> + +<p>How long ago this stitch came, is as uncertain as most +things in the Middle Ages. We know how persistently +the cultivated venturesome East overflowed Eastern Europe, +and how religious Europe thrust itself into the East, +and on these broad bases we plant our imaginings.</p> + +<p>Away back in Burgundian times there are traces of the +use of this velvet stitch. Tapestries of Germany also +woven in the Fifteenth Century, use this stitch to heighten +the effect of details.</p> + +<p>But the formation of an actual industry properly set +down in history and dignified by the name of its directors, +comes in the very first years of the Seventeenth Century +when Henri IV of France was living up to his high +ideals.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +Pierre Dupont is the name to remember in this connexion. +He is styled the inventor of the velvet pile in +tapestry, but it were better to call him the adaptor. The +name of Savonnerie came from the building in which the +first looms were set up, an old soap factory, and thus the +velvet pile bears the misnomer of the Savonnerie.</p> + +<p>Pierre Dupont (whose book “La Stromaturgie” might +be consulted by the book-lover) was one of the enthusiasts +included by Henri IV along with the best high-and low-warp +masters of France at that time. Being placed under +royal patronage, the Savonnerie style of weaving acquired +a dignity which it has ever had trouble in retaining +for the simple reason that the legitimate place for its +products seems to be the floor.</p> + +<p>The Gobelins factory finally absorbed the Savonnerie, +but that was after it had been established in the Louvre. +Pierre Dupont who was director of tapestry works under +Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt the works of French +production over those of “La Turquie.” The taste of +the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French +colour and drawing than with the designs of the East.</p> + +<p>At any rate, this pretty wool velvet found such favour +with kings that even Louis XIV encouraged its continuance, +gathering it under the roof of the all-embracing +Gobelins.</p> + +<p>A large royal order embraced ninety-two pieces, intended +to cover the Grand Galerie of the Louvre. Many +of these pieces are preserved to-day and are conserved by +the State.</p> + +<p>If Savonnerie has never produced much that is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +noteworthy in the line of art, at least it has given us many +pretty bits of an endearing softness, bits which cover a +chair or panel a screen, to the delight of both eye and +touch. The softness of the weave makes it especially appropriate +to furniture of the age of luxurious interiors +which is represented by the styles of Louis XV and Louis +XVI.</p> + +<p>Portraits in this style of weave were executed at a time +when portraits were considered improved by translation +into wool, but except as curiosities they are scarcely successful. +An example hangs in the New York Metropolitan +Museum of Art. (Plate facing page <a href="#SAVONNERIE"><b>162</b></a>.) In the +Gobelins factory of to-day are four looms for the manufacture +of Savonnerie.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 335px;"> +<a name="SAVONNERIE" id="SAVONNERIE"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry083th.jpg" width="335" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry083.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV</p> + +<p class="incaption">Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 242px;"> +<a name="VULCAN_AND_VENUS01" id="VULCAN_AND_VENUS01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry084th.jpg" width="242" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry084.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE</p> + +<p class="incaption">Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>MORTLAKE</h3> + +<h4>1619-1703</h4> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE three great epochs of tapestry weaving, with +their three localities which are roughly classed +as Arras in the Fifteenth Century, Brussels in the +Sixteenth Century, and Paris in the Seventeenth, had, as a +matter of course, many tributary looms. It is not supposable +that a craft so simple, when it is limited to unambitious +productions, should not be followed by hundreds +of modest people whose highest wish was to earn a +living by providing the market with what was then considered +as much a necessity as chairs and tables.</p> + +<p>To take a little retrospective journey through Europe +and linger among these obscurer weavers would be delectable +pastime for the leisurely, and for the enthusiast. +But we are all more or less in a hurry, and incline toward +a courier who will point out the important spots without +having to hunt for them. Artois had not only Arras; +Flanders had not only Brussels; France had not only +the State ateliers of Paris and Beauvais; but all these +countries had smaller centres of production. The tapestries +from some of these we are able to identify, even to +weave a little history about them. These products are +recognisable through much study of marks and details +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +and much digging in learned foreign books, where careful +records are kept—a congenial business for the antiquary.</p> + +<p>But even though we may neglect in the main the lesser +factories, there is one great development which must have +full notice. It is the important English venture known +as Mortlake.</p> + +<p>Sully, standing at the elbow of Henri IV of France, +called James I of England the wisest fool in Europe. A +part of his wisdom was the encouraging in his own kingdom +the royal craft of tapestry-making. To this end he +followed the example set by that grand Henri of Navarre, +and gave the crown’s aid to establish and maintain works +for tapestry production.</p> + +<p>The elegance of the Stuart came to the front, desiring +gratification; but craftiness had a hand in the matter, too. +After the introduction of Italian luxury into England by +Henry VIII, and the continuance of art’s revival through +the brilliant period of Elizabeth, it is not supposable that +no tapestry looms existed throughout the length and +breadth of the land at the time that James came down +from Scotland.</p> + +<p>They were there; documents prove it. But they were +not of such condition as pleased the fastidious son of +Marie Stuart, who needs must import his weavers and his +artists. And therein was shown his craftiness, for he had +coaxed secretly from Flanders fifty expert weavers before +the canny Dutch knew their talented material was thus +being filched away. Every weaver was bound to secrecy, +lest the Low Countries, knowing the value of her clever +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +workmen, put a ban upon their going before the English +king had his full quota for the new venture.</p> + +<p>Wandering about old London, one can identify now the +place where the king’s factory had habitat. The buildings +stood where now we find Queen’s Court Passage, and +near by, at Victoria Terrace, was the house set aside for +the limners or artists who drew and painted for the works.</p> + +<p>To copy Henri IV in his success was dominant in the +mind of James I. To the able Sir Francis Crane he gave +the place of director of the works, and made with him a +contract similar to that made with François de la Planche +and Marc Comans in Paris by their king.</p> + +<p>If to James I is owed the initial establishment, to Crane +is owed all else at that time. It was in 1619 that the +works were founded and Sir Francis took charge. He +was a gentleman born, was much seen at Court, had ambitions +of his own, too, and was cultivated in many ways of +mind and taste. Besides all this, he had a head for business +and an enthusiasm rampant, which could meet any +discouragement—and needed this faculty later, too.</p> + +<p>The king then gave him the management of the venture, +started him with the royal favour, which was as good +as a fortune, with a building for the looms, with imported +workers who knew the tricks of the trade, and with a +pretty sum of money to boot.</p> + +<p>Prudence was born with the enterprise; so the men from +the Low Countries were advised to become naturalised +to make them more likely to stay, and to bring other +workers over, Walloons, malcontents, religious fugitives, +or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful. Down +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,—those +lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small +leaded panes which we are so keen to restore and live in +these days.</p> + +<p>To swell the number of workers, and to have an eye for +the future, there must be apprentices. The king looked +about among the city’s “hospitals” and saw many goodly +boys living at crown expense, with no specified occupation +during their adolescence. These he put as apprentices, +for a term of seven years, to work under the fifty +Flemish leaders. They were happy if they fell under the +care of Philip de Maecht, he of Flanders, who had wandered +down to Paris and served under De la Planche and +Comans, and now had been enticed to the new Mortlake. +He has left his visible mark on tapestries of his +production—his monogram, P.D.M. (Plate facing page +<a href="#EPISODE_IN_LIFE_OF_CAESAR"><b>70</b></a>.)</p> + +<p>A designer for the factory, one who lived there, was +an inseparable part of it. And thus it came that Francis +Clein (or Cleyn) was permanently established. He +came from Denmark, but had taken an enlightening journey +to Italy, and had a fine equipment for the work, +which he carried on until 1658. His name is on several +tapestries now existing.</p> + +<p>Even kings tire of their fulfilled wishes. James +wanted royal tapestry works, yet, when they were an +established fact, he wearied of the drafts on his purse +for their support. It was the old story of unfulfilled +obligations, of a royal purse plucked at by too many vital +interests to spend freely on art.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +And Sir Francis Crane bore the brunt of the troubles. +Contracts with the king counted but lightly in face of his +enthusiasm. He continued the work, paid his men the +best he could, and let the king’s debt to him stand unsued.</p> + +<p>In a few years—a very few, as it was then but 1623—he +was obliged to petition the king. His private fortune +was gone by the board, the workmen were clamouring +for wages past due, and the factory trembled.</p> + +<p>Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of +his interest in the tapestries that were demonstrating the +artistic enterprise of England. The Italian taste was the +ultimate note in England as well as elsewhere—the Italy +of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had ordered +paintings and drawings. What was more to the +purpose at this hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the +crown a bill of seven hundred pounds, which covered +their expense. The king, unwillingly,—for needs pressed +on all sides—paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for +moneys he had expended, but left him struggling against +the hard conditions of a ruined private purse and a thin +royal one.</p> + +<p>At this juncture, 1625, James I died, and his son +reigned in his stead. The Prince of Wales was now become +that beribboned, picturesque, French-spirited monarch, +whose figure on Whitehall eternally protests his +tragic death.</p> + +<p>As Charles I, he had the power to foster the elegant +industry which now grew and flowered to a degree that +brought satisfaction then, and which yields a harvest of +delight in our own times. Sir Francis Crane was at last +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +to get the reward of enthusiasm and fidelity. Too much +reward, said the envious, who tried in all ways, fair and +foul, to drive him from what was now a lucrative and +conspicuous post. The money he had advanced the factory +came back to him, and more also. Ever a well-known +figure at court, he now even aspired to closer relations +with royalty, and built a magnificent country +home, which was large enough to accommodate a visiting +court. He even persuaded the king to visit the Mortlake +factory, that the royal presence might enhance the value +of art in the occult way known only to the subjects of +kings.</p> + +<p>Debts from the crown were not always paid in clinking +coin, but often in grants of land, and by these grants Sir +Francis Crane became rich. But the prosperity of Crane +was not worth our recording were it not that it evidenced +the prosperity of Mortlake. From the death of James I +in 1625 for a period of ten years, the factory flowered and +fruited. Its productions were of the very finest that have +ever been produced in any country.</p> + +<p>The reasons for this superiority were evident. First +of all, Mortlake was the pet of the king; next, Crane was +an able and devoted minister of its affairs; its artistic +inspiration came from the home of the highest art—Italy—and +its weavers were from that locality of sage and able +weavers—Flanders. Add to this, tapestries were the +fashion. Every man of wealth and importance felt them +a necessary chattel to his elegance. And add to this, too, +that Mortlake had almost a clean field. It was nearly +without rival in fine tapestry-making at that time. Brussels +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +had declined, and the Gobelins was not formed in +its inspired combination.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 240px;"> +<a name="VULCAN_AND_VENUS02" id="VULCAN_AND_VENUS02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry085th.jpg" width="240" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry085.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE</p> + +<p class="incaption">Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 240px;"> +<a name="VULCAN_AND_VENUS03" id="VULCAN_AND_VENUS03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry086th.jpg" width="240" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry086.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE</p> + +<p class="incaption">Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York</p> + +<p>Besides this, were not the materials for the industry +found best within the confines of the kingdom? What +sheep in all the world produced such even, lustrous wool +as the muttons huddling or wandering on the undulating +<i>prés salés</i> of Kent; and was not wool, par excellence, the +ideal material for picture-weaving, better than silk or +glittering gold?</p> + +<p>The hangings made then were superb. Thanks to destiny, +we have some left on which to lavish our enthusiasm. +The cartoons preferred came from Italy’s great dead masters. +First was Raphael. The Mortlake would try its +hand at nothing less than the great series made to finish +and soften the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. And so +the <i>Acts of the Apostles</i> were woven, and in such manner +as was worthy of them. They can be seen now in the +Garde Meuble. Van Dyck, the great Hollander, made +court painter to the king, drew borders for them, and was +proud to do it, too. Van Dyck’s other work here was a +portrait of Sir Francis Crane and one of himself.</p> + +<p>Rubens likewise associated his great decorative genius +with the factory and gave to it his suite of six designs +for the <i>Story of Achilles</i>. Cleyn, the Mortlake art-director, +furnished a <i>History of Hero and Leander</i>, which +found home among the marvellous tapestries of the King +of Sweden.</p> + +<p>There were other classic subjects, and the months as +well, but of especial interest to us is the <i>Story of Vulcan</i>. +Several pieces of this series have been lent to the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by their owners, Mrs. +von Zedlitz, and Philip Hiss, Esq. Thus, without going +far from home, thousands have been able to see these delightful +examples of the highest period of England’s tapestry +production. The series was woven for Charles I +when he was Prince of Wales, from cartoons by Francis +Cleyn, and woven by the master, Philip de Maecht. The +borders are especially interesting, and carry the emblematic +three feathers of the prince, as well as his monogram, +in Mrs. von Zedlitz’s example, <i>The Expulsion of Vulcan</i>. +(Coloured plate facing page <a href="#EXPULSION_OF_VULCAN"><b>170</b></a>.)</p> + +<p>It was this same series of <i>Vulcan</i> that was used as a +text by Crane’s enemy to prove to the king, in 1630, that +Crane was profiting unduly and dishonestly from the +land grants given him in payment for arrears. The +plaintiff speaks of this set as being “the foundation of all +good tapestries in England.” We are fortunate in having +pieces from it in America.</p> + +<p>Only by actual contact with the tapestry itself can the +beauty of the colour and the work be known. We well +believe the superior quality of the English wool when it +lies before us in smooth expanse of subtle colour. And +as for even weaving, it is there unsurpassed. Every inch +declares the talent and patience of the craftsman. As for +colour, it is on a low scale that makes blues seem like remembrance +of the sea, and reds like faint flushings +planned in warm contrast, while over all is thrown a veil +of delicate mist that may be of years, or may have been +done with intent, but is there to give poetic value to the +whole of the artist’s scheme.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="EXPULSION_OF_VULCAN" id="EXPULSION_OF_VULCAN"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry087th.jpg" width="400" height="317" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry087.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +Sir Francis Crane died in 1636, and Captain Richard +Crane succeeded him. And then began the decline of a +factory which should have lived to save us deep regret. +This second Crane could not carry on the work, and besought +the king to relieve him by taking over the factory, +which was thenceforth known as King’s Works.</p> + +<p>But civil wars came on in 1642 and other matters were +more urgent than the production of works of art. So evil +days fell upon the weavers.</p> + +<p>Then came the black day when Charles was beheaded. +The Commonwealth, to do it justice, tried to keep alive +the industry. They put at its head a nobleman, Sir Gilbert +Pickering, and, to inspire the workers, brought a +new model for design.</p> + +<p>They went to Hampton Court and took from there +<i>The Triumph of Cæsar</i>, by Mantegna, to serve as new +models. Some hope, too, lay in the weavers of the hour, +clever Hollanders taken prisoners in the war; and all this +while Cleyn directed.</p> + +<p>But there were too many circumstances in the way, too +many hard knocks of fate. People were too poor to buy +good tapestries, and loose-woven, cheaper ones were +heavily imported—to the amount of $500,000 yearly—from +France and the Low Countries. Anti-Catholic +feeling displayed hatred toward the able Catholic weavers, +who were forced out of the country by proclamation.</p> + +<p>The sad end of this story is that in 1702 a petition +was placed before the king asking permission to discontinue +the Mortlake works. It was granted in 1703, and +thus ended the English royal venture in England.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>IDENTIFICATIONS</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>DENTIFYING tapestries is like playing a game, like +the solving of a piquant problem, like pursuing the +elusive snark. I know of no keener pleasure than +that of standing before a tapestry for the first time and +giving its name and history from one’s own knowledge, +and not from a museum catalogue or a friend’s recital. +The latter sources of information may be faulty, but your +own you can trust, for by delightful association with tapestries +and their literature you have become expert. The +catalogue is to be read, the friend is to be heard, in all +humility, because these supply points that one may not +know; but, who shall not say that an intensely human +gratification is experienced when the owner of a tapestry +with the Brussels mark tells you that it is a Gobelins, +or one with the <i>History of Alexander</i> tells you it is the +only set of that series ever woven, and you know better.</p> + +<p>The first thing that strikes the eye and the intelligence +is the drawing, the general school to which it belongs. +There is matter for placing the piece in its right class. +It might be said to place it in its right century or quarter +century, but that tapestries were so often repeated in later +times, the cartoon having no copyright and therefore open +to all countries in all centuries. Next, then, to fix it +better, comes a study of the border, for therein lies many +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +a secret of identity, and borders were of the epoch in +which the weaving was done, even though the cartoon +for the centre came from an earlier time.</p> + +<p>Last, as a finishing touch, come the marks in the galloon. +This is put last because so often they are absent, and so +often unknown, the sign of some ancient weaver lost in +the mists of years, although a well-known mark so instantly +identifies, that study of other details is secondary.</p> + +<p>But under these three generalising heads comes all the +knowledge of the savant, for the truth about tapestries +is most elusive. Knowledge is to be gained only by a +lover of the objects, a lover willing to spend long hours +in association with his love, prowling among collections, +comparing, handling, studying designs, discerning colours, +searching for details, and indulging withal a nice +feeling for textures, a vision that feels them even without +touch of the hand.</p> + +<p>If the study of design has not given a keen scent for +the vague quality which we call “feeling,” the eye would +better be trained still further, for herein lies the secret of +success in difficult places, and not only that, but if he +have not this sense he is deprived of one of the most +subtile thrills that the arts can excite.</p> + +<p>But this sense is not a matter of untrained intuition. +It is the flower of erudition, the flame from a full heart, +or whatever dainty thing you choose to call it. It has its +origin primarily in keen observation of the various important +schools of design that have interested the world +for centuries. We unconsciously augment it even in following +the side-path of history in this modest volume. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +Our studies here are but those of a summer morn or a +winter eve, yet they are in vain if they have not set up +a measuring standard or two within the mind.</p> + + +<h4>GOTHIC DRAWING</h4> + +<p>First, and dearest to the lover of designs, comes the +Gothic, the style practised by those conscientious romantic +children-in-art, the Primitives. Their characteristics +in tapestry are much the same as in painting, as in +sculpture; for, weavers, painters, book-makers, sculptors, +were all expressing the same matter, all following the +same fashion. Therefore, to one’s help comes any and +every work of the primitive artists. Making allowance +for the difference in medium, the same religious feeling +is seen in the Burgundian set of <i>The Sacraments</i> in the +Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York, as is found +in stone carving of the time which decorated churches and +tombs.</p> + +<p>The figures in the Gothic tapestries show a dignified +restraint, a solemnity of pose, recalling the deadly seriousness +with which children play the game of grown-ups. +The artists of that day had to keep to their traditions; to +express without over-expression, was their difficult task +(as it is ours), but they had behind them the rigidity of +the Byzantine and Early Christian, so that every free line, +every vigorous pose or energetic action, was forging +ahead into a new country, a voyage of adventure for the +daring artist. Quite another affair was this from modern +restraint which consists in pruning down the voluptuous +lines following the too high Renaissance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +Faces are serious, but not animated. Dress reveals +charming matter concerning stuffs and modes in that far +time. But apart from these characteristics is the one +great feature of the arrangement of the figures, almost +without perspective. And therein lies one immense superiority +of the ancient designs of tapestries over the modern +as pure decorative fabric. Men and women are +placed with their accessories of furniture or architecture +all in the foreground, and each man has as many cubits +to his stature as his neighbour, not being dwarfed for +perspective, but only for modesty, as in the case of the +Lady’s companion in the <i>Unicorn</i> series—but that series +is of a later Gothic time than the early works of Arras.</p> + +<p>A noticeable feature is that the centre of vision is +placed high on the tapestry. The eye must look to the +top to find all the strength of the design. The lower part +is covered with the sweeping robes or finished figures of +the folk who are playing their silent parts for the delight +of the eye. This covers well the space with large and +simple motive. No recourse is had to such artifice as +distant lands seen in perspective, nor angles of rooms, but +all is flat, brought frankly into intimate association with +the room that is lived in, so that these people of other +days seem really to enter into our very presence, to thrust +vitally their quaint selves into our company. This feature +of simple flatness is in so great contrast to later methods +of drawing that one becomes keenly conscious of it, +and deeply satisfied with its beauty. The purpose of decoration +and of furnishing seems to be most adequately +met when the attention is retained within the chamber and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +not led out of it by trick of background nor lure of perspective, +no matter how enticing are the distant landscapes +or how noble the far palace of royalty. Thus the +Primitives struck a more intimately human note than the +artists of later and more sophisticated times.</p> + +<p>The more archaic the tapestry, the simpler the motive, +is the rule. The early weavers of Arras and of France +were telling stories as naturally as possible, perhaps because +the ways of their times were simple, and brushed +aside all filigree with a directness almost brutal; but also, +perhaps, because technique was not highly developed, +either in him who drew with a pencil or him who copied +that drawing in threads of silk and wool and gold. +Whatever the cause, we can but rejoice at the result, +which, alas, is shown to us by but lamentably few remnants +outside of museums. These very archaic simple +pieces are, for the most part, work of the latter part of +the Fourteenth Century and the first part of the Fifteenth, +and as the history of tapestry shows, were almost invariably +woven in France or in Flanders. At the end of the +time mentioned, designs, while retaining much the same +characteristics already described, became more ambitious, +more complicated, and introduced many scenes into one +piece. This is easily proved by a comparison of the illustration +of <i>The Baillée des Roses</i>, or <i>The Sacraments</i>, with +<i>The Sack of Jerusalem</i>, all in the Metropolitan Museum.</p> + +<p>The idea in the earliest Gothic cartoons—if the word +may be allowed here, was to make a single picture, a +unified group. Into the later cartoons came the fashion +of multiplying these groups on one field, so that a tapestry +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +had many points of interest, many scenes where tragedies +or comedies were being enacted. Ingenious were the +ways of the early artist to accomplish the separation between +the various scenes, which were sometimes divided +merely by their own attitudes, as folk dispose themselves +in groups in a large drawing-room; and sometimes were +divided by natural obstructions, like brooks and trees, or +by columns.</p> + +<p>Later yet, all the antique eccentricities passed away, +and the laws of perspective and balance were fully developed +in an art which has an unspeakable charm. All the +things that modern art has decreed as crude or childish +has passed away, and the sweet flower of the Gothic perfection +unfolded its exquisite beauty. This Gothic +perfection was the Golden Age of tapestry.</p> + + +<h4>ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL</h4> + +<p>The use of architecture in the old Gothic designs makes +a pleasing necessity of fastening our attention upon it. +In the very oldest drawing the sole use is to separate one +scene from another, in the same hanging. For this purpose +slender columns are used. It is intensely interesting +to note that these are the same variety of column that +meets us on every delightful prowl among old relics of +North Europe, relics of the days when man’s highest and +holiest energy expressed itself at last in the cathedral. +Those slender stems of the northern Gothic are verily the +stems of plants or of aspiring young trees, strong when +grouped, dainty when alone, and forming a refined division +for the various scenes in a picture. It must be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +confessed that in the medium of aged wool they sometimes +totter with the effect of imminent fall, but that they do not +fall, only inspires the illusion that they belong to the marvellous +age of fairy-tale and fancy.</p> + +<p>The careful observer takes a keen look at these columns +as a clue to dates. The shape of the shaft, whether round +or hectagonal, the ornament on the capitals, are indications. +It is not easy to know how long after a design is +adopted its use continues, but it is entirely a simple matter +to know that a tapestry bearing a capital designed in 1500 +could not have been made prior to that time.</p> + +<p>The columns, later on, took on a different character. +They lifted slender shafts more ornamented. It is as +though the restless men of Europe had come up from the +South and had brought with them reminiscences of those +tender models which shadowed the art of the Saracens, +the art which flavoured so much the art of Southern Europe. +The columns of many a cloister in Italy bear just +such lines of ornament, including the time when the +brothers Cosmati were illuminating the pattern with their +rich mosaic.</p> + +<p>Then, later still, the columns burst into the exquisite +bloom of the early Renaissance, their character profoundly +different, but their use the same, that of dividing +scenes from one another on the same woven picture. But +as any allusion to the Renaissance seems to thrust us far +out onto a radiant plain, let us scamper back into the mysterious +wood of the Gothic and pick up a few more of its +indicative pebbles, even as did Hans and Gretel of fairyland.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +A use of Gothic architectural detail gives a religious +look to tapestry, quite other than the later introduction of +castles. These castle strongholds of the Middle Ages +wasted no daintiness of construction, nor favoured light +ornament, nor dainty hand. They were, par excellence, +places of defence against the frequent enemy; so, in bastion +and tower they were piled in curving masses around +the scenes of the later Gothic tapestries. Even more, +they began to play an important part in the <i>mise en scène</i>, +and were drawn on tiny scale as habitations of the actors +in the play who thrust heads from windows no larger than +their throats, or who gathered in gigantic groups on disproportioned +tessellated roofs.</p> + +<p>Occasionally a lovely lady in distress is seen in fine +raiment praying high Heaven for deliverance from the +top of a feudal pile not half as high as her stately figure. +Laws of proportion are quite lost in this naïve way of +telling a story, and one wonders whether the wise old +artist of other times, with his rigid solemnity was heroically +overcoming difficulties of traditional technique, or +whether he was smiling at the infantile taste of his +wealthy patrons. The past fashion in history was to record +only the lives and expressions of those great in +power. The artist is ever the servant of such, but may +he not have had his own private thoughts, unpurchaseable, +unsold, and therefore only for our divining. There +must have been a sense of humour then as now, and +twinkling eyes with which to see it.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<h4>GOTHIC FLOWERS</h4> + +<p>Always, in studying a Gothic tapestry, we find flowers. +The flowers of nature, they are, a simple nature at that, +and never to be thought of in the same day as the gorgeous, +expansive, proud flowers of the Seventeenth and +Eighteenth Century decoration. Those splendid later +blossoms flaunt their richness with assured swagger and +demand of man his homage, quite forgetting it is the flower’s +best part to give.</p> + +<p>Botticelli had not outgrown the Gothic flowers when +he sprinkled them on the ambient air and floating robe +of his chaste and dreamy <i>Venus</i>, nor when he set them +about the elastic tripping feet of the <i>Spring</i>. He knew +their simple power, and so do we. Scarce a Gothic tapestry +is complete without them, happily for those bent on +identification, for rarely can one discover them without +the same thrill that accompanies the discovery of the first +violets and snowdrops in the awakening woods.</p> + +<p>The old weavers set them low in the picture, used them +as space-fillers wherever space lay happily before them, +and they never exaggerated their size, a virtue of which +the full Renaissance cannot boast. They are the simplest +sort of flowers, the corolla of petals turning as frankly toward +the observer as the sunflower turns toward her god, +and little bells hanging as regularly as a chime. These +are their characteristics, easily recognisable and expressing +the unsophisticated charm of the creations of honest +childish hands. Irrelevancy is theirs, too. They spring +from stones or pavement as well as from turf or garden, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +and thus express the more ardently their love for man and +for close association with him. When they are seen after +this manner, it is sure that the early men have set them, +just as Shakespeare, at the same epoch, set violets blue +and daisies pied, cowslip, rosemary “for remembrance,” +and other familiar dainties, in the grim foundation stones +of his tragedies.</p> + +<p>A comparison of the different hangings available to the +amateur, or of the pictured examples given in this book, +will reveal more than can be well set down with the pen. +The use of flowers in the set of <i>The Baillée des Roses</i> is +exceptional, in that here the flowers form a harmonious +decorative scheme and are at the same time an important +part of the story which is pictured.</p> + +<p>In other earliest examples they playfully peep within +the limits of the hanging. Important use is, however, +made of them in that altogether entrancing set of <i>The +Lady and the Unicorn</i>, where they indicate the beauties +of a fascinating park in which the delicate lady and her +attendant led a wondrous life guarded by two beasts as +fabulous as faithful, and the whole region of leaves and +petals but serving as a paradise for delectable white rabbits +and piquant monkeys. Could any modern indicate +by sophistry of brush or brain so intoxicating a fairyland, +so gracious a field of dear delights?</p> + + +<h4>COSTUMES</h4> + +<p>A minute study of all the details of costume and accessories +is one of the measuring sticks with which we count +the years of a tapestry’s life. This applies more particularly +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +to the work prior to the Renaissance, to the time +when all characters were dressed in the mode of the day—another +evidence of that ingenuousness that delights us +who have passed the period where it is possible.</p> + +<p>As we have noted before, a costume cannot be used +before its time, so, as much as anything can, the study of +its details prevents us from going too far back with its +date. When one has reached the point of identifying a +Gothic tapestry to where the exact decade is questioned, +the century having been ascertained, a careful study of +costumes outside the region of tapestries is necessary. +This leads one into a department all by itself and means +delightful hours in libraries poring over illustrated books +on costume. It means to learn in what manner our gods +and heroes of fact and fancy habited themselves, how +Berengaria wore her head-dress and Jehane de Bourgogne +her brocades, and how the eternally various sleeve +differed in its fashioning for both men and women.</p> + +<p>Head-dresses were of such size and variety that they +form a study in themselves, and dates have been fixed by +these alone. The turban in its evolution is an interesting +study, and makes one wonder if that, too, did not wander +north from the Moorish occupancy of Spain and the wave +of inspiration which flowed unceasingly from the Orient +in the years when Europe created little without inspiration +from outside.</p> + +<p>A patriarchal bearded man in sacerdotal robes of costly +elegance seriously impresses his fellows all through the +Gothic tapestries, and his rival is a swaggering, important +person, clean-shaven, in full brocaded skirt, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +fur-bound, whose attitude declares him royal or near it. The +first of these is the model nowadays for stage kings, and +even a woman’s toilet must vaunt itself to get notice beside +his gorgeous array. He wears about his waist a +jewelled girdle of great splendour, and on his head some +impressive matter of either jewels or draping. His face +is usually full-bearded, but even when smooth, youth is +not expressed upon him. Youths of the same time are +more <i>débonnaire</i>, are springing about, clean-faced, clad +in short, belted pelisse, showing sprightly legs equally +ready to step quickly towards a lovely lady or to a field of +battle.</p> + +<p>Soldiers—let a woman hesitate to speak of their dress +and arms in any tone but that of self-depreciating humility. +Suffice it to say that in the early work they wore the +armour of the time, whether the scene depicted were an +event of history cotemporaneous, or of the time of Moses. +Fashions in dress changed with deliberation then, and it +is to the arms carried by the men that we must sometimes +look for exactness of date.</p> + + +<h4>LETTERING</h4> + +<p>The presence of letters is often noticed in hangings of +the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Centuries. +It was a fashion eminently satisfactory, a great assistance +to the observer. It helped tell the story, and, as these old +pictures had always a story to tell, it was entirely excusable—at +least, so it seems to one who has stood confounded +before a modern painting without a catalogue or other +indication as to the why of certain agitated figures.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +The lettering was, in the older Gothic, explicit and +unstinted, in double or quadruple lines, in which case it +counts as decoration banded across top or bottom. +Again, it is as trifling as a word or two affixed to the +persons of the play to designate them. This lettering +may be French or Latin.</p> + + +<h4>EARLY BACKGROUNDS</h4> + +<p>Backgrounds of the early Fifteenth Century deal much +in conventionalised, flat patterns, but fifty or sixty years +later, when figures began to be more crowded, there was +but little space left unoccupied by the participants in the +allegory, and this was filled by the artifices of architecture +or herbage that formed the divisions into the various +scenes. Later the designing artists decided to let into the +picture the light of distant fields and skies, and thus was +introduced the suggestion of space outside the limit of the +canvas.</p> + + +<h4>LATER DRAWING</h4> + +<p>After the Gothic drawing, came the avalanche of the +Renaissance. That altered all. The Italian taste took +precedence, and from that time on the cartoons of tapestries +represent modern art, trailing through its various +fashions or modes of the hour. The purest Renaissance +is direct from the Italian artist, in tapestry as well as in +painting, but it is interesting to see the maladroitness of +the Flemish hand when left to draw cartoons for himself +after the new manner.</p> + +<p>After the Renaissance came exaggeration and lack of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +sincerity; then the improvement of the Seventeenth Century, +notably in France, and after that the dainty fancies +of the Eighteenth Century, and here we are dealing with +art so modern that it needs no elucidation. The drawing +in tapestries is a subject as fascinating as it is inexhaustible, +but, however much one may read on it, nothing equals +actual association with as many tapestries as are available, +for the eye must be trained by vision and not by intellectual +process alone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>IDENTIFICATIONS (<i>Continued</i>)</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>F the amateur can have the fortune to see in the same +hour a tapestry of the early Fifteenth Century, and +one a hundred years later, and then one about 1550, +from Brussels, drawn by an Italian artist, he has before +him an exposition of tapestry weaving in its golden age +when it sweeps through its greatest periods and phases to +marvellous perfection. The earliest example gives acquaintance +with that almost fabled time of the Gothic +primitives in art; the second shows the highest development +of that art under the influence of civilisation, and +the third shows the obsession of the new art of the Renaissance. +It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that after the +revival of classic art the power of producing spontaneous +Gothic was lost forever. From that time on, every drawing +has had certain characteristics, certain sophistications +that the artist cannot escape except in a deliberate copy.</p> + +<p>Modern art, we call it. In tapestry it began with a +freedom of drawing in figures, and an adoption of classic +ornament and architecture. In this connexion it is interesting +to note the introduction of Greek or Roman +detail in the columns that divide the scenes, to see saints +gathered by temples of classic form instead of Gothic. +If Renaissance details appear in a hanging called Gothic, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +it is easy to see that the piece was woven after Europe +was infected with modern art, and this is an assistance in +placing dates; at least, it checks the tendency to slip back +too far in antiquity, a tendency of which we in a new +country are entirely guilty.</p> + +<p>Lest too long a lingering on the subject of design become +wearisome, a mention of later designs is made +briefly. The simplicity of the early Renaissance, the +perfection of the high Renaissance, are both shown in +tapestry as well as in paintings, and so, too, is exemplified +the inflation that ended in tiresome exuberance.</p> + +<p>After the fruit was ripe it fell into decay. After Sixteenth +Century perfection, Seventeenth Century designs +fell of their own overweight, figures were too exaggerated, +draperies billowed out as in a perpetual gale, +architecture and landscapes were too important, and tapestries +became frankly pictures to attract the attention. +To this class of design belong all those monstrosities +which reflected and distorted the art of Raphael, and +which have been intimately associated with Scriptural +subjects down to our own times.</p> + +<p>After Raphael, Rubens. Familiarity with this heroic +painter is the key to placing all the magnificent designs +similar to the set of <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i> (Metropolitan +Museum of Art in New York).</p> + +<p>Then came the easily recognisable designs of the +French ateliers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. +These are so frequently brought before us as to +seem almost like products of our own day. The earlier +ones seem (as ever) the purer art, the less sensual, appealing +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +to the more impersonal side of man, dealing in battles +and in classic subjects. Later, the drawings, becoming +more directly personal, in the time of Louis XIV portrayed +events in the <i>Life of the King</i>; in the next reign, +slipping into the pleasures of the <i>Royal Hunts</i>, from +which the descent was easy into depicting nothing higher +than the soft loveliness of the fantastic life of the time as +led by those of high estate. From Lebrun to Watteau +one can trace the gradual seductive decline, where heroic +ideal lowers softly in alluring decadence into a mere +tickling of the senses. And at this time the productions +of great tapestries stopped.</p> + +<p>Before leaving the review of drawing or design, it is +well to recall that the fleeting fashions of the day usually +set the models, not in the manner of treatment which we +have been considering broadly, but in the subject of designs. +For example, the tendency to religious and morality +subjects in the Gothic, the love for Greek gods and +heroes in the Renaissance, the glorification of kings and +warriors at all times, and the portrayal of royal pleasures +in modern times. The months of the year were woven in +innumerable designs and formed an endless theme for +artists’ ingenuity during and after the Renaissance.</p> + + +<h4>BORDERS</h4> + +<p>It is but natural that, with the expansion in drawing, +the freedom given the pencil, imagination leaped outside +the pictured scene and worked fantastically on the border, +and it is to the border that we turn for many a mark of +identification. The subject being a full one, it has longer +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +consideration in a separate chapter. First there is the simple +outlying tape, then the designed border. The early +Gothic was but a narrow line of flowers and berries; the +later more sophisticated Gothic enlarged and elaborated +this same motive without introducing another. The blossoms +grew larger, the fruit fuller and the modest cluster +of berries was crowded by pears, apples and larger fruit, +until a general air of full luxury was given. The design +was at first kept neatly within bordering lines of tape, but +later, overleaped them with a flaunting leaf or mutinous +flower.</p> + +<p>Ribbons appeared early, then came fragmentary +glimpses of dainty columns which gave nice reasons for +the erect upstanding of so heavy a decoration. These all +were Gothic, but what came after shows the riotous +imagination of the Renaissance. It seemed in that fruitful +time, space itself were not large enough to hold the +designs within the artist’s brain. Certainly no corner of +a tapestry could be left unfilled, and not that alone, but +filled with perfect pictures instead of with a simple repeated +scheme of decoration. It was in this rich time +of production that the borders of tapestries grew to exceeding +width, and were divided into squares, each +square containing a scene. These scenes were often of +sufficient importance in composition to serve as models +for the centre of a tapestry, each one of them, which +thought gives a little idea of the fertility of the artists +in that untired period.</p> + +<p>It was the delight of the great Raphael himself to expend +his talent on the border of his cartoons. From this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +artist others took their cue with varying skill, but with +fine effect, and with unlimited interest to us. Those who +run have time to remark only the great central picture +in a hanging; but, to those who live with it, this added +line of exquisite panorama is an unceasing delight for the +contemplative hours of solitude. From this rich departure +from Gothic simplicity the artists grew into the same +fulness of design that ended in decadence. The border +became almost obnoxious in its inflated importance and +from voluptuous elegance changed to coarse overweight; +and by these signs we know the early inspired work from +its rank and monstrous aftergrowth in the Eighteenth +Century.</p> + +<p>A quick glance at the plates showing the work of tapestry’s +next highwater mark, the hundred years of the +Gobelins’ best work, illustrates the difference between +that time and others, and shows also the gradual drop into +the border which is merely a woven representation of a +gilded wood frame to enclose the woven picture as +a painted one would be framed. The <a href="#ESTHER_AND_AHASUERUS"><b>plate</b></a> of <i>Esther and +Ahasuerus</i> illustrates this sort of border in the unmistakable +lines of Louis XV ornament.</p> + + +<h4>POINT OF INTEREST</h4> + +<p>Allusion has been made to the placing of the point of +interest in a tapestry, but this is a matter to be studied +by much exercise of the eye. Perhaps the amateur knows +already much about it, an unconscious knowledge, and +needs only to be directed to his own store of observations. +As much as anything this change of design depended on +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +the uses the varying civilisation made of the hangings. +So much interest lies in this that I find myself ever prone +to recapitulate the very human facts of the past; the lining +of rude stone walls and the forming of interior doors, +which was the office of the early tapestries, and the loose +full draping of the same; then the gradual increase of +luxury in the finish of dwellings themselves, until tapestries +were a decoration only; and then the minimising of +grandeur under Louis XV when everything fell into +miniature and tapestries were demanded only in small +pieces that could be applied to screens or chairs—a prostitution +of art to the royal demand for prettiness.</p> + +<p>Keeping these general ideas of the uses of tapestries in +mind, it is easy to reason out the course of the point of +interest in the design. The Gothic aim was to make +warm and comfortable the austere apartment; the Renaissance +sought to produce big decorative pictures to hang +in place of frescoes; and the French idea—beginning with +that same ideal—fell at last into the production of something +that should accompany the other arts in making +minutely ornate the home of man. Therefore, the +Gothic artist placed the point of interest high; the artists +of the Renaissance followed the rules of modern painting +(even to the point of becoming academic); and the last +good period of the Gobelins dropped into miniature and +decoration.</p> + + +<h4>COLOURS</h4> + +<p>Colours we have not yet considered, in this chapter of +review for identification’s sake. They follow the same +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +line, have the same history, and this makes the beauty, the +logic and the consistency of our work, the work of tracing +to their source the products of other men and other times.</p> + +<p>Colours in the early Gothic—of what do they remind +one so strongly as of the marvels of old stained glass, that +rich, pure kaleidoscope which has lived so long in the +atmosphere of incense ascending from censer and from +heart. The same scale, rich and simple, unafraid of unshaded +colour, characterise both glass and tapestry.</p> + +<p>The dyeing of colours in those days was a religion, a +religion that believed in holding fast to the forefathers’ +tenets. Red was known to be a goodly colour, and blue +an honest one; yellow was to conjure with, and brown to +shade; but beyond twelve or perhaps twenty colours, the +dyer never ventured. To these he gave the hours of his +life, with these he subjugated the white of Kentish wool, +and gave it honest and soft into the hand of the artist-weaver +who, we must add, should have been thankful for +this brief gamut. To say the least, we of to-day are grateful, +for to this we owe the effect of cathedral glass seen in +old tapestries like that of <i>The Sacraments</i>. The Renaissance +having more sophisticated tales to tell, a higher intellectual +development to portray, demanded a longer +scale of colour, so more were introduced to paint in wool +the pictures of the artists. At first we see them pure and +true, then muddy, uncertain, until a dull confusion comes, +and the hanging is depressing. When, at the last, it came +that a tapestry was but a painting in wool, with as many +thousand differently united threads as would reproduce +the shading of brush-blended paint, the whole thing fell +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +of its own weight, and we of to-day value less the unlimited +pains of the elaborate dyer and weaver than we do +the simpler work. The reason is plain. Time fades a +little even the securest dyes, and that little is just enough +to reduce to flat monotones a work in which perhaps sixty +thousand tones are set in subtle shading.</p> + + +<h4>HAUTE LISSE</h4> + +<p>The worker on tapestries, the modern restorer—to +whom be much honour—finds a sign of identification in +the handling of old tapestries that is scarcely within the +province of the amateur, but is worth mentioning. It is +the black tracing on the warp with which high-warp +weavers assist their work of copying the artist’s cartoon. +Where this is present, the work is of the prized haute lisse +or high-warp manufacture, instead of the basse lisse or +low-warp. But the latter is not to be spoken of disparagingly, +for in the admirable time of French production +about the time of the formation of the Gobelins, low-warp +work was almost as well executed as high-warp, and as +much valued. Brussels made her fame by haute-lisse, but +in France the low-warp was dubbed “<i>á la façon de Flandres</i>”; +and as Flanders stood for perfection, the weavers +did their best to make the low-warp production approach +in excellence the famed work of the ateliers to the north, +which had formerly so prospered.</p> + +<p>To find this black line is to establish the fact that the +tapestry was woven on a high-warp loom, if nothing more. +But that in itself means, as is explained in the chapter on +looms and <i>modus operandi</i>, that a superior sort of weaver, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +an artist-artisan, did the work, and that he had enormous +difficulties to overcome in his patient task.</p> + +<p>A black outline woven in the fabric is one which artists +prior to the Seventeenth Century used to give greater +strength to figures. It was the habit thus to trace the +entire human form, to lift it clearly from its background, +after the “poster” manner of to-day. It is as though a +dark pencil had outlined each figure. This practice +stopped in later years, and is not seen at all in the softer +methods of the Gobelins.</p> + + +<h4>THE WEAVE</h4> + +<p>The materials of tapestries we know to be invariably +wool, silk and metal threads, yet the weaving of these +varies with the talent of the craftsman. The manner of +the oldest weavers was to produce a fabric not too thick, +flexible rather—for was it not meant to hang in folds?—and +of an engagingly even surface. It was not too fine, +yet had none of the looseness associated with the coarse, +hurried work of later and degenerate times. It was more +like the even fabric we associate with machine work, yet +as unlike that as palpitating flesh is like a graven image. +It was the logical production of honest workmen who +counted time well spent if spent in taking pains.</p> + +<p>This ability, to take detail as a religion, has left us the +precious relics of the exquisite period immediately before +the Italian artists had their way in Brussels. Notice the +weave here. See the pattern of the fabrics worn by the +personages of high estate. You could almost pluck it +from the tapestry, shake out its folds, measure it flat, by +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +the yard, and find its delicate, intelligent pattern neat and +unbroken. Wonderful weaver, magic hands, infinite +pains, were those to produce such an effect on our sated +modern vision, all with a few threads of silk and wool +and gold.</p> + +<p>Then there is the human face—it takes an artist to describe +the various faces with their beauty of modelling, +their infinite variety of type, their subtlety of expression. +You can almost see the flushing of the capillaries under +the translucent skin, so fine are the mediums of silk and +wool under the magic handling of the talented weavers in +brilliant epochs. Not a detail in one of these older canvases +of the highest Gothic development has been neglected.</p> + +<p>The modern places his point of interest, and, knowing +the observer’s eye is to obediently linger there, he splashes +the rest of his drawing into careless subserviency. But +these careful older drawings showed in every inch of their +execution a conscience that might put the Puritan to +shame. Note, even, the ring that is being handed to the +lady in the Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan’s (if yours +is the happy chance to see it). It was not sufficient for +the weaver that it be a ring, but it must be a ring set with +a jewel, and that jewel must be the one celebrated ever +for its value; so in the canvas glows a carefully rounded +spot of pigeon-blood.</p> + +<p>This exquisitely fine weaving of the period which trembled +between the Gothic and the Renaissance made possible +the execution of the later work—and yet, and yet, +who shall say that the later is the superior work? +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +Vaunted as it is, one turns to it because one must, but with +entire fidelity of heart for the preceding manner.</p> + +<p>In the high period of Brussels production, when the +Renaissance was well established there, through the cartoons +of the Italian artists, it is interesting to note the richness +given to surfaces solidly filled in with gold by +throwing the thread in groups of four. The light is thus +caught and reflected, almost as though from a heap of cut +topaz. This characterises the tapestries of the <i>Mercury</i> +series in the Blumenthal collection.</p> + +<p>Naturally, the evenness of the weaving has much to do +with the value of the piece—otherwise the pains of the +old weavers would have been futile. The surface smooth, +free from lumps or ridges, strong with the even strength +of well-matched threads, this is the beauty that characterises +the best work this side of the Fifteenth Century.</p> + +<p>It is the especial prerogative of the merchant to touch +with his own hands a great number of tapestries. It is +by this handling of the fabric that he acquires a skill in +determining the make of many a tapestry. There is an +indefinable quality about certain wools, and about the +manner of their weaving that is only revealed by the touch. +Not all hands are wise to detect, but only those of the +sympathetic lover of the materials they handle—and I +have found many such among the merchant collector. +But even he finds identification a task as difficult as it is +interesting, and spends hours of thought and research before +arriving at a conclusion—and even then will retract +on new evidence.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<h4>COPIES</h4> + +<p>There are certain pitfalls into which one may so easily +fall that they must never be out of mind. The worst of +these, the pit which has the most engaging and innocent +entrance, is that of the copy, the modern tapestry copied +from the old a few decades ago.</p> + +<p>It is easy to find by reference to the huge volumes of +French writers on tapestry just when certain sets of cartoons +were first woven. Take, for example, the <i>Acts of +the Apostles</i> by Raphael; Brussels, 1519, is the authentic +date. But after that the Mortlake factory in England +wove a set, and others followed. This instance is too historic +to be entirely typical, but there are others less known. +It was the habit of factories that possessed a valuable set +of cartoons to repeat the production of these in their own +factory, and also to make some arrangement whereby +other factories could also produce the same set of hangings.</p> + +<p>In the evil days that fell upon Brussels after her apogee, +copying her own works took the place of new matters. +Also, in the French factories in their prime, the same set +was repeated on the same looms and on different ones, +<i>vide The Months</i>, <i>The Royal Residences</i>, <i>History of +Alexander</i>, etc., and the gorgeous <i>Life of Marie de +Medici</i>. If these notable examples were copied it is safe +to conclude that many others were.</p> + +<p>The study of marks is left for another chapter, for, by +this time, even the enthusiast is wearying. There seems +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +so much to learn in this matter of investigating and identifying, +and, after all, everything is uncertain. One looks +about at identified pieces in museums and private collections, +even among the dealers, and the discouraging +thought comes that other people can tell at a glance. But +this is very far from being true.</p> + +<p>Even the savant studies long and investigates much before +he gives a positive classification of a piece that is not +“pedigreed.” Here is a Flemish piece, here is a French, +he will declare, and for the life of you you cannot see +the ear-marks that tell the ancestry. And so in all humility +you ask, “How can you tell with a glance of the eye?” +But he does not. No one can do that in every case. He +must spend days at it, reflecting, reading, handling, if the +piece is evidently one of value. He will show you, perhaps, +as an honest dealer-collector showed me, a set of +five fine pieces which he could not identify at all. “The +weave,” said he, “is Mortlake, the design in part German, +these are Italian <i>putti</i>—yet when all is told, I put down +the work as an Eighteenth Century copy of decadent +Renaissance. But I am far from sure.”</p> + +<p>If a dealer, surrounded by experienced helpers, can thus +be nonplussed, there is little cause for humiliation on the +part of the amateur who hesitates. It is not expected that +one can know at a glance whether a piece of work was +executed in France, or in Flanders at a given epoch. But +the more difficult the work of identification, the keener +the zest of the hunt. It is then that one calls into requisition +all the knowledge of art that the individual has been +unconsciously accumulating all the years of his life. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +applied arts reflect the art feeling of the age to which +they belong, and the diluted influence of the great artists +directs them. This is true of drawing and of colour.</p> + +<p>History has ever its reflection on arts and crafts, but +perhaps it has in tapestry its most intentional record. It +is a forced and deliberate piece of egoism when a monarch +or a conqueror has a huge picture drawn exhibiting his +grandeur in battle or his elegance at home. In some +hangings modesty limits to the border of an imaginary +and decorative scene the monogram of the heroine of history +for whose apartments the tapestry was woven. And +so history is given a grace, a delicate meaning, a warm +interest, which is one of the side-gardens of delight that +show from the long path of identification study.</p> + +<p>This little book has as its aim the gentle purpose of +pointing the way to a knowledge that shall be a guide +in knowing gold from—not from dross, that is too simple, +but gold from gold-plating let us say, for the mad lover +of tapestries will not admit that any hand-woven tapestry +is on the low level of dross. Any work which human +hands have touched and lingered on in execution is deserving +of the respect of the modern whose life must of necessity +be lived in hasty execution. Every chapter, then, is +but a caution or a counsel, and this one but a briefer statement +of the same matter. If onto the fringe of the main +thought hangs much of history, it is history inseparable +from it, for history of nations gives the history of great +men, and these regulate the doings of all the lesser ones +below them.</p> + +<p>Identification, pure and simple, is for the rapt lover of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +art who pursues his game in museums and has his quiet +delights that others little dream of. But in general, to +the practical yet cultivated American, it is a means to +expend wisely the derided dollars that we impress upon +other nations to the artistic enrichment of our own country.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>BORDERS</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>F the artists of tapestries had never drawn nor ever +woven anything but the borders that frame them, we +would have in that department alone sufficient matter +for happy investigation and acutely refined pleasure. +I even go so far as to think that in certain epochs the +border is the whole matter, and the main design is but +an enlargement of one of the many motives of which it +is composed. But that is in one particularly rich era, and +in good time we shall arrive at its joys.</p> + +<p>First then—for the orderly mind grows stubborn and +confused at any beginning that begins in the middle—we +must hark back to the earliest tapestries. Tracing the +growth of the border is a pleasant pastime, a game of +history in which amorini, grotesques and nymphs are the +personages, and garlands of flowers their perpetual accessories, +but first comes the time when there were no borders, +the Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>There were none, according to modern parlance, but it +was usual to edge each hanging with a tape of monotone, +a woven galloon of quiet hue, which had two purposes; +one, to finish neatly the work, as the housewife hems a +napkin; the other, to provide space of simple material +for hanging on rude hooks the big pictured surface.</p> + +<p>This latter consideration was one of no small importance, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +as we can readily see by sending the thought back +to the time when tapestries led a very different life (so +human they seem in their association with men that the +expression must be allowed) from that of to-day, when +they are secured to stretchers, or lined, or even framed +behind glass like an easel painting.</p> + +<p>In those other times of romance and chivalry a great +man’s tapestries were always en route. Like their owner, +they were continually going on long marches, nor were +they allowed to rest long in one place. From the familiar +castle walls they were taken down to line the next habitat +of their owner, and that might be the castle of some other +lord, or it might be the tent of an encampment. Again, +it might be that an open-air exposition for a pageant, was +the temporary use.</p> + +<p>The tapestries thus bundled about, forever hung and +unhung on hooks well or ill-spaced, handled roughly by +unknowing varlets or dull soldiers, these tapestries suffered +much, even to the point of dilapidation, and thus +arose the need for a tape border, and thus it happens also +that the relics of that time are found mainly among the +religious pieces. These last found safe asylum within +convent walls or in the sombre quiet of cathedral shades, +and like all who dwell within such precincts were protected +from contact with a rude world.</p> + +<p>One day, sitting solitary at his wools, it occurred to the +weaver of the early Fifteenth Century to spill some of his +flowers out upon the dark galloon that edged his work. +The effect was charming. He experimented further, +went into the enchanted wood of such a design as that of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +<i>The Lady and the Unicorn</i> to pluck more flowers, and of +them wove a solid garland, symmetrical, strong, with +which to frame the picture. To keep from confounding +this with the airy bells and starry corollas of the tender +inspiring blossoms of the work, he made them bolder, +trained them to their service in solid symmetric mass, and +edged the whole, both sides, with the accustomed two-inch +line of solid rich maroon or blue.</p> + +<p>It is easy to see the process of mind. For a long time +there had been gropings, the feeling that some sort of +border was needed, a division line between the world of +reality and the world of fable. Examine the Arras work +and see to what tricks the artist had recourse. The architectural +resource of columns, for example; where he could +do so, the artist decoyed one to the margin. Thus he +slipped in a frame, and broke none of the canons of his +art, and no more beautiful frame could have been devised, +as we see by following up the development and use +of the column. Once out from its position in the edge +of the picture into its post in the border, it never stops +in its beauty of growth until it reaches such perfection as +is seen in the twisted and garlanded columns which flank +the Rubens series, and those superb shafts in <i>The Royal +Residences</i> of Lebrun at the Gobelins under Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>The other trick of framing in his subject which was +open to the Arras weaver whom we call Gothic, was to +set verses, long lines of print in French or Latin at top +or bottom.</p> + +<p>But his first real legitimate border was made of the +same flowers and leaves that made graceful the finials and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +capitals of Gothic carving. Small clustered fruit, like +grapes or berries, came naturally mixed with these, as +Nature herself gives both fruit and flowers upon the earth +in one fair month.</p> + +<p>Simplicity was the thing, and a continued turning to +Nature, not as to a cult like a latter-day nature-student, +but as a child to its mother, or a hart to the water brook. +As even in a border, stayed between two lines of solid-coloured +galloon, flowers and fruit do not stand forever +upright without help, the weaver gave probability to his +abundant mass by tying it here and there with a knot of +ribbon and letting the ribbon flaunt itself as ribbons have +ever done to the delight of the eye that loves a truant.</p> + +<p>By this time—crawling over the top of the Fourteen +Hundreds—the border had grown wider, had left its +meagre allowance of three or four inches, and was fast +acquiring a foot in width. This meant more detail, a +broader design, coarser flowers, bigger fruit, and these +spraying over the galloon, and all but invading the picture. +It was all in the way of development. The simplicity +of former times was lost, but design was groping +for the great change, the change of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>The border tells quickly when it dawned, and when its +light put out all candles like a glorious sun—not forgetting +that some of those candles would better have been +left burning. By this time Brussels was the centre of +manufacture and the cartoonist had come to influence all +weavings. Just as carpenters and masons, who were the +planners and builders of our forefathers’ homes, have now +to submit to the domination of the <i>École des Beaux Arts</i> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +graduates, so the man at the loom came under the direction +of Italian artists. And even the border was not left +to the mind of the weaver, but was carefully and consistently +planned by the artist to accompany his greater work, +if greater it was.</p> + +<p>Raphael himself set that fashion. He was a born decorator, +and in laying out the borders of his tapestries +unbridled his wonderful invention and let it produce as +many harmonies as could be crowded into miniature. He +set the fashion of dividing the border into as many sections +as symmetry would allow, dividing them so daintily +that the eye scarce notes the division, so purely is it of the +intellect. In the border for the <i>Acts of the Apostles</i>, this +style of treatment is the one he preferred. This set has +no copy in America, but an almost unrivalled example +of this style of border is in the private collection of George +Blumenthal, Esq., the <i>Herse and Mercury</i>.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Here picture +follows picture in charming succession, in that purity +and perfection of design with which the early Renaissance +delights us. The classic note set by the subject of +the hanging is never forgotten, but on this key is played a +varied harmony of line and colour. For dainty invention, +this sort of border reaches a very high expression of art.</p> + +<p>If Raphael set the fashion, others at least were not slow +in seizing the new idea and from that time on, until a +period much later—that of the Gobelins under Louis +XV—it was the fashion to introduce great and distracting +interest into the border. Even the little galloon became +a twist of two ribbons around a repeated flower, or a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +small reciprocal pattern, so covetous was design of all plain +spaces.</p> + +<p>Lesser artists than Raphael also divided the border into +squares and oblongs, and with charming effect. The sides +were built up after the same fashion, but instead of the +delicate architectural divisions he affected, partitions were +made with massed fruit and flowers, vines and trellises. +The scenes were surprisingly dramatic, Flemish artists +showing a preference for such Biblical reminders as Samson +with his head being shorn in Delilah’s lap, while +Philistines just beyond waited the enervating result of the +barber’s work; or, any of the loves and conflicts of the +Greek myths was used.</p> + +<p>The colouring—too much cannot be seen of the warm, +delicate blendings. There is always the look of a flowerbed +at dawn, before Chanticleer’s second call has brought +the sun to sharpen outlines, before dreams and night-mist +have altogether quitted the place. Plenty of warm wood +colours are there, of lake blues, of smothered reds. +Precious they are to the eye, these scenes, but hard to find +now except in bits which some dealer has preserved by +framing in a screen or in the carved enclosure of some +nut-wood chair.</p> + +<p>For a time borders continued thus, all marked off without +conscious effort, into countless delicious scenes. Then +a change begins. After perfection, must come something +less until the wave rises again. If in Raphael’s time the +border claimed a two-foot strip for its imaginings, it was +slow in coming narrower again, and need required that +it be filled. But here is where the variance lay: Raphael +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +had so much to say that he begged space in which to portray +it; his imitators had so much space to fill that their +heavy imagination bungled clumsily in the effort. They +filled it, then, with a heterogeneous mass of foliage, fruit +and flowers, trained occasionally to make a bower for a +woman, a stand for a warrior, but all out of scale, never +keeping to any standard, and lost absolutely in unintelligent +confusion.</p> + +<p>The Flemings in their decadence did this, and the +Italians in the Seventeenth Century did more, they introduced +all manner of cartouche. The cartouche plays an +important part in the boasting of great families and the +sycophancy of those who cater to men of high estate, for +it served as a field whereon to blazon the arms of the +patron, who doubtless felt as man has from all time, that +he must indeed be great whose symbols or initials are +permanently affixed to art or architecture. The cartouche +came to divide the border into medallions, to apportion +space for the various motives; but with a far less subtle +art than that of the older men who traced their airy +arbours and trailed their dainty vines and set their delicate +grotesques, in a manner half playful and wholly +charming.</p> + +<p>But when the cartouche appeared, what is the effect? +It is as though a boxful of old brooches had been at hand +and these were set, symmetrically balanced, around the +frame, and the spaces between filled with miscellaneous +ornament on a scale of sumptuous size. Confusing, this, +and a far cry from harmony. Yet, such are the seductions +of tapestry in colour and texture, and so caressing is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +the hand of time, that these borders of the Seventeenth +Century given us by Italy and Flanders, are full of interest +and beauty.</p> + +<p>The very bombast of them gives joy. Who can stand +before the Barberini set, <i>The Mysteries of the Life and +Death of Jesus Christ</i>, bequeathed to the Cathedral of St. +John, the Divine, in New York, by Mrs. Clarke, without +being more than pleased to recognise in the border the +indefatigable Barberini bee? We are human enough to +glance at the pictures of sacred scenes as on a tale that is +told, but that potent insect makes us at once acquainted +with a family of renown, puts us on a friendly footing +with a great cardinal of the house, reminds us of sundry +wanderings of our own in Rome; and then, suddenly +flashes from its wings a memory of the great conqueror +of Europe, who after the Italian campaign, set this bee +among his own personal symbols and called it Napoleonic. +Yes, these things interest us enormously, personally, +for they pique imagination and help memory +to fit together neatly the wandering bits of history’s jigsaw +puzzle. Besides this, they help the work of identifying +old tapestries, a pleasure so keen that every sense +is enlivened thereby.</p> + +<p>When decorative design deserts the Greek example, it +strays on dangerous ground, unless Nature is the model. +The Italians of the Seventeenth Century, tired of forever +imitating and copying, lost all their refinement in the +effort to originate. Grossness, sensuality took the place +of fine purity in border designs. Inflation, so to speak, +replaced inspiration.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +Amorini—the word can hardly be used without suggesting +the gay babes who tumble deliciously among +Correggio’s clouds or who snatch flowers in ways of grace, +on every sort of decoration. In these later drawings, +these tapestry borders of say 1650, they are monsters of +distortion, and resemble not at all the rosy child we know +in the flesh. They are overfed, self-indulgent, steeped +in the wisdom of a corrupt and licentious experience. I +cannot feel that anyone should like them, except as curiosities +of a past century.</p> + +<p>Heavy swags of fruit, searching for larger things, +changed to pumpkins, melons, in the gross fashion of enlarged +designs for borders. Almost they fell of their own +weight. Cornucopias spilled out, each one, the harvest +of an acre. And thus paucity of imagination was replaced +by increase in the size of each object used in filling up +the border’s allotted space.</p> + +<p>After this riot had continued long enough in its inebriety, +the corrective came through the influence of Rubens +in the North and of Lebrun in France. These two +geniuses knew how to gather into their control the art +strength of their age, and to train it into intellectual results. +Mere bulk, mere space-filling, had to give way +under the mind force of these two men, who by their +superb invention gave new standards to decorative art in +Flanders and in France. Drawings were made in scale +again, and designs were built in harmony, constructed not +merely to catch the eye, but to gratify the logical mind.</p> + +<p>The day was for the grandiose in borders. The petite +and <i>mignonne</i> of Raphael’s grotesques was no longer +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +suited to the people, or, to put it otherwise, the people +were not such as seek expression in refinement, for all art +is but the visible evidence of a state of mind or soul.</p> + +<p>The wish to be sumptuous and superb, then, was a force, +and so the art expressed it, but in a way that holds our admiration. +A stroll in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, +New York, shows us better than words the perfection of +design at this grandiose era. There one sees <i>Antony and +Cleopatra</i> of Rubens—probably. On these hangings the +border has all the evidences of genius. If there were no +picture at all to enclose, if there were but this decorative +frame, a superb inspiration would be flaunted. From +substantial urns at right and left, springs the design at +the sides which mounts higher and higher, design on design, +but always with probability. That is the secret of +its beauty, its probability, yet we are cheated all the time +and like it. No vase of fruit could ever uphold a cupid’s +frolic, nor could an emblematic bird support a chalice, +yet the artist makes it seem so. Note how he hangs his +swags, and swings his amorini, from the horizontal borders. +He first sets a good strong architectural moulding +of classic egg-and-dart, and leaf, and into this able motive +thrusts hooks and rings. From these solid facts he hangs +his happy weight of fruit and flower and peachy flesh. +Nothing could be more simple, nothing could be more +logical. The cartouche at the top, he had no choice +but to put it there, to hold the title of the picture, and at +the bottom came a tiny landscape to balance. So much +for fashion well executed.</p> + +<p>Colours were reformed, too, at this time, for we are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +now at the era when tapestry had its last run of best days, +that is to say, at the time when France began her wondrous +ascendency under Louis XIV. In Italy colours had grown +garish. Too much light in that country of the sun, flooded +and over-coloured its pictured scenes. Tints were too +strong, masses of blue and yellow and red glared all in +tones purely bright. They may have suited the twilight +of the church, the gloom of a palace closed in narrow +streets, but they scourge the modern eye as does a blasting +light. The Gothic days gave borders the deep soft tones +of serious mood; the Renaissance played on a daintier +scale; the Seventeenth Century rushed into too frank a +palette.</p> + +<p>It remained for Rubens and Lebrun to find a scheme +both rich and subdued, to bring back the taste errant. +Here let me note a peculiarity of colour, noticeable in +work of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century borders. +The colour tone varies in different pieces of the same set, +and this is not the result of fading, but was done by deliberate +intent, one side border being light and another dark, +or one entire border being lighter than others of the same +set.</p> + +<p>Lest in speaking of borders, too much reference might +be made to the history of tapestry in general, I have left +out Simon Vouet and Henri Lerambert as inspired composers +of the frame which enclosed their cartoons; but it +is well to say briefly that these men at least had not followed +false gods, and were not guilty of the flagrant +offence to taste that put a smirch on Italian art. These +are the men who preceded the establishment of State +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +ateliers under Louis XIV and who made productive the +reign of Henri IV.</p> + +<p>If Rubens kept to a style of large detail, that was a popular +one and had many followers in a grandiose age. Lebrun +in borders harked back to the classics of Greece and +Rome, thus restoring the exquisite quality of delicacy associated +with a thousand designs of amphoræ, foliated +scrolls and light grotesques. But he expressed himself +more individually and daringly in the series called <i>The +Months</i> and <i>The Royal Residences</i>. This set is so celebrated, +so delectable, so grateful to the eye of the tapestry +lover, that familiarity with it must be assumed. You recollect +it, once you have seen no more than a photograph +of one of its squares. But it cannot be pertinent here, for +it has no important border, say you. No, rather it is all +border. Look what the cunning artist has done. His +problem was to picture twelve country houses. To his +mind it must have seemed like converting a room into an +architect’s office, to hang it full of buildings. But genius +came to the front, his wonderful feeling for decoration, +and lo, he filled his canvas with glorious foreground, full +of things man lives with; columns, the size appropriate to +the salon they are placed in; urns, peacocks, all the ante-terrace +frippery of the grand age, arranged in the foreground. +Garlands are fresh hung on the columns as +though our decorator had but just posed them, and beyond +are clustered trees—with a small opening for a vista. +Way off in the light-bathed distance stands the faithfully +drawn château, but here, here where the observer stands, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +is all elegance and grace and welcome shade, and close +friendship with luxury.</p> + +<p>This work of Lebrun’s is then the epitome of border. +Greater than this hath no man done, to make a tapestry +all border which yet so intensified the value of the small +central design, that not even the royal patron, jealous of +his own conspicuousness, discovered that art had replaced +display.</p> + +<p>After that a great change came. As the picture ever +regulates the border, that change was but logical. After +the “Sun King” came the regency of the effeminate +Philippe, whom the Queen Mother had kept more like a +court page than a man. Artists lapped over from the +previous reign, and these were encouraged to develop the +smaller, daintier, more effeminate designs that had already +begun to assert their charm. Borders took on the new +method. And as small space was needed for the curves +and shells and latticed bands, the border narrower grew.</p> + +<p>Like Alice, after the potent dose, the border shrank and +shrank, until in time it became a gold frame, like the <i>encadrement</i> +of any easel picture. And that, too, was logical, +for tapestries became at this time like painted +pictures, and lost their original significance of undulating +hangings.</p> + +<p>The well-known motives of the Louis XV decoration +rippled around the edge of the tapestry, woven in shades +of yellow silk and imitated well the carved and gilded +wood of other frames, those of chairs and screens and +paintings. There are those who deplore the mode, but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +at least it seems appropriate to the style of picture it +encloses.</p> + +<p>And here let us consider a moment this matter of appropriateness. +So far we have thought only of tapestries and +their borders as inseparable, and as composed at the same +time. But, alas, this is the ideal; the fact is that in the +habit which weavers had of repeating their sets when +a model proved a favourite among patrons, led them into +providing variety by setting up a different border around +the drawing. As this reproducing, this copying of old +cartoons was sometimes done one or two hundred years +after the original was drawn, we find an anachronism most +disagreeable to one who has an orderly mind, who hates +to see a telephone in a Venus’ shell, for instance. The +whole thing is thrown out of key. It is as though your +old family portrait of the Colonial Governor was framed +in “art nouveau.”</p> + +<p>The big men, the almost divine Raphael, and later +Rubens, felt so keenly the necessity of harmony between +picture and frame, that they were not above drawing their +own borders, and it is evident they delighted in the work. +But Raphael’s cartoons went not only to Brussels, but +elsewhere, and somehow the borders got left behind; and +thus we see his celebrated suite of <i>Acts of the Apostles</i> +with a different entourage in the Madrid set from what +it bears in Rome.</p> + +<p>There is another matter, and this has to do with commerce +more than art. An old tapestry is of such value +that mere association with it adds to the market price of +newer work. So it is that sometimes a whole border is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +cut off and transferred to an inferior tapestry, and the +tapestry thus denuded is surrounded with a border woven +nowadays in some atelier of repairs, copied from an old +design.</p> + +<p>Let such desecrators beware. The border of a tapestry +must appertain, must be an integral part of the whole +design for the sake of artistic harmony.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <a href="#HERSE_AND_MERCURY"><b>Frontispiece.</b></a></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>TAPESTRY MARKS</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">R</span>EGARDLESS of what a man’s longing for fame +may have been in the Middle Ages, he let his +works pass into the world without a sign upon +them that portrayed their author. This is as true of the +lesser arts as of the greater. It was not the fashion in +the days of Giotto, nor of Raphael, to sign a painting in +vermillion with a flourished underscore. The artist was +content to sink individuality in the general good, to work +for art’s sake, not for personal fame.</p> + +<p>This was true of the lesser artists who wove or directed +the weaving of the tapestries called Gothic, not only +through the time of the simple earnest primitives, but +through the brilliant high development of that style as +shown at the studio of Jean de Rome, of the Brussels +ateliers, through the years lying between the close of the +Fifteenth Century and the Raphael invasion.</p> + +<p>Even that important event brought no consequence of +that sort. The freemasonry among celebrities in those +days showed its perfection by this very lack of signed +work. Everybody knew the man by his works, and the +works by their excellence.</p> + +<p>Tapestry marks were non-existent as a system until the +Brussels edict of 1528 made them compulsory in that +town. Documents and history have been less unkind to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +those early workers, and to those of us who like to feel the +thrill of human brotherhood as it connects the artist and +craftsman centuries dead with our own strife for the ideal. +Nicolas Bataille in 1379 cannot remain unknown since the +publishing of certain documents concerning his Christmas +task of the <i>Apocalypse</i>, and there are scores of known +master weavers reaching up through the ages to the time +when marks began.</p> + +<p>The Brussels mark was the first. It was a simple and +appropriate composition, a shield flanked with two letters +B. These were capitals or not. One was reversed or +not, with little arbitrariness, for the mark was legible and +unmistakable in any case, even though the weaver took +great liberties—as he sometimes did. The place for this +mark was the galloon, and it was usually executed in a +lighter colour, but a single tone.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three variations of the Brussels mark"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry088a.png" width="100" height="64" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry088b.png" width="100" height="56" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry088c.png" width="100" height="70" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + <td class="tdctx">BRUSSELS</td> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>So much for the town mark, which has a score or more +of variations. In addition to this was the mark of the +weaver or of the merchant who gave the commission. A +pity it was thus to confound the two, to give such confusion +between a gifted craftsman and a mere dealer. One was +giving the years of his life and the cunning of his hand +to the work, while the other did but please a rich or royal +patron with his wares. But so it was, and we can but +study over the symbols and glean at least that the tapestry +was considered a worthy one, reached the high standard +of the day, or it would have had no mark at all.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +For it was thus that the marks were first adopted. They +were for the protection of every one against fraud. High +perfection made Brussels famous, but fame brought with +it such a rush of patronage that only by lessening the +quality of productions could orders be filled in such hot +haste.</p> + +<p>Tricks of the trade grew and prospered; there were +tricks of dyeing after a tapestry was finished, in case the +flesh tints or other light shades were not pleasing. There +was a trick of dividing a large square into strips so that +several looms might work upon it at once. And there +was all manner of slighting in the weave, in the use of +the comb which makes close the fabric, in the setting of +the warp to make a less than usual number of threads to +the inch. In fact, men tricked men as much in those days +as in our own.</p> + +<p>The fame of the city’s industry was in danger. It was +the province of the guild of tapestry-makers to protect +it against its own evils. Thus, in 1528, a few years after +the weaving of the Raphael tapestries, the law was made +that all tapestries should bear the Brussels mark and that +of the weaver or the client. Small tapestries were exempt, +but at that time small tapestries were not frequent, +or were simple verdures, and, charming as they are, they +lacked the same intellectual effort of composition.</p> + +<p>The Brussels guild stipulated the size at which the +tapestry should be marked. It was given at six ells, a +Flemish ell being about 27½ inches. Therefore, a tapestry +under approximately thirteen feet might escape the +order. But that was the day of large tapestries, the day +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +of the Italian cartoonists, and important pieces reached +that measure.</p> + +<p>The guild of the tapissiers in Brussels, once started on +restrictions, drew article after article, until it seemed that +manacles were put on the masters’ hands. To these restrictions +the decadence of Brussels is ascribed, but that +were like laying a criminal’s fault to the laws of the country. +Primarily must have been the desire to shirk, the +intent to do questionable work. And behind that must +have been a basic cause. Possibly it was one of those +which we are apt to consider modern, that is, the desire +to turn effort into the coin of the realm. All of the enormous +quantity of orders received by Brussels in the days +of her highest prosperity could not have been accepted +had not the master of the ateliers pressed his underlings +to highest speed.</p> + +<p>Speed meant deterioration in quality of work, and so +Brussels tried by laws to prevent this lamentable result, +and to protect the fair fame of the symbol woven in the +bordering galloon. The other sign which accompanied +the town mark, of the two letters B, should have had excellent +results, the personal mark of the weaver that his work +might be known.</p> + +<p>In spite of this spur to personal pride, the standard +lessened in a few years, but not until certain weavers had +won a fame that thrills even at this distance. Unfortunately, +a great client was considered as important as a +weaver, and it was often his arbitrary sign that was woven. +And sometimes a dealer, wishing glory through his dealings, +ordered his sign in the galloon. And thus comes a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +long array of signs which are not identifiable always. In +general, one or two initials were introduced into these +symbols, which were fanciful designs that any idle pencil +might draw, but in the lapse of years it is not possible to +know which able weaver or what great purveyor to royalty +the letter A or B or C may have signified.</p> + +<p>Happily the light of Wilhelm de Pannemaker could not +be hid even by piling centuries upon it. His works were +of such a nature that, like those of Van Aelst, who had no +mark, they would always be known for their historic association. +In illustration, there is his set of the <i>Conquest +of Tunis</i> (plate facing page <a href="#CONQUEST_OF_TUNIS"><b>62</b></a>), woven under circumstances +of interest. Even without a mark, it would still be +known that the master weaver of Brussels (whom all acknowledged +Pannemaker to be) set up his looms, so many +that it must have seemed to the folk of Granada that a new +industry had come to live among them. And it is a matter +of Spanish history that the great Emperor Charles V +carried in his train the court artist, Van Orley, that his +exploits be pictured for the gratification of himself and +posterity.</p> + +<p>But Wilhelm de Pannemaker lived and worked in the +time of marks, so his tapestries bear his sign in addition +to the Brussels mark. Of symbols he had as many as +nine or ten, but all of the same general character, taking +as their main motive the W and the P of his name.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three variations of Pannemaker's marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry089a.png" width="100" height="130" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry089b.png" width="100" height="139" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry089c.png" width="100" height="72" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + <td class="tdctx">WILHELM DE PANNEMAKER</td> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Incorporated into his sign, as into many others of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +period, was a mark resembling a figure 4. Tradition has +it that when this four was reversed, the tapestry was not +for a private client, but for a dealer. One set of the <i>Vertumnus +and Pomona</i> at Madrid (plates facing pages <a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA01"><b>72</b></a>, +<a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA02"><b>73</b></a>, <a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA03"><b>74</b></a>, +<a href="#VERTUMNUS_AND_POMONA04"><b>75</b></a>) bears De Pannemaker’s mark, while others +have a conglomerate pencilling.</p> + +<p>The sign of Jacques Geubels is, like W. de Pannemaker’s, +made up of his initials combined with fantastic +lines which doubtless were full of meaning to their inventor, +little as they convey to us. The example of +Jacques Geubels’ weaving given in the <a href="#BRUSSELS_TAPESTRY"><b>plate</b></a> is from the +Chicago Institute of Art. His time was late Sixteenth +Century.</p> + +<p>The <i>Acts of the Apostles</i> of Raphael, the first set, was +woven by Peter van Aelst without a mark, but the set +at Madrid bears the marks of several Brussels weavers, +some attributed to Nicolas Leyniers.</p> + +<p>The desirability of distinguishing tapestries by marks +in the galloon appealed to other weaving centres, and the +method of Brussels found favour outside that town. Presently +Bruges adopted a sign similar to that of her neighbour, +by adding to the double B and shield a small b +traversed by a crown.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three different marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry090a.png" width="100" height="175" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry090b.png" width="100" height="175" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry090c.png" width="150" height="128" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx">JACQUES GEUBELS</td> + <td class="tdctx">NICOLAS LEYNIERS</td> + <td class="tdctx">BRUGES</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>In Oudenarde, that town of wonderful verdures, the +weavers, as though by trick of modesty, often avoided +such clues to identity as a woven letter might be, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +adopted signs. However significant and famous they +may have been in the Sixteenth Century, they mean little +now. The town mark with which these were combined +was distinctly a striped shield with decoration like antennæ.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three variations of Oudenarde's marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry091a.png" width="100" height="78" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry091b.png" width="100" height="67" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry091c.png" width="100" height="98" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + <td class="tdctx">OUDENARDE</td> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Enghien is one of the tapestry towns of which we are +gradually becoming aware. Its products have not always +been recognised, but of late more interest is taken in this +tributary to the great stream of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth +Centuries.</p> + +<p>The famous Peter or Pierre van Aelst, selected from +all of Flanders’ able craftsmen to work for Raphael and +the Pope, was born in this little town, wove here and, +more yet, was known as Pierre of Enghien. Yet it is the +larger town of Brussels which wore his laurels.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three variations of Enghien's marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry092a.png" width="100" height="123" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry092b.png" width="100" height="102" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry092c.png" width="100" height="123" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + <td class="tdctx">ENGHIEN</td> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The Enghien town marks are an easy adaptation of the +arms of the place, and the weavers’ marks are generally +monograms.</p> + +<p>Weavers’ marks, after playing about the eccentricities +of cipher, changed in the Seventeenth Century to easily +read initials, sometimes interlaced, sometimes apart. +Later on it became the mode to weave the entire name. +An example of these is the two letters C of Charles de +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +Comans on the galloon of <i>Meleager and Atalanta</i> (plate +facing page <a href="#MELEAGER_AND_ATALANTA"><b>68</b></a>); and the name G. V. D. Strecken in the +<i>Antony and Cleopatra</i> (plate facing page <a href="#MEETING_OF_ANTONY_AND_CLEOPATRA"><b>79</b></a>).</p> + +<p>Other countries than Flanders were wise in their generation, +and placed the marks that are so welcome to the +eye of the modern who seeks to know all the secrets of +the tapestry before him. In the Seventeenth Century, +when Paris was gathering her scattered decorative force +for later demonstration at the Gobelins, the city had a +pretty mark for its own, a simple fleur-de-lis and the initial +P, and the initials of the weaver.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three different marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry093a.png" width="100" height="89" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry093b.png" width="100" height="102" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry093c.png" width="100" height="75" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx">PARIS</td> + <td class="tdctx">ALEX. DE COMANS</td> + <td class="tdctx">CHARLES DE COMANS</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>That Jean Lefèvre, who with his father Pierre was imported +into Italy to set the mode of able weaving for the +Florentines, had a sign unmistakable on the Gobelins tapestries +of the <i>History of the King</i>. (Plate facing page +<a href="#LOUIS_XIV_VISITING"><b>114</b></a>.) It was a simple monogram or union of his initials. +In the Eighteenth Century the Gobelins took the fleur-de-lis +of Paris, and its own initial letter G. The modern +Gobelins’ marks combined the G with an implement of +the craft, a <i>broche</i> and a straying thread.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three different marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry094a.png" width="100" height="114" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry094b.png" width="200" height="71" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry094c.png" width="91" height="133" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx">JEAN LEFÈVRE</td> + <td class="tdctx">GOBELINS, 18TH CENTURY</td> + <td class="tdctx">GOBELINS, MODERN</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>In Italy, in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, we +find the able Flemings, Nicholas Karcher and John Rost, +using their personal marks after the manner of their country. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +Karcher thus signed his marvellously executed grotesques +of Bacchiacca which hang in the gallery of tapestries +in Florence. (Plates facing pages <a href="#SCENES_FROM_LIFE_OF_CHRIST"><b>48</b></a> +and <a href="#HISTORY_OF_VIRGIN"><b>49</b></a>.) John +Rost’s fancy led him to pun upon his name by illustrating +a fowl roasting on the spit. Karcher had a little different +mark in the Ferrara looms, where he went at the call of +the d’Este Duke.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three different marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry095a.png" width="100" height="131" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry095b.png" width="200" height="102" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry095c.png" width="100" height="88" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx">KARCHER, FLORENCE</td> + <td class="tdctx">JOHN ROST</td> + <td class="tdctx">KARCHER, FERRARA</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The Florence factory made a mark of its own, refreshingly +simple, avoiding all of the cabalistic intricacies that +are so often made meaningless by the passing of the years, +and which were affected by the early Brussels weavers. +The mark found on Florence tapestries is the famous +Florentine lily, and the initial of the town. The mark +of Pierre Lefèvre, when weaving here, was a combination +of letters.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three variations of Lefevre's marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry096a.png" width="100" height="93" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry096b.png" width="100" height="78" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry096c.png" width="100" height="99" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + <td class="tdctx">PIERRE LEFÈVRE, FLORENCE</td> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p> </p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Three variations of Mortlake's marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry097a.png" width="100" height="97" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry097b.png" width="100" height="128" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry097c.png" width="100" height="106" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + <td class="tdctx">MORTLAKE</td> + <td class="tdctx"> </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>When the Mortlake factory was established in England, +the date was sufficiently late, 1619, for marking to +be considered a necessity. The factory mark was a simple +shield quartered by means of a cross thrown thereon. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +Sir Francis Crane contented himself with a simple F. C., +one a-top the other, as his identification. Philip de +Maecht, he whose family went from Holland to England +as tapissiers, directed at Mortlake the weaving of a part +of the celebrated <i>Vulcan</i> and <i>Venus</i> series, and his monogram +can be seen on <i>The Expulsion of Vulcan from +Olympus</i> (coloured plate facing page <a href="#EXPULSION_OF_VULCAN"><b>170</b></a>), owned by +Mrs. A. von Zedlitz, as well as in the other rare <i>Vulcan</i> +pieces owned by Philip Hiss, Esq. This same Philip de +Maecht worked under De Comans in Paris, he having +been decoyed thence by the wise organisers of Mortlake.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Two variations of Crane's marks and one of de Maecht's"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry098a.png" width="100" height="183" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry098b.png" width="100" height="162" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry098c.png" width="100" height="106" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx" colspan="2">SIR FRANCIS CRANE</td> + <td class="tdctx">PHILIP DE MAECHT</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The marks on tapestries are as numerous as the marks +on china or silver, and the absence of marks confronts +the hunter of signs with baffling blankness, as is the case +of many very old wares, whether china, silver or tapestries. +Also, late work of poor quality is unmarked. +Having thus disposed of the situation, it remains to identify +the marks when they exist. The exhaustive works +of the French writers must be consulted for this pleasure. +There are hundreds of known signs, but there exist also +many unidentified signs, yet the presence of a sign of any +kind is a keen joy to the owner of a hanging which displays +it.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Two different marks"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry099a.png" width="100" height="126" alt="" /></td> + <td class="tdc"><img src="images/tapestry099b.png" width="200" height="123" alt="" /></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdctx">TOURNAY</td> + <td class="tdctx">LILLE</td> + </tr> +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>HOW IT IS MADE</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>ANTING to see the wheels go ’round is a +desire not limited to babes. We, with our +minds stocked with the history and romance +of tapestry, yet want to know just how it is made in every +particular, just how the loom works, how the threads are +placed.</p> + +<p>It seems that there must be some obscure and occult +secret hidden within the looms that work such magic, and +we want to pluck it out, lay it in the sunlight and dissect +its intricacies. Well, then, let us enter a tapestry factory +and see what is there. But it is safe to forecast the final +deduction—which must ever be that the god of patience +is here omnipotent. Talent there must be, but even that +is without avail if patience lacks.</p> + +<p>The factory for tapestries seems, then, little like a factory. +The belt and wheel, the throb and haste are not +there. The whole place seems like a quiet school, where +tasks are done in silence broken by an occasional voice or +two. It is a place where every one seems bent on accomplishing +a brave amount of fancy-work; a kindergarten, +if you like, for grown-ups.</p> + +<p>Within are many departments of labour. The looms +are the thing, of course, so must be considered first, +although much preparing is done before their work can +be begun.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +The looms are classic in their method, in their simplicity. +They have scarcely changed since the days when +Solomon built his Temple and draped it with such gorgeous +hangings that even the inspired writers digress to +emphasise their richness with long descriptions that could +not possibly have assisted the cause of their religion.</p> + +<p>The stitch made by the modern loom is the same as that +made by the looms of the furthermost-back Egyptian, by +the Greeks, by the Chinese, of primitive peoples everywhere, +by the people of the East in the familiar Khelim +rugs, and by the aborigines of the two Americas. There +is nothing new, nothing obscure about it, being a simple +weaving of warp and woof. Penelope’s loom was the +same almost as that in use to-day at the Gobelins factory +in Paris. Archeologists have discovered pictures of the +ancient Egyptian loom, and of Penelope’s, and there is +but little change from the times of these ladies to our days.</p> + +<p>The fact is, the work is hand-work, must always be so, +and the loom is but a tool for its working, a tool which +keeps in place the threads set by hand. That is why tapestry +must always be valuable and original and no more +possible to copy by machine than is a painting.</p> + +<p>High warp and low warp are the terms so often used +as to seem a shibboleth. <i>Haute lisse</i> and <i>basse lisse</i> are +their French equivalents. They describe the two kinds +of looms, the former signifying the loom which stands +upright, or high; the latter indicating the loom which +is extended horizontally or low. On the high loom, the +instrument which holds the thread is called the <i>broche</i>, +and on the low loom it is called the <i>flute</i>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +The stitch produced by the two is the same. The manner +of producing it varies in convenience to the operators, +the low-warp being the easier, or at least the more convenient +and therefore the quicker method.</p> + +<p>The cynic is ever ready to say that the tyrant living +within a man declares only for those things which represent +great sacrifice of time and effort on the part of other +men. Perhaps it is true, and that therein lies the preference +of the connoisseur in tapestry for the works of the +high-warp loom. Even the wisest experts cannot always +tell by an examination of a fabric, on which sort of loom +it was woven, high warp or low, other evidence being +excluded.</p> + +<p>The high loom has, then, the threads of its warp hung +like a weighted veil, from the top of the loom to the floor, +with a huge wooden roller to receive the finished fabric +at the bottom and one at the top for the yet unneeded +threads. Each thread of the warp is caught by a loop, +which in turn is fastened to a movable bar, and by means +of this the worker is able to advance or withdraw the +alternate threads for the casting of the <i>broche</i> or <i>flute</i>, +which is the shuttle. Behind the veil of the warp sits the +weaver—<i>tissier</i> or <i>tapissier</i>—with his supply of coloured +thread; back of him is the cartoon he is copying. He +can only see his work by means of a little mirror the other +side of his warp, which reflects it. The only indulgence +that convenience accords him is a tracing on the white +threads of the warp, a copy of the picture he is weaving. +Thus stands the prisoner of art, sentenced to hard labour, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +but with the heart-swelling joy of creating, to lighten his +task.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="WEAVER_AT_WORK" id="WEAVER_AT_WORK"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry100th.jpg" width="400" height="310" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry100.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="SEWING_AND_REPAIR" id="SEWING_AND_REPAIR"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry101th.jpg" width="400" height="275" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry101.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS</p> + +<p>High-warp looms were those that made famous the +tapestries of Arras in the Fifteenth Century, of Brussels +in the Sixteenth, and of Paris in the Seventeenth, therefore +it is not strange that they are worshipped as having +a resident, mysterious power.</p> + +<p>To-day, the age of practicality, they scarcely exist outside +the old Gobelins in Paris. But this is not the day +of tapestry weaving.</p> + +<p>A shuttle, thrown by machine, goes all the width of the +fabric, back and forth. The <i>flute</i> or <i>broche</i>, which is the +shuttle of the tapestry weaver, flies only as far as it is desired +to thrust it, to finish the figure on which its especial +colour is required. Thus, a leaf, a detail of any small +sort, may mount higher and higher on the warp, to its +completion, before other adjacent parts are attempted.</p> + +<p>The effect of this is to leave open slits, petty gashes in +the fabric, running lengthwise of the warp, and these are +all united later with the needle, in the hands of the women +who thus finish the pieces.</p> + +<p>Unused colours wound on the hundreds of flutes are +dropped at the demand of the pattern, left in a rich confusion +of shades to be resumed by the workmen at will; +but the threads are not severed, if the colour is to be used +again soon.</p> + +<p>Low-warp work is the same except for the weaver’s position +in relation to his work. Instead of the warp like a +thin wall before his face, on which he seems to play as on +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +one side of a harp, the warp is extended before him as a +table. It is easy to see how much more convenient is this +method.</p> + +<p>The wooden rollers are the same, one for the yet unused +length of warp, the other for the finished fabric, and over +one of these rollers the worker leans, protected from its +hostile hardness by a pillow.</p> + +<p>The pattern lies below, just beneath the warp, and easily +seen through it, not the mere tracing as on the threads of +the high-warp loom, but the coloured cartoon, so that +shades may be followed as well as lines. It sometimes +happens, however, in copying a valuable old tapestry, that +a black and white drawing only is placed under the warp +while the original is suspended behind the weavers, who +look to it for colour suggestion.</p> + +<p>In low-warp the worker has the privilege of laying his +flutes on top the work, the flutes not at the moment in +use, and there they lie in convenient mass ready to resume +for the figure abandoned for another. If the right hand +thrusts the flute, it is the duty of the left to see that +the alternate and the limiting threads of the warp are +properly lifted. First comes a pressure of the foot on +a long, lath-like pedal which is attached to the bar +holding in turn the loops which pass around alternate +threads.</p> + +<p>That pressure lifts the threads, and the fingers of the +left hand, deft and agile, limit and select those which the +flute shall cover with its coloured woof.</p> + +<p>After the casting of a thread, or of a group of threads, +the weaver picks up a comb of steel or of ivory, and packs +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +hard the woof, one line against another, to make the fabric +firm and even in the weaving.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY01" id="BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry102th.jpg" width="400" height="223" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry102.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY02" id="BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry103th.jpg" width="400" height="248" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry103.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON</p> + +<p>Such then is the simple process of the looms, far simpler +seen than described and yet depending absolutely for +its beauty on the talent and patience of gifted workers. +It is as simple as the alphabet, yet as complicated as the +dictionary.</p> + +<p>Patient years of apprenticeship must a man spend before +he can become a good weaver, and then must he give +the best years of his life to becoming perfect in the craft. +But if the work is exacting, at least it is agreeable, almost +lovable, and in delightful contrast to the labour of those +who but tend machines driven by power. And if the art +of tapestry weaving is almost a lost one to-day, at least +the weavers can find in history much matter for pride. +It is no mean ambition to follow the profession of conscientious +Nicolas Bataille, of the able Pannemaker, of La +Planche and Comans, of Tessier, Cozette, and a hundred +others of family and fame.</p> + +<p>Much preparation is necessary before the loom can be +set going. First is the design, the cartoon. There we +are in the department of the artist, and must talk in whispers. +Raphael belongs there, and Leonardo; and Rubens, +Teniers, Lebrun, Boucher and David, train us through +the past centuries into our own.</p> + +<p>But the cartoon of to-day is not so sacred a matter, and +we may speak of it frankly—regretfully, too. Cartoons +hang all over the walls of the tapestry factory, so much +property for the setting of future scenes, and besides, they +make a decoration which alone would lift the tapestry +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +factory into the regions of art and class it among ateliers, +instead of factories. The cartoons are painted, however, +where the artist will, in his own studio or in one provided +for the purpose by the director, as in the case of the Baumgarten +works. They have the look of special designs. +They are not done in the manner of a painting to be hung +on a wall. Their brushwork is smooth and broad, dividing +lines well distinguished by marked contrasts in colour +to make possible their translation into the language of +silk and wool.</p> + +<p>After the cartoon is ready, comes the warp. That is +set with the closeness agreed upon. Naturally, the smaller +the thread of the warp, the closer is it set, the more threads +to the inch, and thus comes fine fabric. Coarser warp +means fewer threads to the inch, quicker work for the +weaver and less value to the tapestry. From ten to twenty +threads to the inch carries the limits of coarseness and +fineness. In fine weaving, a weaver will accomplish but +a square foot a week. Think of that, you who wonder at +the price of tapestries ordered for the new drawing-room.</p> + +<p>The warp comes to the factory all in big hanks of even +thread. Nowadays it is usually of cotton, although they +contend at the Gobelins that wool warp is preferable, for +it gives the finished fabric a lightness and flexibility that +the heavier, stiffer cotton destroys.</p> + +<p>Setting the warp is a matter of patience and precision, +and we will leave the workman with it, to make it the +whole length of the tapestry to be woven, and to fasten the +loops of thread around each <i>chaîne</i> and to fasten those in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +turn, alternating, to the bar by means of which they may be +shifted to make the in-and-out of the weaving.</p> + +<p>Then after choosing the colours, the weaving begins. +It is like nothing so much as a piece of fancy-work. If +it were not for the cumbersome loom, I am sure ladies +would emulate the king who wove for amusement, and +would make chair-pieces on the summer veranda.</p> + +<p>But before the silks and wools go to the weaving they +are treated to a beauty-bath in the dye-room. Hanks of +wool and skeins of silk are but neutral matters, coming to +the factory devoid of individuality, mere pale, soft bulk.</p> + +<p>A room apart, somewhere away from the studio of design +and the rooms where the looms stand stolid, is a +laboratory of dyes, a place which looks like a farmhouse +kitchen on preserving day. You sniff the air as you go +in, the air that is swaying long bunches of pendulous +colour, and it smells warm and moist and full of the suggestions +of magic.</p> + +<p>Over a big cauldron two men are bending, stirring a +witches’ broth to charm man’s eye. One of the wooden +paddles brings up a mass from the heavy liquid. It is +silk, glistening rich, of the colour of melted rubies. Upstairs +the looms are making it into a damask background +onto which are thrown the garlands Boucher drew and +Tessier loved to work.</p> + +<p>Dainties fished up from another cauldron are strung +along a line to dry, soft wool and shining silk, all in shades +of grapes, of asters, of heliotropes, telling their manifest +destiny. And beyond, are great bunches of colour, red +which mounts a quivering scale to salmon pink, blue +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +which sails into tempered gray, greens dancing to the note +of the forest. It is a nature’s workshop, a laboratory +where the rainbow serves, apprenticed.</p> + +<p>Jars, stone jars, little kegs, all ugly enough, are standing +against the wall. But uncover one, touch the thick +dark stuff within, and feast your eye on the colour left on +a curious finger-tip. You are close to the cochineal, to +indigo, and all the wonderful alchemy of colour.</p> + +<p>Aniline? Not a bit of the treacherous stuff. It takes +the eye, but it is a fickle friend. They say a mordant +has been found to stay the flight of its lovely colours. +Perhaps; it may be. But what weaver of tapestry would +be willing to confide his labour to the care of a dye that +has not known the test of ages? Aniline dye, says the +director of a tapestry factory, may last twenty years—but +twenty years is nothing in the life of a tapestry. Over +in Paris, at the Gobelins, a master rules as chemist of the +dyes, with the dignity of a special laboratory for making +them.</p> + +<p>In America, with no government assuming the expense, +the dyes are bought in such form that only expert +dyers can use them in the few factories which exist. +But no new hazards are taken. The matter is too serious. +Economy in dyes brings too great disaster to contemplate. +It is only too true that a man, several men, may labour a +year to produce a perfect work, and that all the labour +may be ruined by an ephemeral dye, by the escape of tones +skilfully laid. Let commerce cheat in some other way, if +it must, but not in this. Let the dye be honest, as enduring +as the colours imprisoned in gems.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 262px;"> +<a name="BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY03" id="BAUMGARTEN_TAPESTRY03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry104th.jpg" width="262" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry104.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +It is a modern economy. The ancients knew not of +it, and were willing to spend any amount on colours. +More than that a port, or a nation, was willing to rest +its fame on a single colour. Purple of Tyre, red of +Turkey, yellow of China, are terms familiar through the +ages, and think not these colours were to be had for the +asking. They brought prices which we do not pay now +even in this age of money. The brothers Gobelins—their +fame originally rested on their ambition to be “dyers of +scarlet,” that being an ultimate test of skill.</p> + +<p>It is a serious matter, that of dyeing wools and silks +for tapestries, and one which the directors conduct within +the walls of the tapestry factory. The Gobelins uses for +its reds, cochineal or the roots of the madder; for blue, +indigo and Prussian blue; for yellow, the vegetable colour +extracted from gaude.</p> + +<p>In America there is a specialist in dyes: Miss Charlotte +Pendleton, who gives her entire attention to rediscovering +the dyes of the ancients, the dyes that made a +city’s fame. It is owing to her conscientious work that the +tapestry repairers of museums can find appropriate +threads.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to trace the differing gamut of colour +through the ages. Old dyes produced, old weavers +needed, but twenty tones for the old work. Tapestries of +the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries were as simple in +scale as stained glass, and as honest. Flesh tints were neutral +by contrast to the splendid reds, honest yellows and +rich greens. Colours meant something, then, too; had a +sentimental language all their own. When white +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +predominated, purity was implied; black was mortification +of the flesh; livid yellow was tribulation; red, charity; +green, meditation.</p> + +<p>An examination of the colours in the series which depicts +the life of Louis XIV, reveals a use of but seventy-nine +colours. So up to that time, great honesty of dye, +and fine decorative effect were preserved. The shades +were produced by two little tricks open as the day, hatching +being one, the other, winding two shades on the same +broche or shuttle. Hatching, as we know, is merely a +penman’s trick, of shading with lines of light and dark.</p> + +<p>It was when they began to paint the lily, in the days of +pretty corruption, that the whole matter of dyeing +changed. In the Eighteenth Century when the Regent +Philip, and then La Pompadour, set the mode, things +greatly altered. When big decorative effects were no +more, the stimulating effect of deep strong colour was +considered vulgar, and, only the suave sweetness of +Boucher, Nattier, Fragonard, were admired. Every one +played a pretty part, all life was a theatre of gay comedy, +or a flattered miniature.</p> + +<p>So, as we have seen, new times and new modes caused +the Gobelins to copy paintings instead of to interpret cartoons—and +there lay the destruction of their art. Instead +of four-score tones, the dyers hung on their lines tens and +tens of thousands. And the weavers wove them all into +their fabric-painting, with the result that when the light +lay on them long, the delicate shades faded and with them +was lost the meaning of the design. And that is why the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +Gobelins of the older time are worth more as decoration +than those of the later.</p> + +<p>We are doing a little better nowadays. There is a limit +to the tones, and in all new work a decided tendency to +abandon the copying of brush-shading in favour of a +more restricted gamut of colour. By this means the future +worker may regain the lost charm of the simple old +pieces of work.</p> + +<p>Another room in the factory of tapestry interests those +who like to see the creation of things. It is one of the +prettiest rooms of all, and is more than ever like a kindergarten +for grown-ups. Or, if you like, it is a chamber in +a feudal castle where the women gather when the men +are gone to war.</p> + +<p>Here the workers are all girls and women, each bending +over a large embroidery frame supported at a convenient +level from the floor. On one frame is a long +flowered border with cartouches in the strong rich colours +of Louis XIV. On another a sofa-seat copied from +Boucher. They are both new, but like all work fresh +from the loom are full of the open slits left in the process +of weaving, a necessity of the changing colours and the +requirements of the drawing.</p> + +<p>All these little slits, varying from half an inch to several +inches in length, must be sewed with strong, careful +stitches before the tapestry can be considered complete.</p> + +<p>On other frames are stretched old tapestries for repairs. +At the Gobelins as many as forty women are thus employed. +The malapropos deduction springs here that the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +demand for repaired old work is greater than that for +new in the famous factory, for only six or eight weavers +are there occupied.</p> + +<p>Repairing is almost an art in itself. The emperor +established a small school at Berlin for training girls in +this trade. The studio of the late Mr. Ffoulke in Florence +kept twenty or thirty girls occupied. The Metropolitan +Museum of Art in New York has a repair studio +under a graduate of the Berlin school. The factories of +Baumgarten and of Herter, in New York, also conduct +repairs; and the museum at Boston as well.</p> + +<p>We cannot make old tapestries, but we can restore and +preserve them by skilled labour in special ateliers. +Restoration by the needle is the only perfect restoration, +and this is as yet but little done here, although the method +is so well known in Europe. We deplore the quicker +way, to use the loom for weaving large sections of border +or large bits which have gone into hopeless shreds, or +have disappeared altogether by reason of the bitter years +when tapestries had fallen into neglect. But the quicker +way is the poorer, with these great claimants for time. +The woven figures are relentless in this, that they claim +of the living man a lion’s share of his precious days. His +reward is that they outlast him. Food for cynics lies +there.</p> + +<p>The careful worker looks close and sees the warp exposed +like fiddle strings here and there. She matches +the colour of silk and wool to the elusive shades and +covers stitch by stitch the bare threads, in perfect imitation +of the loom’s way.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +Sometimes the warp is gone. Then the work tests the +best skill. The threads, the <i>chaîne</i>, must be picked up, +one by one, and united invisibly to the new, and then the +pattern woven over with the needle. It happens that +large holes remain to be filled entirely, the pattern +matched, the design caught or imagined from some other +part of the fabric. That takes skill indeed. But it is +done, and so well, that the repairer is called not that, but +a restorer.</p> + +<p>The two factories in New York, the Baumgarten and +Herter ateliers, have certain employés always busy with +repairs and restorations. Given even a fragment, the +rest is supplied to make a perfect whole, in these studios +where the manner of the old workers is so closely studied. +For big repairs a drawing is made, a cartoon on the same +principle as that of large cartoons, in colours, these following +the old. Then it remains for the weaver to set his +loom with the corresponding number of threads, that the +new fabric may match the old in fineness. Then, too, +comes the test of matching colours, a test that almost never +discovers a worker equal to its exactions. That is as often +as not the fault of the dyer who has supplied colours too +fresh.</p> + +<p>It is the repairs done by the needle that give the best +effect, although such restorations are costly and slow.</p> + +<p>Old repairs on old tapestries have been made, in some +instances, very long ago. It often happens, in old sets, +that a great piece of another tapestry has been roughly set +in, like the knee-patches of a farm boy. The object has +been merely to fill the hole, not to match colour scheme +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +or figure. And these patches are by the judicious restorer +taken out and their place carefully filled with the +needle.</p> + +<p>Moths, say some, do not devour old tapestries. The +reason given is that the ancient wool is so desiccated as +to be no longer nutritious. A pretty argument, but not +to be trusted, for I have seen moths comfortably browsing +on a Burgundian hanging, keeping house and raising families +on such precious stuff.</p> + +<p>Commerce demands that tricks shall be played in the +repair room, but not such great ones that serious corruption +will result. The coarse verdures of the Eighteenth +Century that were thrown lightly off the looms with transient +interest are sought now for coverings to antique +chairs. To give the unbroken greens more charm, an +occasional bird is snipped from a worn branch where he +has long and mutely reposed, and is posed anew on the +centre of a back or seat. It is the part of the repairer to +see that he looks at home in his new surroundings.</p> + +<p>If metal threads have not been spoken of in this chapter +on <i>modus operandi</i>, it is because metal is so little used +since the time of Louis XV as to warrant omitting it. +And the little that appears seems very different from the +“gold of Cyprus” that made gorgeous and valuable the +tapestries of Arras, of Brussels and of old Paris.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY</h3> + +<h4>A. D. 1066</h4> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">S</span>O long as one word continues to have more than one +meaning, civilised man will continue to gain false +impressions. The word tapestry suffers as much as +any other—witness the attempt made for hundreds of +years among all nations to set apart a word that shall be +used only to designate the hand-woven pictured hangings +and coverings discussed in this book; arras, gobelins, <i>toile +peinte</i>, etc. In English, tapestry may mean almost any +decorative stuff, and so comes it that we speak of the wonderful +hanging which gives name to this chapter as the +tapestry of Bayeux (plates facing pages <a href="#BAYEUX_TAPESTRY01"><b>242</b></a>, +<a href="#BAYEUX_TAPESTRY02"><b>243</b></a> and +<a href="#BAYEUX_TAPESTRY03"><b>244</b></a>), when it is in reality an embroidery. But so much +is it confused with true tapestry, and so poignantly does +it interest the Anglo-Saxon that we will introduce it here, +even while acknowledging its extraneous character.</p> + +<p>To begin with, then, we say frankly that it is not a +tapestry; that it has no place in this book. And then we +will trail its length through a short review of its history +and its interest as a human document of the first order.</p> + +<p>In itself it is a strip of holland—brown, heavy linen +cloth, measuring in length about two hundred and thirty-one +feet, and in width, nineteen and two-thirds inches—remarkable +dimensions which are accounted for in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +neatest way. The hanging was used in the cathedral of +the little French city of Bayeux, draped entirely around +the nave of the Norman Cathedral, which space it exactly +covered. This indicates to archeologists the original purpose +of the hanging.</p> + +<p>On the brown linen is embroidered in coloured wools +a panoramic succession of incidents, with border top and +bottom. The colours are but eight, two shades each of +green and blue, with yellow, dove-colour, red and brown.</p> + +<p>This, in brief, is the great Bayeux tapestry. But its +threads breathe history; its stitches sing romance; and we +who love to touch humorously the spirits of brothers who +lived so long ago, find here the matter that humanly unites +the Eleventh Century with the Twentieth.</p> + +<p>The subject is the conquest of England by William the +Conqueror in 1066. That is fixed beyond a doubt, so that +the precious cloth cannot trail its ends any further back +into antiquity than that event. However, even the most +insatiable antiquarian of European specialties is smilingly +content with such a date.</p> + +<p>Legend has it that Queen Matilda, the wife of the conqueror, +executed the work as an evidence of the devotion +and adulation that were his due and her pleasure: There +are lovely pictures in the mind of Matilda in the safety +of the chambers of the old castle at Caen, directing +each day a corps of lovely ladies in the task of their historic +embroidery, each one sewing into the fabric her +own secret thoughts of lover or husband absent on the +great Conqueror’s business. In absence of direct testimony +to the contrary, why not let us believe this which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +comes as near truth as any legend may, and fits the case +most pleasantly?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BAYEUX_TAPESTRY01" id="BAYEUX_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry105th.jpg" width="400" height="260" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry105.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BAYEUX_TAPESTRY02" id="BAYEUX_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry106th.jpg" width="400" height="278" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry106.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066</p> + +<p>The history it portrays in all its seventy-odd yards is +easy enough to verify. That is like working out a puzzle +with the key in hand. But the history of this keenly interesting +embroidery is not so easy.</p> + +<p>The records are niggardly. Inventories record it in +1369 and 1476. In an inventory of the Bishop of Bayeux +it is mentioned in 1563. About this time it was in ecclesiastical +hands and used for decorating the nave of the +Bayeux Cathedral.</p> + +<p>Then the world forgot it.</p> + +<p>How the world rediscovered that which was never lost +is interesting matter. Here is the story:</p> + +<p>In 1724 an antiquarian found a drawing of about ten +yards long, taken from the tapestry. Here, said he and +his fellow sages, is the drawing of some wonderful, ancient +work of art, most probably a frieze or other decoration +carved in wood or stone. Naturally, the desire was +to find such a monument. But no one could remember +such a carving in any church or castle.</p> + +<p>Father Montfaucon, of Saint Maur, with interest intelligent, +wrote to the prior of St. Vigor’s at Bayeux, and +received the most satisfactory reply, that the drawing represented +not a carving but a hanging in possession of his +church, and associated with many yards more of the same +cloth.</p> + +<p>So all this time the wonderful relic had lain safe in +Bayeux, and never was lost, but only forgotten by outsiders. +The rediscovery, so-called, aroused much +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +comment, and England declared the cloth the noblest monument +of her history.</p> + +<p>It was in use at that time, and after, once a year. It +was hung around the cathedral nave on St. John’s Day, +and left for eight days that all the people might see it.</p> + +<p>The fact that it was not religious in subject, that it +could not possibly be interpreted otherwise than as a secular +history, makes remarkable its place in the cathedral. +This is explained by the suggestion that while Bishop Odo +established that precedent, all others but followed without +thought.</p> + +<p>Since 1724 the world outside of Bayeux has never forgotten +this panorama of a past age, and its history is known +from that time on.</p> + +<p>The Revolution of France had its effect even on this +treasure; or would have had if the clergy had not been +sufficiently capable to defend it. It was hidden in the +depositories of the cathedral until the storm was over.</p> + +<p>It seems there was no treasure in Europe unknown to +Napoleon. He commanded in 1803 that the Bayeux +tapestry, of which he had heard so much, be brought to +the National Museum for his inspection. The playwrights +of Paris seized on the pictured cloth as material +for their imagination, and, refusing to take seriously the +crude figures, wrote humorously of Matilda eternally at +work over her ridiculous task, surrounded with simple +ladies equally blind to art and nature. It is only too easy +to let humour play about the ill-drawn figures. They +must be taken grandly serious, or ridicule will thrust +tongue in cheek. It is to these French plays of 1804 that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +we owe the firmness of the tradition that Queen Matilda +in 1066 worked the embroidery.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="BAYEUX_TAPESTRY03" id="BAYEUX_TAPESTRY03"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry107th.jpg" width="400" height="263" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry107.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066</p> + +<p>Napoleon returned the cloth to Bayeux, not to the +church, but to the Hotel de Ville, in which manner it +became the property of the civil authorities, instead of +the ecclesiastic. It was rolled on cylinders, that by an +easy mechanism it might be seen by visitors. But the +fabric suffered much by the handling of a curious public. +Even the most enlightened and considerate hands can +break threads which time has played with for eight centuries.</p> + +<p>It was decided, therefore, to give the ancient <i>toile +fatiguée</i> a quiet, permanent home. For this purpose a +museum was built, and about 1835 the great Bayeux +tapestry was carefully installed behind glass, its full length +extended on the walls for all to see who journey thither +and who ring the guardian’s bell at the courtyard’s handsome +portico.</p> + +<p>Once since then, once only, has the venerable fabric +left its cabinet. This was at the time of the Prussians +when, in 1871, France trembled for even her most intimate +and special treasures.</p> + +<p>The tapestry was taken from its case, rolled with care +and placed in a zinc cylinder, hermetically sealed. Then +it was placed far from harm; but exactly where, is a +secret that the guardians of the tapestry do well to conserve. +There might be another trouble, and asylum +needed for the treasure in the future.</p> + +<p>The pictures of the great embroidery are such as a child +might draw, for crudeness; but the archeologist knows +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +how to read into them a thousand vital points. History +helps out, too, with the story of Harold, moustached like +the proper Englishman of to-day, taking a commission +from William, riding gaily out on a gentleman’s errand, +not a warrior’s. This is shown by the falcon on his wrist, +that wonderful bird of the Middle Ages that marked the +gentleman by his associations, marked the high-born man +on an errand of peace or pleasure.</p> + +<p>In these travelling days, no sooner do we land in Normandy +than Mount St. Michael looms up as a happy +pilgrimage. So to the same religious refuge Harold +went on the pictured cloth, crossed the adjacent river in +peril, and—how pleasingly does the past leap up and tap +the present—he floundered in the quicksands that surround +the Mount, and about which the driver of your +carriage across the <i>passerelle</i> will tell you recent tales +of similar flounderings.</p> + +<p>And when in Brittany, who does not go to tumbley-down +Dinan to see its ancient gates and walls, its palaces +of Queen Anne, its lurching crowd of houses? It is +thither that Harold, made of threads of ancient wool, +sped and gave battle after the manner of his time.</p> + +<p>Another link to make us love this relic of the olden +time: It is the star, the star so great that the space of +the picture is all too small to place it; so the excited hands +of the embroiderers set it outside the limit, in the border.</p> + +<p>It flames over false Harold’s head and he remembers +sombrely that it is an omen of a change of rule. He is +king now, has usurped a throne, has had himself crowned. +But for how long is he monarch, with this flaming menace +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +burning into his courage? The year finishing saw the +prophecy fulfilled by the coming of the conqueror.</p> + +<p>It was this section of the tapestry that, when it came +to Paris, had power to startle Napoleon, ever superstitious, +ever ready to read signs. The star over Harold’s +head reminded him of the possible brevity of his own +eminence.</p> + +<p>The star that blazed in 1066—we have found it. It +was not imaginary. Behold how prettily the bits of history +fit together, even though we go far afield to find those +bits. This one comes from China. Records were better +kept there in those times than in Christian Europe; and +the Chinese astronomers write of a star appearing April +2, 1066, which was seen first in the early morning sky, +then after a time disappeared to reappear in the evening +sky, with a flaming tail, most agreeably sensational. It +was Halley’s comet, the same that we watched in 1910 +with no superstitious fear at all for princes nor for powers. +But it is interesting to know that our modern comet +was recorded in China in the Eleventh Century, and has +its portrait on the Bayeux tapestry, and that it frightened +the great Harold into a fit of guilty conscience.</p> + +<p>The archeologist gives reason for the faith that is in +him concerning the Bayeux tapestry by reading the language +of its details, such as the style of arms used by its +preposterous soldiers; by gestures; by groupings of its +figures; and we are only too glad to believe his wondrous +deductions.</p> + +<p>There are in all fifteen hundred and twelve figures in +this celebrated cloth, if one includes birds, beasts, boats, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +<i>et cetera</i>, with the men; and amidst all this elongated +crowd is but one woman. Queen Matilda, left at home +for months, immured with her ladies, probably had quite +enough of women to refrain easily from portraying them. +Needless to say, this one embroidered lady interests poignantly +the archeologist.</p> + +<p>Most of the animals are in the border—active little +beasts who make a running accompaniment to the tale +they adorn. This excepts the very wonderful horses ridden +by knights of action.</p> + +<p>Scenes of the pictured history of William’s conquest +are divided one from the other by trees. Possibly the +archeologist sees in these evidences of extinct varieties, +for not in all this round, green world do trees grow like +unto those of the Bayeux tapestry. They are dream +trees from the gardens of the Hesperides, and set in useful +decoration to divide event from event and to give sensations +to the student of the tree in ornament.</p> + +<p>Such is the Bayeux tapestry, which, as was conscientiously +forewarned, is not a tapestry at all, but the most +interesting embroidery of Europe.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>TO-DAY</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE making of inspired tapestry does not belong to +to-day. The <i>amour propre</i> suffers a distinct pain +in this acknowledgment. It were far more agreeable +to foster the feeling that this age is in advance of +any other, that we are at the front of the world’s progress.</p> + +<p>So we are in many matters, but those matters are all +bent toward one thing—making haste. Economy of time +occupies the attention of scientist, inventor, labourer. +Yet a lavish expenditure of time is the one thing the perfect +tapestry inexorably demands, and that is the fundamental +reason why it cannot now enter a brilliant period +of production like those of the past.</p> + +<p>It is not that one atelier cannot find enough weavers to +devote their lives to sober, leisurely production; it is that +the stimulating effect is gone, of a craft eagerly pursued +in various centres, where guilds may be formed, where +healthy rivalry spurs to excellence, where the world of +the fine arts is also vitally concerned.</p> + +<p>The great hangings of the past were the natural expression +of decoration in those days, the natural demand of +pomp, of splendour and of comfort. As in all things +great and small, the act is but the visible expression of +an inward impulse, and we of to-day have not the spirit +that expresses itself in the reverent building of cathedrals, +or in the inspired composition of tapestries.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +This is to be entirely distinguished from appreciation. +That gift we have, and it is momentarily increasing. To +be entirely commercial, which view is of course not the +right one, one need only watch the reports of sales at +home and abroad to see what this latter-day appreciation +means in pelf. In England a tapestry was recently unearthed +and identified as one of the series of seven woven +for Cardinal Woolsey. It is not of extraordinary size, +but was woven in the interesting years hovering above +and below the century mark of 1500. The time was when +public favour spoke for the upholding of morality with +a conspicuousness which could be called Puritanism, were +the anachronism possible. Pointing a moral was the +fundamental excuse for pictorial art. This tapestry represents +one of <i>The Seven Deadly Sins</i>. Hampton Court +displays the three other known pieces of the series, and +he who harbours this most recent discovery has paid +$33,000 for the privilege.</p> + +<p>But that is a tiny sum compared to the price that rumour +accredits Mr. Morgan with paying for <i>The Adoration +of the Eternal Father</i> (called also <i>The Kingdom of +Heaven</i>). And this is topped by $750,000 paid for a +Boucher set of five pieces. One might continue to enumerate +the sales where enormous sums are laid down in +appreciation of the men whose excellence of work we +cannot achieve, but these sums paid only show with pathetic +discouragement the completeness with which the +spirit of commercialism has replaced the spirit of art, at +least in the expression of art that occupies our attention.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 373px;"> +<a name="MODERN_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY01" id="MODERN_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY01"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry108th.jpg" width="373" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry108.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="MODERN_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY02" id="MODERN_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY02"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry109th.jpg" width="400" height="258" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry109.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION</p> + +<p>If, then, this is not an age of production, but of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +appreciation, it, too, has its natural expression. First it is the +acquiring at any sacrifice of the ancient hangings wherever +they are found; and after that it is their restoration +and preservation. This is the reason for recent high +prices and the reason, too, for the establishment of ateliers +of repair, which are found in all large centres in Europe +as well as wherever any important museum exists in +America.</p> + +<p>It would not be possible nor profitable to dwell on the +tapestry repair shops of Europe. They have always been; +the industry is one that has existed since the Burgundian +dukes tore holes in their magnificent tapestries by dragging +them over the face of Europe, and since Henry the +Eighth, in eager imitation of the continentals, established +in the royal household a supervisor of tapestry repairs. +Paris is full of repairers, and in the little streets on the +other side of the Seine old women sit in doorways on a +sunny day, defeating the efforts of time to destroy the +loved <i>toiles peintes</i>. But this haphazard repair, done on +the knee, as a garment might be mended, is not comparable +to the careful, exact work of the restorer at her frame. +One ranks as woman’s natural task of nine stitches, while +the other is the work of intelligent patience and skilled +endeavour.</p> + +<p>Wherever looms are set up, a department of repair is +the logical accompaniment. As every tapestry taken +from the loom appears punctured with tiny slits, places +left open in the weaving, and as all of these need careful +sewing before the tapestry is finished, a corps of needlewomen +is a part of a loom’s equipment. This is true in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +all but the ateliers of the Merton Abbey factory, of which +we shall speak later.</p> + +<p>Apart from repairs, what is being done in the present +day? So little that historians of the future are going to +find scant pickings for their record.</p> + + +<h4>FRANCE</h4> + +<p>The Gobelins factory being the last one to make a permanent +contribution to art, the impulse is to ask what +it is doing now. That is easily answered, but there is +no man so optimistic that he can find therein matter for +hope.</p> + +<p>France is commendably determined not to let the great +industry die. It would seem a loss of ancient glory to +shut down the Gobelins. Yet why does it live? It lives +because a body of men have the patriotic pride to keep +it alive. But as for its products, they are without inspiration, +without beauty to the eye trained to higher expressions +of art.</p> + +<p>The Gobelins to-day is almost purely a museum, not +only in the treasures it exposes in its collection of ancient +“toiles,” but because here is preserved the use of the high-warp +loom, and the same method of manufacture as in +other and better times. A crowd of interested folk drift +in and out between the portals, survey the Pavilion of +Louis XIV and the court, the garden and the stream, then, +turning inside, the modern surveys the work of the ancient, +the remnants of time. And no less curious and no +less remote do the old tapestries seem than the atelier +where the high looms rear their cylinders and mute men +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +play their colour harmonies on the warp. It all seems +of other times; it all seems dead. And it is a dead art.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 282px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY05" id="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY05"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry110th.jpg" width="282" height="400" alt="" /> + <span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry110.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Luxembourg, Paris</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 284px;"> +<a name="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY06" id="GOBELINS_TAPESTRY06"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry111th.jpg" width="284" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry111.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY</p> + +<p class="incaption">Pantheon, Paris</p> + +<p>The tapestries on the looms are garish, crude, modern +art in its cheapest expression; or else they are brilliant-hued +copies of time-softened paintings that were never +meant to be translated into wool and silk.</p> + +<p>The looms are always busy, nevertheless. There is +always preserved a staff of officers, the director, the chemist +of dyes, and all that; and the tapissiers are careful +workmen, with perfection, not haste, in view. The State +directs the work, the State pays for it, the State consumes +the products. That is the Republic’s way of continuing +the craft that was the serious pleasure of kings. But +there is now no personal element to give it the vital touch. +There is no Gabrielle d’Estrées, nor Henri IV; no +Medici, no Louis XIV, no Pompadour. All is impersonal, +uninspired.</p> + +<p>Men who have worked in the deadening influence of +the Gobelins declare that the factory cannot last much +longer. But it is improbable that France—Republican +France, that holds with bourgeois tenacity to aristocratic +evidences—will abandon this, her expensive toy, her inheritance +of the time of kings.</p> + +<p>In the time of the Second Empire it was the fashion +to copy, at the Gobelins, the portraits of celebrated +personages executed by Winterhalter. The exquisite +portrait of the beautiful Empress Eugénie by this delectable +court painter has a delicacy and grace that is all +unhurt by contrast with more modern schools of painting. +But fancy the texture of the lovely flesh copied in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +medium of woven threads, no matter how delicately dyed +and skilfully wrought. Painting is one art, tapestry-making +is entirely another.</p> + +<p>But that is just where the fault lay and continued, the +inability of the Gobelins ateliers to understand that the +two must not be confused. The same false idea that +caused Winterhalter’s portraits to be copied, gave to the +modern tapissiers the paintings of the high Renaissance +to reproduce. Titian’s most celebrated works were set +up on the loom, as for example the beautiful fancy known +as <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, which perplexes the loiterer +of to-day in the Villa Borghese. Other paintings copied +were Raphael’s <i>Transfiguration</i>, Guido René’s <i>Aurora</i>, +Andrea del Sarto’s <i>Charity</i>. There were many more, but +this list gives sufficiently well the condition of inspiration +at the Gobelins up to the third quarter of the Nineteenth +Century.</p> + +<p>Paul Baudry appeared at about this time striking a +clear pure note of delicate decoration. The few panels +that he drew for the Gobelins charm the eye with happy +reminiscences of Lebrun, of Claude Audran, a potpourri +of petals fallen from the roses of yesterday mixed with +the spices of to-day.</p> + +<p>But if the work of this talented artist illustrates anything, +it is the change in the uses of tapestries. The modern +ones are made to be framed, as flat as the wall against +which they are secured. In a word, they take the place +of frescoes. The pleasure of touching a mobile fabric is +lost. A fold in such a dainty piece would break its +beauty. Almost must a woven panel of our day fit the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +panel it fills as exactly as the wood-work of a room fits +its dimensions.</p> + +<p>The Nineteenth Century at the Gobelins was finished +by mistakenly copying Ghirlandajo, Correggio, others of +their time.</p> + +<p>In the beginning of this century, the spirit of pure decoration +again became animated. Instead of copying old +painters, the Gobelins began to copy old cartoons. The +effect of this is to increase the responsibility of the weaver, +and with responsibility comes strength.</p> + +<p>The models of Boucher, and the <i>Grotesques</i> of Italian +Renaissance drawing are given even now to the weavers +as a training in both taste and skill. But better than all +is the present wisdom of the Gobelins, which has directly +faced the fact that it were better to copy the tapestries of +old excellence than to copy paintings of no matter what +altitude of art.</p> + +<p>Modern cartoons are used, as we know, commanded +for various public buildings in France, but the copying +of old tapestries exercises a far happier influence on the +weavers. If this is not an age of creation in art, at least +it need not be an age of false gods, notwithstanding the +seriousness given to distortions of the Matisse and post-impressionist +school.</p> + +<p>A careful copying of old tapestries—and in this case +old means those of the high periods of perfection—has +led to a result from which much may be expected. This +is the enormous reduction in the number of tones used. +Gothic tapestries of stained glass effect had a restricted +range of colour. By this brief gamut the weaver made +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +his own gradations of colour, and the passage from light +to shadow, by hatching, which was in effect but a weaving +of alternating lines of two colours, much as an artist +in pen-and-ink draws parallel lines for shading. Tapestries +thus woven resist well the attacks of light and time.</p> + +<p>To sum up the present attitude of the Gobelins, then, +is to say that the director of to-day encourages the education +of taste in the weavers by encouraging them to copy +old tapestries instead of paintings old or new, and in a +reduction of the number of the tones employed. The +talent of an artist is thus made necessary to the tapissier, +for shadings are left to him to accomplish by his own skill +instead of by recourse to the forty thousand shades that +are stored on the shelves of the store-room.</p> + +<p>The manufactory at Beauvais, being also under the +State, is associated with the greater factory in the glance +at modern conditions. Both factories weave primarily +for the State. Both factories keep alive an ancient industry, +and both have permission to sell their precious +wares to the private client. That such sales are rarely +made is due to the indifference of the State, which stipulates +that its own work shall have first place on the looms, +that only when a loom is idle may it be used for a private +patron. The length of time, therefore, that must elapse +before an order is executed—two or three years, perhaps—is +a tiresome condition that very few will accept.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="THE_ADORATION" id="THE_ADORATION"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry112th.jpg" width="400" height="271" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry112.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE ADORATION</p> + +<p class="incaption">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 396px;"> +<a name="DAVID_INSTRUCTING_SOLOMON" id="DAVID_INSTRUCTING_SOLOMON"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry113th.jpg" width="396" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry113.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE</p> + +<p class="incaption">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist</p> + +<p>Beauvais, with its low-warp looms, is more celebrated +for its small pieces of work than for large hangings. The +tendency toward the latter ended some time ago, and in +our time Beauvais makes mainly those exquisite coverings +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +for seats and screens that give the beholder a thrill +of artistic joy and a determination to possess something +similar. The models of Béhagle, Oudry, Charron are +copied with fidelity to their loveliness, and it is these that +after a few years of wear on furniture take on that mellowness +which long association with human hands alone +can give. It is scarcely necessary to say that antique furniture +tapestry is rare; its use has been too hard to withstand +the years. Therefore, we may with joy and the +complacency of good taste acquire new coverings of the +Don Quixote or Æsop’s Fables designs for our latter-day +furniture or for the fine old pieces from which the original +tapestries have vanished.</p> + + +<h4>ENGLAND</h4> + +<p>The chapter on Mortlake looms shows what was accomplished +by deliberate importation of an art coveted but +not indigenous. It is interesting to compare this with +England’s entirely modern and self-made craft of the last +thirty years. I allude to the tapestry factory established +by William Morris and called Merton Abbey. Mr. +Morris preferred the word arras as attached to his weavings, +tapestry having sometimes the odious modern meaning +of machine-made figured stuffs for any sort of furniture +covering. But as Arras did not invent the high-warp +hand-loom, nor did the Saracens, nor the Egyptians, it +is but quibbling to give it arbitrarily the name of any +particular locale.</p> + +<p>It seems that enough can never be said about the versatility +of William Morris and the strong flood of beauty +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +in design that he sent rippling over arid ground. It were +enough had he accomplished only the work in tapestry. +It is not too strong a statement that he produced at Merton +Abbey the only modern tapestries that fill the primary +requirements of tapestries.</p> + +<p>How did he happen upon it in these latter days? By +worshipping the old hangings of the Gothic perfection, +by finding the very soul of them, of their designers and +of their craftsmen; then, letting that soul enter his, he +set his fingers reverently to work to learn, as well, the +secret of the ancient workman.</p> + +<p>It was as early as 1885 that he began; was cartoonist, +dyer, tapissier, all, for the experiment, which was a small +square of verdure after the manner of the Gothic, curling +big acanthus leaves about a softened rose, a mingling of +greens of ocean and shady reds. Perhaps it was no great +matter in the way of tapestry, but it was to Morris like +the discovery of a new continent to the navigator.</p> + +<p>His was the time of a so-called æsthetic school in England. +Watts, Rossetti and Burne-Jones were harking +back to antiquity for inspiration. Morris associated with +him the latter, who drew wondrous figures of maids and +men and angels, figures filled with the devout spirit of the +time when religion was paramount, and perfect with the +art of to-day.</p> + +<p>The romance of <i>The Holy Grail</i> gave happy theme for +the work, and three beautiful tapestries made the set. +<i>The Adoration of the Magi</i> was another, made for Exeter +College, Oxford. Sir Edward Burne-Jones designed +all these wondrous pictures, and the wisdom of Morris +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +decreed that the <i>Grail</i> series should not be oft repeated. +The first figure tapestry woven on the looms was a fancy +drawn by Walter Crane, called <i>The Goose Girl</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="TRUTH_BLINDFOLDED" id="TRUTH_BLINDFOLDED"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry114th.jpg" width="400" height="355" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry114.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">TRUTH BLINDFOLDED</p> + +<p class="incaption">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist</p> + +<p>The most enchantingly mediæval and most modernly +perfect piece is by Burne-Jones, called <i>David Instructing +Solomon in the Building of the Temple</i>. (Plate facing +page <a href="#DAVID_INSTRUCTING_SOLOMON"><b>257</b></a>.) In this the time of Gothic beauty lives again. +Planes are repeated, figures are massed, detail is clear and +impressive, yet modern laws of drawing concentrate the +interest on the central action as strongly as though all else +were subservient.</p> + +<p><i>The Passing of Venus</i> was Burne-Jones’ last cartoon +for Merton Abbey looms. (Plate facing page <a href="#PASSING_OF_VENUS"><b>260</b></a>.) +Although a critique of the art of this great painter would +be out of place in a book on the applied arts, at least it is +allowable to express the conviction that more beautiful, +more fitting designs for tapestry it would be difficult to +imagine. Modern work of this sort has produced nothing +that approaches them, preserving as they do the sincerity +and reverence of a simple people, the ideality of a conscientious +age, yet softening all technical faults with modern +finish. An unhappy fact is that this tapestry, which +was considered by the Merton Abbey works as its <i>chef +d’œuvre</i>, was destroyed by fire in the Brussels Exhibition +of 1910.</p> + +<p>Alas for tapestry weaving of to-day, the usual modern +cartoon is a staring anachronism, and a conglomerate of +modes. An “art nouveau” lady poses in a Gothic setting, +a Thayer angel stands in a Boucher entourage, and both +eye and intelligence are revolted. The master craftsman +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +and artist, William Morris, alone has known how to produce +acceptable modern work from modern cartoons. +Other examples are <i>Angeli Laudantes</i>, and <i>The Adoration</i>. +(Plates facing pages <a href="#ANGELI_LAUDANTES"><b>261</b></a> and <a href="#THE_ADORATION"><b>256</b></a>.)</p> + +<p>A false note is sometimes struck, even in this factory +of wondrous taste. In <i>Truth Blindfolded</i> (plate facing +page <a href="#TRUTH_BLINDFOLDED"><b>258</b></a>), Mr. Byram Shaw has drawn the central +figure as Cabanel might have done a decade ago, while +every other figure in the group might have been done by +some hand dead these four hundred years.</p> + +<p>Morris’ manner of procedure differed little from that +of the decorator Lebrun, although his work was a private +enterprise and in no way to be compared with the +royal factory of a rich king. Burne-Jones drew the +figures; H. Dearle, a pupil, and Philip Webb drew backgrounds +and animals, but Morris held in his own hands +the arrangement of all. It was as though a gardener +brought in a sheaf of cut roses and the master hand +arranged them. Mr. Dearle directed some compositions +with skill and talent.</p> + +<p>With the passing of William Morris an inevitable +change is visible in the cartoons. The Gothic note is not +continued, nor the atmosphere of sanctity, which is its +usual accompaniment. A tapestry of 1908 from the design +of <i>The Chace</i> by Heyward Sumner suggests long +hours with the Flemish landscapists of the Seventeenth +and Eighteenth Centuries, with a jarring note of Pan +dragged in by the ears to huddle under foliage obviously +introduced for this purpose.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a name="PASSING_OF_VENUS" id="PASSING_OF_VENUS"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry115th.jpg" width="400" height="188" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry115.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE PASSING OF VENUS</p> + +<p class="incaption">Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 254px;"> +<a name="ANGELI_LAUDANTES" id="ANGELI_LAUDANTES"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry116th.jpg" width="254" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry116.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">ANGELI LAUDANTES</p> + +<p class="incaption">Merton Abbey Tapestry</p> + +<p>But criticism of this aberration cannot hurt the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +wondrous inspired work directed by Morris, and which it +were well for a beauty-loving world to have often repeated. +Unhappily, the Merton Abbey works are bound +not to repeat the superb series of the <i>Grail</i>. The entire +set has been woven twice, and three pieces of it a third +time—and there it ends. This is well for the value of the +tapestries, but is it not a providence too thrifty when the +public is considered? In ages to come, perhaps, other +looms will repeat, and our times will glow with the fame +thereof.</p> + +<p>Before leaving the subject of the Merton Abbey tapestries, +it is interesting to note a technical change in the +weaving. By intertwisting the threads of the chain or +warp at the back, a way is found to avoid the slits in weaving +that are left to be sewn together with the needle in all +old work. This method has been proved the stronger of +the two. The strain of hanging proves too great for the +strength of the stitches, and on many a tapestry appear +gaping wounds which call for yet more stitching. But +in the new method the fabric leaves the loom intact.</p> + +<p>The determination of William Morris to catch old +secrets by fitting his feet into old footsteps, led him to +employ only the loom of the best weavers in the ancient +long ago. The high-warp loom is the only one in use +at the Merton Abbey works.</p> + + +<h4>AMERICA</h4> + +<p>America makes heavy demands for tapestries, but the +art of producing them is not indigenous here. We are +not without looms, however. The first piece of tapestry +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +woven in America—to please the ethnologist we will +grant that it was woven by Zuñi or Toltec or other +aborigine. But the fabric approaching that of Arras or +Gobelins, was woven in New York, in 1893, in the looms +of the late William Baumgarten. It is preserved as a +curiosity, as being the first. It is a chair seat woven after +the designs popular with Louis XV and his court, a plain +background of solid colour on which is thrown a floral +ornament.</p> + +<p>The loom was a small affair of the low-warp type, and +was operated by a Frenchman who came to this country +for the purpose of starting the craft on new soil.</p> + +<p>The sequence to this small beginning was the establishment +of tapestry ateliers at Williamsbridge, a suburb of +New York. Like the Gobelins factory, this was located +in an old building on the banks of a little stream, the +Bronx. Workmen were imported, some from Aubusson, +who knew the craft; these took apprentices, as of +old, and trained them for the work. The looms were all +of the low-warp pattern.</p> + +<p>It may be of interest to those who like figures, to know +that the work of the Baumgarten atelier averages in price +about sixty dollars a square yard. Perhaps this will help +a little in deciding whether or not the price is reasonable +when a dealer seductively spreads his ancient wares. +Modern cartoons of the Baumgarten factory lack the +charm of the old designs, but the adaptations and copies +of ancient pieces are particularly happy. No better execution +could be wished for. The factory has increased its +looms to the number of twenty-two, and has its regular +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +corps of tapissiers, dyers, repairers, etc. Nowhere is the +life of the weaver so nearly like that of his prototype in +the golden age of tapestry. The colony on the Bronx is +like a bit of old Europe set intact on American soil.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 336px;"> +<a name="AMERICAN_TAPESTRY" id="AMERICAN_TAPESTRY"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry117th.jpg" width="336" height="400" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry117.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<a name="DRYADS_AND_FAUNS" id="DRYADS_AND_FAUNS"></a> +<img src="images/tapestry118th.jpg" width="500" height="141" alt="" /> +<span class="link"><a href="images/tapestry118.jpg">See larger image</a></span> +</div> + +<p class="caption">DRYADS AND FAUNS</p> + +<p class="incaption">From Herter Looms, New York, 1910</p> + +<p>It is odd that New York should have more tapestry +looms at work than has Paris. The Baumgarten looms +exceed in number the present Gobelins, and the Herter +looms add many more. The ateliers of Albert Herter +are in the busiest part of New York, and here are woven +by hand many fabrics of varying degrees of excellence. +It is not Mr. Herter’s intention to produce only fine wall +hangings, but to supply as well floor coverings “a la façon +de Perse,” as the ancient documents had it, and to make it +possible for persons of taste, but not necessarily fortune, +to have hand-woven portières of artistic value.</p> + +<p>Apart from this commendable aim, the Herter looms +are also given to making copies of the antique in the finest +of weaving, and to producing certain original pieces expressing +the decorative spirit of our day. Besides this, +the work is distinguished by certain combinations of +antique and modern style that confuse the seeker after +purity of style. That the effect is pleasing must be +acknowledged as illustrated in the plate showing a tapestry +for the country house of Mrs. E. H. Harriman. +(Plate facing page <a href="#DRYADS_AND_FAUNS"><b>263</b></a>.) It is not easy in a review of +tapestry weaving of to-day to find any great encouragement.</p> + +<p>These are times of commerce more than of art. If art +can be made profitable commercially, well and good. If +not, it starves in a garret along with the artist. If the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +demand for modern tapestries was large enough, the art +would flourish—perhaps. But it is not a large demand, +for many reasons, chief among which is the incontrovertible +one that the modern work is seldom pleasing. The +whole world is occupied with science and commerce, and +art does not create under their influence as in more ideal +times. What can the trained eye and the cultivated taste +do other than turn back to the products of other days?</p> + +<p>We have artists in our own country whose qualities +would make of them marvellous composers of cartoons. +The imagination and execution of Maxfield Parrish, for +example, added to his richness of colouring, would be +translatable in wool under the hands of an artist-weaver. +And the designs which take the name of “poster” and are +characterised by strength, simplicity and few tones, why +would they not give the same crispness of detail that constitutes +one of the charms of Gothic work? Perhaps the +factories existent in America will work out this line of +thought, combine it with honesty of material and labour, +and give us the honour of prominence in an ancient art’s +revival.</p> + + +<p class="center padtop">FINIS</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">BEST PERIODS AND THEIR DATES</h2> + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Best periods and their dates"> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Earliest Tapestry Looms</td> + <td class="tdl">Prehistoric</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">European Early Attempts</td> + <td class="tdl">Twelfth To Fourteenth Centuries</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Arras and Burgundian Tapestry</td> + <td class="tdl">Early Fifteenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Gothic Perfection, Flanders</td> + <td class="tdl">About Fifteen Hundred</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Gothic Perfection, France</td> + <td class="tdl">About Fifteen Hundred</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Italian Factories</td> + <td class="tdl">Fifteenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Raphael Cartoons in Flanders</td> + <td class="tdl">1515-1519</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Renaissance Perfection, Flanders</td> + <td class="tdl">1515 To Second Half of Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Brussels Mark</td> + <td class="tdl">1528</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Flemish Decadence</td> + <td class="tdl">End of Sixteenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">French Rise</td> + <td class="tdl">End of Sixteenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">French Organisation</td> + <td class="tdl">1597, Reign of Henri IV</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">English Supremacy, Mortlake Established</td> + <td class="tdl">1619</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Establishment of Gobelins</td> + <td class="tdl">1662, Reign of Louis XIV</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Best Heroic Period of Gobelins</td> + <td class="tdl">Last Half of Seventeenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Best Decorative Period of Gobelins</td> + <td class="tdl">Middle of Eighteenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Decadence of Gobelins</td> + <td class="tdl">End of Eighteenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Recent Times, England, Wm. Morris</td> + <td class="tdl">End of Nineteenth Century</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc">Recent Times, America</td> + <td class="tdl">End of Nineteenth Century</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"><!-- blank page --></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="padtop">INDEX</h2> + +<p class="center"> +<a href="#A">A</a> <a href="#B">B</a> <a href="#C">C</a> +<a href="#D">D</a> <a href="#E">E</a> <a href="#F">F</a> +<a href="#G">G</a> <a href="#H">H</a> <a href="#I">I</a> +<a href="#J">J</a> <a href="#K">K</a> <a href="#L">L</a> +<a href="#M">M</a> <a href="#N">N</a> <a href="#O">O</a> +<a href="#P">P</a> <a href="#Q">Q</a> <a href="#R">R</a> +<a href="#S">S</a> <a href="#T">T</a> <a href="#U">U</a> +<a href="#V">V</a> <a href="#W">W</a> <a href="#Z">Z</a> +</p> + + +<p class="index"><a name="A" id="A"></a> +Abbot Robert, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Achilles, Story of</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adelaide, Queen, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Adoration of the Eternal Father, The</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, +<a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Adoration of the Magi, The</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Acts of the Apostles</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, +<a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, +<a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Alcisthenes, Mantle of</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Alexander, History of</i>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, +<a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Alfonso II (d’Este), <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> +<br /> +America, <a href="#Page_261">261-264</a>.<br /> +<br /> +American interest, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Amorini, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Andrea del Sarto, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Angeli Laudantes</i>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Angers, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Angivillier, Count of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, +<a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Annunciation, The</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Antin, Duke d’, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, +<a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, +<a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, +<a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Apocalypse</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, +<a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, +<a href="#Page_217">217</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Apprentices, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Architectural detail, <a href="#Page_177">177-179</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Armide</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Arras, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, +<a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, +<a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, +<a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, +<a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, +<a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, +<a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, +<a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Arazzeria Medicea, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Artemisia, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Artois, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Aubusson, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152-158</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Audran, Claude, <a href="#Page_122">122-124</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126-128</a>, +<a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Audran, Jean, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Aurora</i>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="B" id="B"></a> +Babylon, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bacchiacca, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Backgrounds, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Baillée des Roses</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, +<a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bajazet, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Barberini, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, +<a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Basse lisse, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, +<a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bataille, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, +<a href="#Page_217">217</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Baudry, Paul, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Baumgarten, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, +<a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bayeux Tapestry, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241-248</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Beauvais, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, +<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145-153</a>, +<a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, +<a href="#Page_256">256</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Beaux Art, École des, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Béhagle, Philip, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, +<a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Belle, Augustin, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bellegarde, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Berne, Cathedral of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bernini, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +Berthélemy, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Besnier, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bible, influence of, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bièvre, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, +<a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Blamard, Louis, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Blumenthal collection, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, +<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, +<a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bobbin, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Book of Hours</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Borders, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, +<a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, +<a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188-190</a>, +<a href="#Page_201">201-215</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boston Museum of Fine Arts, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, +<a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Botticelli, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boucher, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, +<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, +<a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boulle, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bourg, Maurice du, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, +<a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Broche, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, +<a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, +<a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bruges, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, +<a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brussels, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, +<a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, +<a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, +<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, +<a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, +<a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-72</a>, +<a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, +<a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, +<a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, +<a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, +<a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, +<a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, +<a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brussels Mark, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Burgundian tapestry, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Burgundy, Dukes of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, +<a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, +<a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, +<a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, +<a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Burne-Jones, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="C" id="C"></a> +Caffieri, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Carron, Antoine, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Carthaginians, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cartoons, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, +<a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, +<a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cartouche, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Casanova, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cellini, Benvenuto, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Charity</i>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charles I, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, +<a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charles V, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charles V, Emperor, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, +<a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, +<a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charles VI, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charles VII, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charles VIII, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charles le Téméraire, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, +<a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, +<a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chef d’atelier, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chicago Institute of Art, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, +<a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +China, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Circe, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Clein, or Cleyn, Francis, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cluny Museum of Paris, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Colbert, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, +<a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, +<a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, +<a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, +<a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, +<a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Colours, <a href="#Page_191">191-193</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, +<a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233-236</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Comans, Charles de, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Comans, or Coomans, Marc, <a href="#Page_95">95-97</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, +<a href="#Page_231">231</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets, The</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Conquest of Tunis</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Constantine, History of</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Copies, <a href="#Page_197">197-200</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Coptic, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cornelisz, Lucas, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Correggio, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cortona, Pietro di, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cosmati brothers, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Costumes, <a href="#Page_181">181-183</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cotte, Jules Robert de, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, +<a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Coypel, Antoine, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Coypel, Charles, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, +<a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, +<a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cozette, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Crane, Richard, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Crane, Sir Francis, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, +<a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Crane, Walter, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Crusades, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Cupid and Psyche</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="D" id="D"></a> +David, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, +<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, +<a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>David Instructing Solomon, etc.</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dearle, H., <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Delacroix, Jean, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Devonshire, Duke of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Diana, History of</i>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Directing artist, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Director, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Directory, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Don Quixote</i>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, +<a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dosso, Battista, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dourdin, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ducal Palace at Nancy, tapestry room of, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, +<a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Du Mons, Jean Joseph, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dupont, Pierre, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dye, scarlet, of the Gobelin brothers, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dyes, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, +<a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dyes at Aubusson, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="E" id="E"></a> +Edward the Confessor, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Egypt, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Egyptian drawing, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Egyptian loom, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Egyptian weaving, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Egyptian work, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Eighteenth Century, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, +<a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, +<a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, +<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, +<a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, +<a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257-261</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Eleventh Century, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Elizabeth, Queen, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Enfants Jardiniers</i>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Enghien, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, +<a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +England, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ercole II (d’Este), <a href="#Page_82">82-84</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Este, d’, <a href="#Page_82">82-84</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Esther and Ahasuerus</i>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Europe, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="F" id="F"></a> +<i>Fables of La Fontaine</i>, <a href="#Page_149">149-152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Felletin, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ferrara, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ffoulke collection, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, +<a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fifteenth Century, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, +<a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, +<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, +<a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, +<a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, +<a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Filleul, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Flanders, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, +<a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, +<a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, +<a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, +<a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Flemish tapestry, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fleur-de-lis, use of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Florence factory, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Flowers, use of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, +<a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Flute, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, +<a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fontainebleau, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +Foucquet, <a href="#Page_100">100-105</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fouquet, Jean, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fourteenth Century, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, +<a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /> +<br /> +France, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, +<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, +<a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252-257</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Francis I, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.<br /> +<br /> +French terms, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Furniture, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, +<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, +<a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, +<a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="G" id="G"></a> +Galloon, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, +<a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, +<a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Genoa, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Germany, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Geubels, Jacques, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ghent, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Giotto, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Giulio Romano, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, +<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, +<a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gobelin, Jean and Philibert, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gobelins, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, +<a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, +<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103-107</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, +<a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115-122</a>, +<a href="#Page_128">128-131</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, +<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137-145</a>, +<a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, +<a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, +<a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, +<a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, +<a href="#Page_252">252</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gobelins Museum (Paris), <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, +<a href="#Page_252">252</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gold, use of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gonnor (Duchess), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gonzaga, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Goose Girl, The</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gothic border, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gothic columns, use of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, +<a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gothic drawing, <a href="#Page_174">174-177</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gothic flowers, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gothic period, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, +<a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, +<a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, +<a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gothic style, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, +<a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Greece, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Greek drawing, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Greek influence, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Grotesque Months</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Guildhall, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Guilds, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="H" id="H"></a> +Halberstadt, Cathedral at, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hallé, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hardwick Hall tapestries, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harriman, Mrs. E. H., <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Haute lisse, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, +<a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Helen, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Helly, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Henri II, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Henri IV, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, +<a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, +<a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, +<a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, +<a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, +<a href="#Page_212">212</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Henry V, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Henry VIII, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Hero and Leander, History of</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Herse and Mercury</i>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Herter, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, +<a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br /> +<br /> +High-loom, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +High-warp, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, +<a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, +<a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, +<a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, +<a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hinart, Louis, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hiss, Philip, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>History of Alexander</i>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, +<a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>History of Constantine</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>History of Esther</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>History of Gideon</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +<i>History of Hero and Leander</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>History of Meleager</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>History of the King</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, +<a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Holy Grail, The</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Horrors of the Seven Deadly Sins, The</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Hunt of Meleager</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Hunts of Louis XV</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="I" id="I"></a> +Identifications, <a href="#Page_172">172-200</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Iliad, influence of, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +India, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Italy, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, +<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, +<a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, +<a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, +<a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="J" id="J"></a> +James I, <a href="#Page_164">164-167</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Jans, Jean, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> +<br /> +John, Revelation of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +<br /> +John without Fear, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Jouvenet, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Judgment of Paris, The</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Jumeau, Pierre le, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="K" id="K"></a> +Karcher, John, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Karcher, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, +<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Kingdom of Heaven, The</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /> +<br /> +King’s Works, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="L" id="L"></a> +<i>Lady and the Unicorn, The</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, +<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, +<a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lancaster, Duke of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /> +<br /> +La Marche, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +<br /> +La Planche, Raphael de, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, +<a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Laurent, Henri, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lebrun, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, +<a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, +<a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109-120</a>, +<a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, +<a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, +<a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lefèvre (or Lefebvre), <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, +<a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leipzig, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leleu, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leo X, Pope, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, +<a href="#Page_86">86</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leonardo da Vinci, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Le Pape, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leprince, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lerambert, Henri, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lettering, <a href="#Page_183">183-184</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leyniers, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Liége, tapestries of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Life of Marie de Medici</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Life of the King</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, +<a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lisse, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Loches, church of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +London, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Long wool” (<i>longue laine</i>), <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Looms, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226-230</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lorenzo the Magnificent, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis XI, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, +<a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, +<a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis XII, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis XIII, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis XIV, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97-107</a>, +<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, +<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, +<a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155-157</a>, +<a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, +<a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, +<a href="#Page_212">212</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis XV, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, +<a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, +<a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, +<a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, +<a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, +<a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis XVI, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, +<a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, +<a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louvois, <a href="#Page_116">116-121</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louvre, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Loves of the Gods</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +Low-warp, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, +<a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, +<a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, +<a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, +<a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="M" id="M"></a> +Maecht, Philip de, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Maincy, factory of. <i>See</i> <a href="#Vaux"><b>Vaux</b></a>.<br /> +<br /> +Maintenon, Mme. de, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, +<a href="#Page_124">124</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mangelschot, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mantegna, Andrea, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, +<a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Manufactory, Royal (Aubusson), <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Marie Antoinette, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, +<a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Marie de Medici, Life of</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Marie Thérèse, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Marks, <a href="#Page_216">216-224</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Martel, Charles, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mary’s Chamber at Holyrood, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Master-weaver, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Matilda (Queen), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, +<a href="#Page_245">245</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Mausolus and Artemisia</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mazarin, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mazarin tapestry, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Medici, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, +<a href="#Page_94">94</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Meleager and Atalanta</i>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Memling, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mercier, Pierre, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Mercury</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, +<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Merton Abbey, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257-261</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Metropolitan Museum of Art, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, +<a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, +<a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, +<a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, +<a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, +<a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, +<a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Meulen, François de la, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Michael Angelo, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Micou, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Middle Ages, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, +<a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, +<a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, +<a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mignard, Pierre, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, +<a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Millefleurs, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Missals, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Monasteries, influence of, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Montespan, Mme. de, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, +<a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Montezert, Pierre de, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Months, The</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, +<a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Morgan, J. P., <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, +<a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, +<a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Morris, William, <a href="#Page_257">257-261</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mortlake, <a href="#Page_163">163-171</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mozin, Jean Baptiste, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Muses</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Museums, Boston Fine Arts, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, +<a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br /> +<span class="in1">Chicago Institute of Art, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, +<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br /> +<span class="in1">Cluny, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> +<span class="in1">Gobelins (Paris), <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, +<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</span><br /> +<span class="in1">Metropolitan (New York), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, +<a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, +<a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, +<a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, +<a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, +<a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, +<a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br /> +<span class="in1">Nancy, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ, The</i>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, +<a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="N" id="N"></a> +Nancy, Museum of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Nantes, Edict of; its effect, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, +<a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Napoleon, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, +<a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, +<a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Napoleon Crossing the Alps</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Natoire, Charles, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Neilson, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Nineteenth Century, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Notre Dame, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="O" id="O"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +Otho, Count of Burgundy, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Oudenarde, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Oudry, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148-152</a>, +<a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="P" id="P"></a> +Pannemaker, Wilhelm de, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, +<a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Paris, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, +<a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, +<a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, +<a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, +<a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, +<a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Parrish, Maxfield, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Parrocel, Charles, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Passing of Venus, The</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pendleton, Charlotte, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Penelope, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, +<a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pepersack, Daniel, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Percier, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“<i>Perse, à la façon de, ou du Levant</i>,” +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Persia, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Personages, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Perspective, <a href="#Page_175">175-177</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pharaohs, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Philip the Good, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Philip the Hardy, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, +<a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, +<a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Philippe (Regent), <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, +<a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, +<a href="#Page_236">236</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pickering, Sir Gilbert, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pius X, Pope, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Planche, François de la, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, +<a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Poitiers, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, +<a href="#Page_155">155</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Poitou, Count of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Portières des Dieux</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Portraits, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, +<a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, +<a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Presentation in the Temple, The</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="Q" id="Q"></a> +Quedlimburg Hanging, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Quentin Matsys, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="R" id="R"></a> +Raphael, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, +<a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, +<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, +<a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, +<a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, +<a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, +<a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, +<a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, +<a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ravaillac, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Renaissance, influence of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, +<a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, +<a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, +<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, +<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, +<a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, +<a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, +<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, +<a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, +<a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Renommés, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Repairs, <a href="#Page_237">237-240</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Revolution, French, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, +<a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, +<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Reward of Virtue, The</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rheims, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Richelieu, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Riesner, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Riviera, Giacomo della, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rococo, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Roman influence, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Romanelli, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, +<a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Romano, Giulio, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, +<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, +<a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rome, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rome, Jean de, or Jan von Room, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, +<a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rost, John, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, +<a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rouen, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Royal Collection, Madrid, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Royal Hunts, The</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Royal Residences, The</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, +<a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rubens, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, +<a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, +<a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, +<a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, +<a href="#Page_214">214</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> +Ryerson collection, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, +<a href="#Page_61">61</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ryswick, Peace of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="S" id="S"></a> +<i>Sack of Jerusalem, The</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Sacraments, The</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, +<a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Denis, abbey of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Florent, Abbot of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Germain, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. John the Divine, Cathedral of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, +<a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Marceau, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Merri, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Saracens, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, +<a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sarrazinois, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, +<a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Saumur, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Savonnerie, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-162</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Seasons, The</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Seven Cardinal Virtues, The</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Seven Cardinal Vices, The</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Seven Deadly Sins, The</i>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Seventeenth Century, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, +<a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, +<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, +<a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, +<a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, +<a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, +<a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, +<a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sevigné, Mme. de, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sforza Castle, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Shaw, Byram, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Shuttle, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Siege of Calais</i>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Silver, use of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sixteenth Century, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, +<a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, +<a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, +<a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, +<a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, +<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sorel, Agnes, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Spain, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Spitzer, collection of Baron, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, +<a href="#Page_61">61</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Spring</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stockholm, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Story of Christ, The</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Stromaturgie, La,” <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stradano, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sully, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, +<a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sumner, Howard, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="T" id="T"></a> +Tapissiers, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, +<a href="#Page_228">228</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tenth Century, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tessier, Louis, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Thirteenth Century, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, +<a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Titian, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tournelles, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tours, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Transfiguration, The</i>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Très Riches Heures, Les,” <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Trinité, Hôpital de la, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, +<a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, +<a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Triumph of Cæsar, The</i>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Triumph of Right, The</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Triumphs of the Gods</i>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Troy, History of</i>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Troy, J. F. de, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Truth Blindfolded</i>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tuileries, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tuscans, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Twelfth Century, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="U" id="U"></a> +Urban VIII, History of, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Urbino, Duke Frederick of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="V" id="V"></a> +Vallière, Mme. de la, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Van Aelst, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, +<a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, +<a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +Van den Strecken, Gerard, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Van der Straaten, Johan, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Van Dyck, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Van Eycks, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, +<a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Van Orley, Bernard, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<a name="Vaux" id="Vaux"></a>Vaux, factory of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, +<a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, +<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Venice, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Venus</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Verdure, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, +<a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vermeyen, Jan, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Veronese, Paolo, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Versailles, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Vertumnus and Pomona, The Loves of</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, +<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vignory, Count of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Virgin and Saints</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Visit of Louis XIV to the Gobelins</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Von Zedlitz, Anna, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vouet, Simon, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Vulcan, The Expulsion of</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Vulcan, Story of</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</p> + +<p class="index"><a name="W" id="W"></a> +Warp, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Watteau, André, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wauters, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Weave, <a href="#Page_194">194-196</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Weavers, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Webb, Philip, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +<br /> +William the Conqueror, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Williamsbridge, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Winterhalter, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Woolsey, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</p> + +<p class="index" style="padding-bottom: 3em;"><a name="Z" id="Z"></a> +Zègre, Jean, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</p> + + + +<div class="bbox"> +<p><b>Transcriber's Note</b></p> + +<p>Minor typographic errors of spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have +been repaired. Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as printed.</p> + +<p>The following errors in facing page number references have been repaired:</p> + +<div class="amends"> +<p>Page <a href="#Page_61">61</a>—plate reference to page 81 amended to 82.</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_76">76</a>—plate references for the "Vertumnus and Pomona" series amended +from 39 through 42 to 72 through 75.</p> +</div> + +<p>Alphabetic links have been added to the index for ease of navigation.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Tapestry Book, by Helen Churchill Candee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TAPESTRY BOOK *** + +***** This file should be named 26151-h.htm or 26151-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/1/5/26151/ + +Produced by Eileen Gormly, Alicia Williams (who did the +scanning, image prep, and OCR), Sam W. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tapestry Book + +Author: Helen Churchill Candee + +Release Date: July 30, 2008 [EBook #26151] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TAPESTRY BOOK *** + + + + +Produced by Eileen Gormly, Alicia Williams (who did the +scanning, image prep, and OCR), Sam W. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE + TAPESTRY + BOOK + + + BY + + HELEN CHURCHILL CANDEE + + AUTHOR OF "DECORATIVE STYLES AND PERIODS" + + +_WITH FOUR PLATES IN COLOUR AND NINETY-NINE + ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE_ + + + NEW YORK + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + MCMXII + + + + + [Illustration: HERSE AND MERCURY + + Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de Pannemaker, + weaver. + + Collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., New York] + + + + +_Copyright, 1912, +by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign +languages, including the Scandinavian_ + +_October, 1912_ + + + + + TO + TWO CERTAIN BYZANTINE MADONNAS + AND THEIR OWNERS + + + + +AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +Modesty so dominates the staff in art museums that I am requested not +to make mention of those officers who have helped me with friendly +courtesy and efficiency. To the officers and assistants at the +Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, +the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Print Department in the +Library of Congress in Washington, indebtedness is here publicly +acknowledged with the regret that I may not speak of individuals. +Photographs of tapestries are credited to Messrs. A. Giraudon, Paris; +J. Laurent, Madrid; Alinari, Florence; Wm. Baumgarten, and Albert +Herter, New York, and to those private collectors whose names are +mentioned on the plates. + + H. C. C. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I A FOREWORD 1 + + II ANTIQUITY 15 + + III MODERN AWAKENING 25 + + IV FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 15TH CENTURY 32 + + V HIGH GOTHIC 51 + + VI RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE 64 + + VII RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS 72 + + VIII ITALY, 15TH THROUGH 17TH CENTURIES 81 + + IX FRANCE 90 + + X THE GOBELINS FACTORY 105 + + XI THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 117 + + XII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 126 + + XIII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 135 + + XIV BEAUVAIS 145 + + XV AUBUSSON 154 + + XVI SAVONNERIE 159 + + XVII MORTLAKE 163 + + XVIII IDENTIFICATIONS 172 + + XIX IDENTIFICATIONS (_Continued_) 186 + + XX BORDERS 201 + + XXI TAPESTRY MARKS 216 + + XXII HOW IT IS MADE 226 + + XXIII THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY 241 + + XXIV TO-DAY 249 + + BEST PERIODS AND THEIR DATES 265 + + INDEX 267 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + HERSE AND MERCURY (_Coloured Plate_) _Frontispiece_ + Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de + Pannemaker, weaver. Collection of George Blumenthal, + Esq., New York + + FACING PAGE + + CHINESE TAPESTRY 14 + Chien Lung Period + + COPTIC TAPESTRY 15 + About 300 A. D. + + COPTIC TAPESTRY 16 + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + COPTIC TAPESTRY 17 + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU 18 + Date prior to Sixteenth Century + + THE SACRAMENTS (_Coloured Plate_) 34 + Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, + New York + + THE SACRAMENTS 38 + Arras Tapestry, about 1430 + + THE SACRAMENTS 39 + Arras Tapestry, about 1430 + + FIFTEENTH CENTURY, FRENCH TAPESTRY 40 + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + THE LIFE OF CHRIST 41 + Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. + Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + LA BAILLEE DES ROSES 42 + French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, + New York + + FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS 43 + Cathedral of Troyes + + THE LADY AND THE UNICORN 44 + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musee de Cluny, Paris + + THE LADY AND THE UNICORN 45 + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musee de Cluny, Paris + + THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL) 46 + Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of + Art, New York + + SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS 48 + Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, + Chicago + + HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN 49 + Angers Cathedral + + DAVID AND BATHSHEBA 50 + German Tapestry, about 1450 + + FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500 51 + Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq. + + DAVID AND BATHSHEBA 52 + Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century + + HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN 53 + Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century + + VERDURE 54 + French Gothic Tapestry + + "ECCE HOMO" 55 + Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of + Art, New York + + ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT 56 + Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. + Hoyt, Esq. + + CROSSING THE RED SEA 57 + Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts + + THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 58 + Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont + Morgan, Esq., New York + + FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY 60 + Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly + in the Spitzer Collection + + THE HOLY FAMILY 61 + Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection + of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the + Spitzer Collection + + CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL) 62 + Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal + Collection at Madrid + + DEATH OF ANANIAS.--FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY RAPHAEL 64 + From the Palace of Madrid + + THE STORY OF REBECCA 65 + Brussels Tapestry, Sixteenth Century. Collection of + Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston + + THE CREATION 66 + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century + + THE ORIGINAL SIN 67 + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century + + MELEAGER AND ATALANTA 68 + Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. + Woven in Paris workshops by Charles de Comans + + PUNIC WAR SERIES 69 + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of + Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston + + EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CAESAR 70 + Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the + Arazzi, Florence + + WILD BOAR HUNT 71 + Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery + of the Arazzi, Florence + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 72 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 73 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 74 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 75 + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of + Madrid + + TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED 76 + Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid + + THE STORY OF REBECCA 77 + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of + Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston + + BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 78 + Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago + + MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 79 + Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. + Cartoon attributed to Rubens + + THE ANNUNCIATION (_Coloured Plate_) 82 + Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of + Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago + + ITALIAN TAPESTRY, MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 84 + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher + + ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 85 + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost + + ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 86 + + THE FINDING OF MOSES 90 + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. + The Louvre Museum + + TRIUMPH OF JUNO 91 + Gobelins under Louis XIV + + TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) 94 + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century + + TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) 95 + Gobelins Tapestry + + GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 98 + + CHILDREN GARDENING 99 + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. + Chateau Henri Quatre, Pau + + CHILDREN GARDENING 102 + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. + Chateau Henri Quatre, Pau + + GOBELINS GROTESQUE 103 + Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV 104 + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York + + THE VILLAGE FETE 105 + Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers + + DESIGN BY RUBENS 110 + + DESIGN BY RUBENS 111 + + DESIGN BY RUBENS 112 + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS 113 + Royal Collection, Madrid + + LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY 114 + Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV 126 + + HUNTS OF LOUIS XV 130 + Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry + + ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES 131 + Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; + G. Audran, weaver + + CUPID AND PSYCHE 132 + Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel + + PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA 133 + Gobelins under Louis XVI. + + CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV 136 + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISEE. STYLE LOUIS XV 137 + + HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS 146 + Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent + + HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D'ESTREES 147 + Design by Vincent + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 148 + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI 149 + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV 150 + + BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY 152 + + CHAIR COVERING 153 + Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire + + SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV 162 + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York + + VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 163 + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York + + VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 168 + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York + + VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 169 + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York + + THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS (_Coloured Plate_) 170 + + WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO 228 + + SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS 229 + + BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 230 + + BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON 231 + + BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON 234 + + BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 242 + + BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 243 + + BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 244 + + MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION 250 + + MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION 251 + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 252 + Luxembourg, Paris + + GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 253 + Pantheon, Paris + + THE ADORATION 256 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones + + DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE 257 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist + + TRUTH BLINDFOLDED 258 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist + + THE PASSING OF VENUS 260 + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones + + ANGELI LAUDANTES 261 + Merton Abbey Tapestry + + AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC 262 + + DRYADS AND FAUNS 263 + From Herter Looms, New York, 1910 + + + + +THE TAPESTRY BOOK + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A FOREWORD + + +The commercial fact that tapestries have immeasurably increased in +value within the last five years, would have little interest were it +not that this increase is the direct result of America's awakened +appreciation of this form of art. It has come about in these latter +days that tapestries are considered a necessity in the luxurious and +elegant homes which are multiplying all over our land. And the +enormous demand thus made on the supply, has sent the prices for rare +bits into a dizzy altitude, and has made even the less perfect pieces +seem scarce and desirable. + +The opinion of two shrewd men of different types is interesting as +bearing on the subject of tapestries. One with tastes fully cultivated +says impressively, "Buy good old tapestries whenever you see them, for +there are no more." The other says bluffly, "Tapestries? You can't +touch 'em. The prices have gone way out of sight, and are going higher +every day." The latter knows but one view, the commercial, yet both +are right, and these two views are at the bottom of the present keen +interest in tapestries in our country. Outside of this, Europe has +collections which we never can equal, and that thought alone is +enough to make us snatch eagerly at any opportunity to secure a piece. +We may begin with our ambition set on museum treasures, but we can +come happily down to the friendly fragments that fit our private +purses and the wall-space by the inglenook. + +Tapestries are not to be bought lightly, as one buys a summer coat, to +throw aside at the change of taste or circumstance. They demand more +of the buyer than mere money; they demand that loving understanding +and intimate appreciation that exists between human friends. A +profound knowledge of tapestries benefits in two ways, by giving the +keenest pleasure, and by providing the collector--or the purchaser of +a single piece--with a self-protection that is proof against fraud, +unconscious or deliberate. + +The first step toward buying must be a bit of pleasant study which +shall serve in the nature of self-defence. Not by books alone, +however, shall this subject be approached, but by happy jaunts to +sympathetic museums, both at home and abroad, by moments snatched from +the touch-and-go talk of afternoon tea in some friend's salon or +library, or by strolling visits to dealers. These object lessons +supplement the book, as a study of entomology is enlivened by a chase +for butterflies in the flowery meads of June, or as botany is made +endurable by lying on a bank of violets. All work and no play not only +makes Jack a dull boy, but makes dull reading the book he has in hand. + +The tale of tapestry itself carries us back to the unfathomable East +which has a trick at dates, making the Christian Era a modern epoch, +and making of us but a newly-sprung civilisation in the history of the +old grey world. After showing us that the East pre-empted originality +for all time, the history of tapestry lightly lifts us over a few +centuries and throws us into the romance of Gothic days, then trails +us along through increasing European civilisation up to the great +awakening, the Renaissance. Then it loiters in the pleasant ways of +the kings of France during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, +and finally falls upon modern effort, not limited to Europe now, but +nesting also in the New World which is especially our own. + +Tapestry, according to the interpretation of the word used in this +book, is a pictured cloth, woven by an artist or a talented craftsman, +in which the design is an integral part of the fabric, and not an +embroidery stitched on a basic tissue. With this flat statement the +review of tapestries from antiquity until our time may be read without +fear of mistaking the term. + + +THE LOOM + +The looms on which tapestries are made are such as have been known as +long as the history of man is known, but we have come to call them +high-warp and low-warp, or as the French have it, _haute lisse_ and +_basse lisse_. In the celebrated periods of weaving the high loom has +been the one in use, and to it is accredited a power almost +mysterious; yet the work of the two styles of loom are not +distinguishable by the weave alone, and it is true that the low-warp +looms were used in France when the manufacture of tapestries was +permanently established by the Crown about 1600. So difficult is it to +determine the work of the two looms that weavers themselves could not +distinguish without the aid of a red thread which they at one time +wove in the border. Yet because the years of the highest perfection in +tapestries have been when the high loom was in vogue, some peculiar +power is supposed to reside within it. That the high movements of the +fine arts have been contemporary with perfection in tapestries, seems +not to be taken into consideration. + + +NECESSARY FRENCH TERMS + +French terms belong so much to the art of tapestry weaving that it is +hard to find their English equivalent. Tapestries of _verdure_ and of +_personnages_ describe the two general classes, the former being any +charming mass of greenery, from the Gothic _millefleurs_, and curling +leaves with animals beneath, to the lovely landscapes of sophisticated +park and garden which made Beauvais famous in the Eighteenth Century. +_Tapisseries des personnages_ have, as the name implies, the human +figure as the prominent part of the design. The shuttle or bobbin of +the high loom is called a _broche_, and that of the low loom a +_flute_. Weavers throughout Europe, whether in the Low Countries or in +France, were called _tapissiers_, and this term was so liberal as to +need explaining. + + +WORKERS' FUNCTIONS + +The tapestry factory was under the guidance of a director; under him +were the various persons required for the work. Each tapestry woven +had a directing artist, as the design was of primary importance. This +man had the power to select the silks and wools for the work, that +they might suit his eye as to colour. But there was also a _chef +d'atelier_ who was an artist weaver, and he directed this matter and +all others when the artist of the cartoons was not present. Under him +were the tapissiers who did the actual weaving, and under these, +again, were the apprentices, who began as boys and served three years +before being allowed to try their hands at a "'prentice job" or essay +at finished work. + + +WEAVERS + +The word weaver means so little in these days that it is necessary to +consider what were the conditions exacted of the weavers of tapestries +in the time of tapestry's highest perfection. A tapissier was an +artist with whom a loom took place of an easel, and whose brush was a +shuttle, and whose colour-medium was thread instead of paints. This +places him on a higher plane than that of mere weaver, and makes the +term tapissier seem fitter. Much liberty was given him in copying +designs and choosing colours. In the Middle Ages, when the Gothic +style prevailed, the master-weaver needed often no other cartoon for +his work than his own sketches enlarged from the miniatures found in +the luxurious missals of the day. These historic books were the +luxuries of kings, were kept with the plate and jewels, so precious +were considered their exquisitely painted scenes in miniature. From +them the master-weaver drew largely for such designs as _The Seven +Deadly Sins_ and other "morality" subjects. + +Master-weavers were many in the best years of tapestry weaving; +indeed, a man must have attained the dignity and ability of that +position before being able to produce those marvels of skill which +were woven between 1475 and 1575 in Flanders, France and Italy. Their +aids, the apprentices, pique the fancy, as Puck harnessed to labour +might do. They were probably as mischievous, as shirking, as +exasperating as boys have ever known how to be, but those little +unwilling slaves of art in the Middle Ages make an appeal to the +imagination more vivid than that of the shabby lunch-box boy of +to-day. + + +DYERS + +Accessory to the weavers, and almost as important, were the dyers who +prepared the thread for use. The conscientiousness of their work cries +out for recognition when the threads they dyed are almost unaltered in +colour after five hundred years of exposure to their enemies, light +and air. Dye stuffs were precious in those days, and so costly that +even threads of gold and silver (which in general were supplied by the +client ordering the tapestry) hardly exceeded in value certain dyed +wools and silk. All of these workers, from director down to +apprenticed lad, were bound by the guild to do or not do, according to +its infinite code, to the end that the art of tapestry-making be held +to the highest standards. The laws of the guilds make interesting +reading. The guild prevailed all over Europe and regulated all crafts. +In Florence even to-day evidences of its power are on every side, and +the Guildhall in London attests its existence there. Moreover, the +greatest artists belonged to the guilds, uniting themselves usually by +work of the goldsmith, as Benvenuto Cellini so quaintly describes in +his naive autobiography. + + +GUILDS + +It was these same protective laws of the guilds that in the end +crippled the hand of the weaver. The laws grew too many to comply +with, in justice to talent, and talent with clipped wings could no +longer soar. At the most brilliant period of tapestry production +Flanders was to the fore. All Europe was appreciating and demanding +the unequalled products of her ateliers. It was but human to want to +keep the excellence, to build a wall of restrictions around her +especial craft that would prevent rivals, and at the same time to +press the ateliers to execute all the orders that piled in toward the +middle of the Sixteenth Century. + +But although the guilds could make wise laws and enforce them, it +could not execute in haste and retain the standard of excellence. And +thus came the gradual decay of the art in Brussels, a decay which +guild-laws had no power to arrest. + + +GOTHIC PERIOD + +The first period in tapestries which interests--except the remnants of +Egyptian and aboriginal work--is that of the Middle Ages, the early +Gothic, because that is when the art became a considerable one in +Europe. It is a time of romance, of chivalry, of deep religious +feeling, and yet seems like the childhood of modernity. Is it the +fault of crudity in pictorial art, or the fault of romances that we +look upon those distant people as more elemental than we, and thus +feel for them the indulgent compassion that a child excites? However +it is, theirs is to us a simple time of primitive emotion and romance, +and the tapestries they have left us encourage the whim. + +The time of Gothic perfection in tapestry-making is included in the +few years lying between 1475 and 1520. Life was at that time getting +less difficult, and art had time to develop. It was no longer left to +monks and lonely ladies, in convent and castle, but was the serious +consideration of royalty and nobility. No need to dwell on the story +of modern art, except as it affects the art of tapestry weaving. With +the improvement of drawing that came in these years, a greater +excellence of weave was required to translate properly the meaning of +the artist. The human face which had hitherto been either blank or +distorted in expression, now required a treatment that should convey +its subtlest shades of expression. Gifted weavers rose to the task, +became almost inspired in the use of their medium, and produced such +works of their art as have never been equalled in any age. These are +the tapestries that grip the heart, that cause a _frisson_ of joy to +the beholder. And these are the tapestries we buy, if kind chance +allows. If they cannot be ours to live with, then away to the museum +in all haste and often, to feast upon their beauties. + + +RENAISSANCE + +That great usurper, the Renaissance, came creeping up to the North +where the tapestry looms were weaving fairy webs. Pope Pius X wanted +tapestries, those of the marvellous Flemish weave. But he wanted those +of the new style of drawing, not the sweet restraint and finished +refinement of the Gothic. Raphael's cartoons were sent to Brussels' +workshops, and thus was the North inoculated with the Renaissance, and +thus began the second phase of the supreme excellency of Flemish +tapestries. It was the Renaissance expressing itself in the wondrous +textile art. The weavers were already perfect in their work, no change +of drawing could perplex them. But to their deftness with their medium +was now added the rich invention of the Italian artists of the +Renaissance, at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy +were still dominant notes. + +It was the overworking of the craft that led to its decadence. Toward +the end of the Sixteenth Century the extraordinary period of Brussels +perfection had passed. + +But tapestry played too important a part in the life and luxury of +those far-away centuries for its production to be allowed to languish. +The magnificence of every great man, whether pope, king or dilettante, +was ill-expressed before his fellows if he were not constantly +surrounded by the storied cloths that were the indispensable +accessories of wealth and glory. Palaces and castles were hung with +them, the tents of military encampments were made gorgeous with their +richness, and no joust nor city procession was conceivable without +their colours flaunting in the sun as background to plumed knights and +fair ladies. Venice looked to them to brighten her historic stones on +days of carnival, and Paris spread them to welcome kings. + + +FRANCE + +When, therefore, Brussels no longer supplied the tissues of her former +excellence, opportunity came for some other centre to rise. The next +important producer was Paris, and in Paris the art has consistently +stayed. Other brief periods of perfection have been attained +elsewhere, but Paris once establishing the art, has never let it drop, +not even in our own day--but that is not to be considered at this +moment. + +Divers reigns of divers kings, notably that of Henri IV, fostered the +weaving of tapestry and brought it to an interesting stage of +development, after which Louis XIV established the Gobelins. From that +time on for a hundred years France was without a rival, for the +decadent work of Brussels could not be counted as such. Although the +work of Italy in the Seventeenth Century has its admirers, it is +guilty of the faults of all of Italy's art during the dominance of +Bernini's ideals. + + +AMERICAN INTEREST + +America is too late on the field to enter the game of antiquity. We +have no history of this wonderful textile art to tell. But ours is the +power to acquire the lovely examples of the marvellous historied +hangings of other times and of those nations which were our forebears +before the New World was discovered. And we are acquiring them from +every corner of Europe where they may have been hiding in old chateau +or forgotten chest. To the museums go the most marvellous examples +given or lent by those altruistic collectors who wish to share their +treasures with a hungry public. But to the mellow atmosphere of +private homes come the greater part of the tapestries. To buy them +wisely, a smattering of their history is a requisite. Within the brief +compass of this book is to be found the points important for the +amateur, but for a profounder study he must turn to those huge volumes +in French which omit no details. + +Not entirely by books can he learn. Association with the objects +loved, counts infinitely more in coming to an understanding. Happy he +who can make of tapestries the _raison d'etre_ for a few months' +loitering in Europe, and can ravish the eye and intoxicate the +imagination with the storied cloths found hanging in England, in +France, in Spain, in Italy, in Sweden, and learn from them the +fascinating tales of other men's lives in other men's times. + +Then, when the tour is finished and a modest tapestry is hung at home, +it represents to its instructed owner the concentrated tale of all he +has seen and learned. In the weave he sees the ancient craftsman +sitting at his loom. In the pattern is the drawing of the artist of +the day, in the colours, the dyes most rare and costly; in the metal, +the gold and silver of a duke or prince; and in the tale told by the +figures he reads a romance of chivalry or history, which has the +glamour given by the haze of distant time to human action. + +To enter a house where tapestries abound, is to feel oneself welcomed +even before the host appears. The bending verdure invites, the +animated figures welcome, and at once the atmosphere of elegance and +cordiality envelopes the happy visitor. + +To live in a house abundantly hung with old tapestries, to live there +day by day, makes of labour a pleasure and of leisure a delight. It is +no small satisfaction in our work-a-day life to live amidst beauty, to +be sure that every time the eyes are raised from the labour of writing +or sewing--or of bridge whist, if you like--they encounter something +worthy and lovely. In the big living-room of the home, when the hours +come in which the family gathers, on a rainy morning, or on any +afternoon when the shadows grow grim outside and the afternoon +tea-tray is brought in whispering its discreet tune of friendly +communion, the tapestries on the walls seem to gather closer, to +enfold in loving embrace the sheltered group, to promise protection +and to augment brotherly love. + +In the dining-room the glorious company assembles, so that he who eats +therein, attends a feast on Olympus, even though the dyspeptic's fast +be his lot. If the eyes gaze on Coypel's gracious ladies, under fruit +and roses, with adolescent gods adoring, what matters if the palate is +chastised? In a dining-room soft-hung with piquant scenes, even +buttermilk and dog-biscuit, burnt canvasback and cold Burgundy lose +half their bitterness. + +When night is well started in its flight, perhaps one only, one lover +of the silence and the solitude, loath to give away to soft sleep the +quiet hours, this one remains behind when all the others have flown +bedward, and to him the neighbouring tapestries speak a various +language. From the easy chair he sees the firelight play on the +verdure with the effect of a summer breeze, the gracious foliage all +astir. The figures in this enchanted wood are set in motion and +imagination brings them into the life of the moment, makes of them +sympathetic playmates coaxing one to love, as they do, the land of +romance. Before their imperturbable jocundity what bad humour can +exist? All the old songs of mock pastoral times come singing in the +ears, "It happened on a day, in the merry month of May," "Shepherds +all and maidens fair," "It was a lover and his lass," "Phoebus arise, +and paint the skies," _et cetera_. Animated by the fire, in the +silence of the winter night the loving horde gathers and ministers to +the mind afflicted with much hard practicality and the strain of +keeping up with modern inexorable times. This sweet procession on the +walls, thanks be to lovely art, needs no keeping up with, merely asks +to scatter joy and to soften the asperities of a too arduous day. + +All the way up the staircase in the house of tapestries are dainty +bits of _millefleurs_, that Gothic invention for transferring a block +of the spring woods from under the trees into a man-made edifice. It +may have a deep indigo background or a dull red--like the shades of +moss or like last year's fallen leaves--but over it all is abundantly +sprinkled dainty bluebells, anemones, daisies, all the spring beauties +in joyous self-assertion and happy mingling. With such flowery guides +to mark the way the path to slumberland is followed. Once within the +bedroom, the poppies of the hangings spread drowsy influence, and the +happy sleeper passes into unconsciousness, passes through the flowered +border of the ancient square, into the scene beyond, becomes one of +those storied persons in the enchanted land and lives with them in +jousts and tourneys or in _fetes champetres_ at lovely chateaux. The +magic spell of the house of tapestries has fallen like the dew from +heaven to bless the striver in our modern life of exigency and +fatigue. + + [Illustration: CHINESE TAPESTRY + + Chien Lung Period] + + [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY + + About 300 A. D.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ANTIQUITY + + +Egypt and China, India and Persia, seem made to take the conceit from +upstart nations like those of Europe and our own toddling America. +Directly we scratch the surface and look for the beginning of applied +arts, the lead takes us inevitably to the oldest civilisation. It +would seem that in a study of fabrics which are made in modern Europe, +it were enough to find their roots in the mediaeval shades of the dark +ages; but no, back we must go to the beginning of history where man +leaped from the ambling dinosaur, which then modestly became extinct, +and looking upon the lands of the Nile and the Yangtsi-kiang found +them good, and proceeded to pre-empt all the ground of applied arts, +so that from that time forward all the nations of the earth were and +are obliged to acknowledge that there is nothing new under the sun. + +In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a bit of tapestry, +Coptic, that period where Greek and Egyptian drawing were intermixed, +a woman's head adorned with much vanity of head-dress, woven two or +three centuries after Christ. (Plate facing page 15.) In the Boston +Museum of Fine Arts are other rare specimens of this same time. +(Plates facing pages 16 and 17.) Looking further back, an ancient +decoration shows Penelope at her high loom, four hundred years before +the Christian era; and one, still older, shows the Egyptians weaving +similarly three thousand years before that epoch. + +It is not altogether thrilling to read that civilised people of +ancient times wove fabrics for dress and decoration, but it certainly +is interesting to learn that they were masters of an art which we +carelessly attribute to Europe of six centuries back, and to find that +the weaving apparatus and the mode of work were almost identical. The +Coptic tapestry of the Third Century is woven in the same manner as +the tapestries that come to us from Europe as the flower of +comparatively recent times, and its dyes and treatment of shading are +identical with the Gothic times. Penelope's loom as pictured on an +ancient vase, is the same in principle as the modern high-warp loom, +although lacking a bit in convenience to the weaver; and so we can +easily imagine the lovely lady at work on her famous web, "playing for +time," during Ulysses' absence, when she sat up o' nights undoing her +lovely stint of the day. + +And the Egyptian loom shown in ancient pictures--that is even more +modern than Penelope's, although it was set up three thousand years +before, a last guide-post on the backward way to the misty land called +prehistoric. + +But as there is really little interest except for the archeologist in +digging so far into the past for an art that has left us but +traditions and museum fragments, let us skim but lightly the surface +of this time, only picking up the glistening facts that attract the +mind's eye, so that we may quickly reach the enchanted land of more +recent times which yet appear antique to the modern. + + [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + + [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + +There are those to whom reading the Bible was a forced task during +childhood, a class which slipped the labour as soon as years gave +liberty of choice. There are others who have always turned as +naturally to its accounts of grand ceremony and terrible battles as to +the accounts of Caesar, Coeur de Lion, Charlemagne. But in either case, +whatever the reason for the eye to absorb these pages of ancient +Hebrew history, the impression is gained of superb pomp. And always +concerned with it are descriptions of details, lovingly impressed, as +though the chronicler was sure of the interest of his audience. In +this enumeration, decorative textiles always played a part. Such +textiles as they were exceed in extravagance of material any that we +know of European production, for in many cases they were woven +entirely of gold and silver, and even set with jewels. These gorgeous +fabrics shone like suns on the magnificent pomp of priest and ruler, +and declared the wealth and power of the nation. They departed from +the original intention of protecting shivering humanity from chill +draughts or from close and cold association with the stones of +architectural construction, and became a luxury of the eye, a source +of bewilderment to the fancy and a lively intoxication to those +who--irrespective of class, or of century--love to compute display in +coin. + +But, dipping into the history of one ancient country after another, it +is easy to see that the usual fabric for hanging was woven of wool, of +cotton and of silk, and carried the design in the weaving. Babylon +the great, Egypt under the Pharaohs, Greece in its heroic times, Rome +under the Emperors--not omitting China and India of the Far +East--these countries of ancient peoples all knew the arts of dyeing +and weaving, of using the materials that we employ, and of introducing +figures symbolic, geometric, or realistic into the weaving. Beyond a +doubt the high loom has been known to man since prehistoric times. It +may be discouraging to those who like to feel that tapestry properly +belongs to Europe only,--Europe of the last six centuries--to find +that the art has been sifted down through the ages; but in reality it +is but one more link between us and the centuries past, the human +touch that revivifies history, that unites humanity. People of the +past wear a haze about them, are immovable and rigid as their pictured +representations. The Assyrian is to us a huge man of impossible beard, +the Egyptian is a lean angle fixed in posture, the Greek is eternally +posed for the sculptor. + +But once we can find that these people were not forever transfixed to +frieze, but were as simple, as industrious, as human as we, the +kinship is established, and through their veins begins to flow the +stream that is common to all humanity. These people felt the same need +for elegantly covering the walls of their homes that we in this +country of new homes feel, and the craftsmen led much the same lives +as do craftsmen of to-day. Even in the matter of expense, of money +which purchasers were willing to spend for woven decorative fabrics, +we see no novelty in the high prices of to-day, the Twentieth +Century. _The Mantle of Alcisthenes_ is celebrated for having been +bought by the Carthaginians for the equal of a hundred thousand +dollars. + + [Illustration: TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU + + Date prior to Sixteenth Century] + +Thus we connect ourselves with the remote past in making a continuous +history. But as the purpose of this book is to assist the owner of +tapestries to understand the story of his hangings and to enable the +purchaser or collector to identify tapestries on his own knowledge +instead of through the prejudiced statements of the salesman, it is +useless to dwell long upon the fabrics that we can only see through +exercise of the imagination or in disintegrated fragments in museums. + +Then away with Circe and her leisure hours of weaving, with Helen and +her heroic canvas, and the army of grandiose Biblical folk, and let us +come westward into Europe in short review of the textiles called +tapestry which were produced from the early Christian centuries to the +time of the Crusades, and thus will we approach more modern times. + +So far as known, high-warp weaving was not universally used in Europe +in the first part of the Middle Ages. Whether plain or figured, most +of the fabrics of that time that have come down to us for hangings or +for clothing, are woven, with the decorative pattern executed by the +needle on woven cloth. In Persia and neighbouring states, however, the +high-warp loom was used.[1] + +Europe in the Middle Ages was a place so savage, so devastated by war +and by neighbouring malice, that to consider it is to hear the clash +of steel, to feel the pangs of hunger, to experience the fearsome +chill of dungeons or moated castles. It was a time when those who +could huddle in fortresses mayhap died natural deaths, but those who +lived in the world were killed as a matter of course. Man was man's +enemy and to be killed on sight. + +In such gay times of carnage, art is dead. Men there were who drew +designs and executed them, for the _luxe_ of the eye is ever +demanding, but the designs were timid and stunted and came far from +the field of art. Fabrics were made and worn, no doubt, but when looms +were like to be destroyed and the weavers with them, scant attention +was given to refinements. + +By the time the Tenth Century was reached matters had improved. We +come into the light of records. It is positively known that the town +of Saumur, down in the lovely country below Tours, became the +destination of a quantity of wall-hangings, carpets, curtains, and +seat covers woven of wool. This was by order of the third Abbot Robert +of the Monastery of St. Florent, one of those vigorous, progressive +men whose initiative inspires a host. It is recorded that he also +ordered two pieces of tapestry executed, not of wool exclusively, but +with silk introduced, and in these the figures of the designs were the +beasts that were then favourites in decoration and that still showed +the influence of Oriental drawing. + +Before enumerating other authentic examples of early tapestries it is +well to speak of the reason for their being invariably associated with +the church. The impression left by history is that folk of those days +must have been universally religious when not cutting each other in +bits with bloody cutlass. The reason is, of course, that when poor +crushed humanity began to revive from the devastating onslaughts of +fierce Northern barbarians, it was with a timid huddling in +monasteries, for there was found immunity from attack. The lord of the +castle was forced to go to war or to resist attack in his castle, but +the monastery was exempt from whatever conscription the times imposed, +and frocked friars were always on hand were defence needed. Thus it +came about that monasteries became treasure-houses, the only safe +ones, were built strong, were sufficiently manned, and therefore were +the safe-deposit of whatever articles of concentrated value the great +lord of the Middle Ages might accumulate. Many tapestries thus +deposited became gifts to the institution which gave them asylum. + +The arts and crafts of the Middle Ages were in the hands of the +monasteries, monks and friars being the only persons with safety and +leisure. Weaving fell naturally to them to execute as an art. In the +castles, necessary weaving for the family was done by the women, as on +every great lord's domains were artisans for all crafts; and great +ladies emulated Penelope and Helen of old in passing their hours of +patience and anxiety with fabricating gorgeous cloths. But these are +exceptional, and deal with such grand ladies as Queen Matilda, who +with her maidens embroidered (not wove) the Bayeux Tapestry, and with +the Duchess Gonnor, wife of Richard First, who embroidered for the +church of Notre Dame at Rouen a history of the Virgin and Saints.[2] + +To the monasteries must be given the honour of preserving this as +many other arts, and of stimulating the laity which had wealth and +power to present to religious institutions the best products of the +day. The subjects executed inside the monastery were perforce +religious, many revelling in the horrors of martyrology, and those +intended as gifts or those ordered by the clergy were religious in +subject for the sake of appropriateness. It is interesting to note the +sweet childlike attitude of all lower Europe toward the church in +these years, a sort of infantile way of leaving everything in its +hands, all knowledge, all wisdom, all power. It was not even necessary +to read or write, as the clergy conveniently concerned themselves with +literacy. As late as the beginning of the Fifteenth Century Philip the +Hardy, the great Duke of Burgundy, in ordering a tapestry, signed the +order, not with his autograph, for he could not, but with his mark, +for he, too, left pen-work to the clerks of the church. + +That pile of concentrated royal history, the old abbey of St. Denis, +received, late in the Tenth Century, one of the evidences of royal +patronage that every abbey must have envied. It was a woven +representation of the world, as scientists of that day imagined our +half-discovered planet, and was presented by Queen Adelaide, the wife +of Hugh Capet, whose descendants reigned for three hundred years.[3] + +While dealing with records rather than with objects on which the eye +can gaze and the hand can rest, note must be made of an order of a +Count of Poitou, William V, to a factory for tapestries then existing +in Poitiers, showing that the art of weaving had in that spot jumped +the monastery walls in 1025.[4] The order was for a large hanging with +subjects taken from the Scriptures, but given the then modern touch by +introducing portraits of kings and emperors and their favourite +animals transfixed in ways peculiar to the nature of the day. + +A century later, another Abbot of St. Florent in Saumur had hangings +made important enough to be recorded. One of these represented the +four and twenty elders of the Apocalypse with musical instruments, and +other subjects taken from the Revelation of John. This subject was one +of unending interest to the artists of that time who seemed to find in +its depicting a serving of both God and imagination. + +Among the few tapestries of this period, those of the Cathedral at +Halberstadt must be mentioned, partly by way of conscientious +chronicling, partly that the interested traveller may, as he travels, +know where to find the rare specimens of the hobby he is pursuing. +This is a high-warp tapestry which authorities variously place as the +product of the Eleventh or the Twelfth Centuries. Entirely regardless +of its age, it has for us the charm of the craft of hands long +vanished, and of primitive art in all its simplicity of artifice. The +subject is religious--could hardly have been otherwise in those +monastic days--and for church decoration, and to fit the space they +were woven to occupy, each of the two parts was but three and a half +feet high although more than fourteen yards long. + +Each important event recorded in history has its expression in the +material product of its time, and this is one of the charms of +studying the liberal arts. Tapestry more than almost any other +handicraft has left us a pictured history of events in a time when +records were scarce. The effect of the Crusades was noticeable in the +impetus it gave to tapestry, not only by bringing Europe into fresh +contact with Oriental design but by increasing the desire for +luxurious stuffs. The returning crusaders--what traveller's tales did +they not tell of the fabrics of the great Oriental sovereigns and +their subjects, the soft rugs, the tent coverings, the gorgeous +raiment; and these tales they illustrated with what fragments they +could port in their travellers' packs. Here lay inspiration for a +continent. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Eugene Muentz, "History of Tapestry." + +[2] Jubinal, "Recherches," Vol. I. + +[3] F. Michel, "Recherches." + +[4] Jubinal, "Recherches." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MODERN AWAKENING + + +In the Fourteenth Century, tapestry, the high-warp product, began to +play an important part in the refinements of the day. We have seen the +tendency of the past time to embellish and soften churches and +monastic institutions with hangings. Records mostly in clerical Latin, +speak of these as curtains for doorways, dossers for covering seats, +and the backs of benches, and baldachins, as well as carpets for use +on the floor. Subjects were ecclesiastic, as the favourite Apocalypse; +or classic, like that of the Quedlimburg hanging which fantastically +represents the marriage of Mercury and Philology. + +But in the Thirteenth Century the political situation had improved and +men no longer slept in armour and women no longer were prepared to +thrust all household valuables into a coffer on notice that the enemy +was approaching over the plains or up the rocks. Therefore, homes +began to be a little less rude in their comforts. Stone walls were +very much the rule inside as well as out, but it became convenient +then to cover their grim asperities with the woven draperies, the +remains of which so interest us to-day, and which we in our accession +of luxuriousness would add to the already gently finished apartments. +To put ourselves back into one of those castle homes we are to +imagine a room of stone walls, fitted with big iron hooks, on which +hung pictured tapestry which reached all around, even covering the +doors in its completeness. To admit of passing in and out the door a +slit was made, or two tapestries joined at this spot. Set Gothic +furniture scantily about such a room, a coffer or two, some +high-backed chairs, a generous table, and there is a room which the +art of to-day with its multiple ingenuity cannot surpass for beauty +and repose. + +But such a room gave opportunity for other matters in the Thirteenth +Century. Customs were less polite and morals more primitive. Important +people desiring important information were given to the spying and +eavesdropping which now has passed out of polite fashion. And those +ancient rooms favoured the intriguer, for the hangings were suspended +a foot or two away from the wall, and a man or a woman, for that +matter, might easily slip behind and witness conversations to which +the listener had not been invited. So it was customary on occasions of +intimate and secret converse lightly to thrust a sharpened blade +behind the curtains. If, as in the case in "Hamlet," the sword pierced +a human quarry, so much the worse for the listener who thus gained +death and lost its dignity. + +Before leaving this ancient chamber it is well to impress ourselves +with the interesting fact that tapestries were originally meant to be +suspended loosely, liberally, from the upper edge only, and to fall in +folds or gentle undulations, thus gaining in decorative value and +elegance. This practice had an important effect on the design, and +also gave an appearance of movement to human figures and to foliage, +as each swayed in light folds. + +When considering tapestries of the Thirteenth Century we are only +contemplating the stones of history, for the actual products of the +looms of that time are not for us; they are all gathered into museums, +public or ecclesiastic. The same might be said of tapestries of the +Fourteenth Century, and almost of the Fifteenth. But those old times +are so full of romance, that their history is worth our toying with. +It adds infinite joy to the possessing of old tapestries, and converts +museum visits into a keen chase for the elusive but fascinating +figures of the past. + +Let us then absorb willingly one or two dry facts. High-warp tapestry +we have traced lightly from Egypt through Greece and Rome and, almost +losing the thread in the Middle Ages, have seen it rising a virile +industry, nursed in monasteries. It was when the stirrings of artistic +life were commencing under the Van Eycks in the North and under Giotto +and the Tuscans in the South that the weaving of tapestries reached a +high standard of production and from that time until the Nineteenth +Century has been an important artistic craft. The Thirteenth Century +saw it started, the Fourteenth saw the beginnings of important +factories, and the Fifteenth bloomed into full productions and beauty +of the style we call Gothic. + +In these early times of the close of the Thirteenth Century and the +beginning of the Fourteenth, the best known high-warp factories were +centred in northern and midland provinces of France and Flanders, +Paris and Arras being the towns most famed for their productions. As +these were able to supply the rest of Europe, the skilled technique +was lost otherwheres, so that later, when Italy, Germany and England +wished to catch up again their ancient work, they were obliged to ask +instruction of the Franco-Flemish high-warp workers.[5] + +It is not possible in the light of history for either Paris or Arras +to claim the invention of so nearly a prehistoric art as that of +high-warp tapestry, and there is much discussion as to which of these +cities should be given the honour of superiority and priority in the +work of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. + +Factories existed at both places and each had its rules of manufacture +which regulated the workman and stimulated its excellence. The +factories at Paris, however, were more given to producing copies of +carpets brought from the East by returning crusaders, and these were +intended for floors. The craftsmen were sometimes alluded to as +_tapissiers Sarrazinois_, named, as is easily seen, after the Saracens +who played so large a part in the adventurous voyages of the day. But +in Paris in 1302, by instigation of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau, +there were associated with these tapissiers or workmen, ten others, +for the purpose of making high-warp tapestry, and these were bound +with all sorts of oaths not to depart from the strict manner of +proceeding in this valued handicraft. + +Indeed, the Articles of Faith, nor the Vows of the Rosicrucians, +could not be more inviolable than the promises demanded of the early +tapestry workers. In some cases--notably a factory of Brussels, +Brabant, in the Sixteenth Century--there were frightful penalties +attendant upon the breaking of these vows, like the loss of an ear or +even of a hand. + +The records of the undertaking of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau in +introducing the high-warp (_haute lisse_) workers into the factory +where Sarrazinois and other fabrics were produced, means only that the +improvement had begun, but not that Paris had never before practised +an art so ancient. + +The name of Nicolas Bataille is one of the earliest which we can +surround with those props of records that please the searcher for +exact detail.[6] He was both manufacturer and merchant and was a man +of Paris in the reign of Charles VI, a king who patronised him so well +that the workshops of Paris benefited largely. The king's brother +becoming envious, tried to equal him in personal magnificence and gave +orders almost as large as those of the king. Philip the Hardy, uncle +of the king, also employed this designer whose importance has not +lessened in the descent of the centuries. + +What makes Bataille of special interest to us is that we cannot only +read of him in fascinating chronicles as well as dry histories, but we +can ourselves see his wondrous works. In the cathedral at Angers hangs +a tapestry executed by him; it is a part of the _Apocalypse_ +(favourite subject) drawn by Dourdin, who was artist of the cartoons +as well as artist to Charles V. + +In those days the weaver occupied much the same place in relation to +the cartoonist as the etcher does now to the painter. That is to say, +that because the drawing was his inspiration, the weaver was none the +less an artist of originality and talent. + +These celebrated hangings at Angers, although commenced in 1376 for +Louis of Anjou, were not completed in all the series until 1490, +therefore Bataille's work was on the first ones, finished on +Christmas, 1379. The design includes imposing figures, each seated on +a Gothic throne reading and meditating. The larger scenes are topped +with charming figures of angels in primitive skies of the "twisted +ribbon" style of cloud, angels whose duty and whose joy is to trump +eternally and float in defiance of natural laws of gravitation. + +The museum at the Gobelins factory in Paris shows to wondering eyes +the other authentic example of late Fourteenth Century high-warp +tapestry, as woven in the early Paris workshops. It portrays with a +lovely naive simplicity _The Presentation in the Temple_. This with +the pieces of the _Apocalypse_ at Angers are all that are positively +known to have come from the Paris workshops of the late Fourteenth +Century. + +History steps in with an event that crushed the industry in Paris. +Just when design and execution were at their highest excellence, and +production was prolific, political events began to annihilate the +trade. The English King, Henry V, crossed the Channel and occupied +Paris in 1422. Thus, under the oppression of the invaders, the art of +tapestry was discouraged and fell by the way, not to rise lustily +again in Paris for two hundred years. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Eugene Muentz, "La Tapisserie." + +[6] For extensive reading see Guiffrey, "Nicolas Bataille, tapissier +parisien," and "L'Histoire General de la Tapisserie," the section +called "Les Tapisseries Francaises." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS + + +Whether Arras began as early as Paris is a question better left +unsettled if only for the sake of furnishing a subject of happy +controversy between the champions of the two opinions. But certain it +is that with fewer distractions to disturb her craftsmen, and under +the stimulus of certain ducal and royal patrons, Arras succeeded in +advancing the art more than did her celebrated neighbour. It was +Arras, too, that gave the name to the fabric, a name which appears in +England as arras and in Italy as arazzo, as though there was no other +parent-region for the much-needed and much-prized stuffs than the busy +Flemish town. + +Among the early records is found proof that in 1311, a countess of the +province of Artois, of which Arras was the capital, bought a figured +cloth in that city, and two years later ordered various works in high +warp.[7] It is she who became ruler of the province. To patronise the +busy town of her own domains, Arras, she ordered from there the +hangings that were its specialty. Paris also shared her patronage. She +took as husband Otho, Count of Burgundy, and set his great family the +fashion in the way of patronising the tapestry looms. + +It was in the time of Charles V of France, that the Burgundian duke +Philip, called the Hardy, began to patronise conspicuously the Arras +factories. In 1393, as de Barante delightfully chronicles, the +gorgeous equipments of this duke were more than amazing when he went +to arrange peace with the English at Lelingien.[8] + +The town chosen for the pourparlers, wherein assembled the English +dukes, Lancaster and Gloucester and their attendants, as well as the +cortege attending the Duke of Burgundy, was a poor little village +ruined by wars. The conferences were held by these superb old fighters +and statesmen in an ancient thatched chapel. To make it presentable +and worthy of the nobles, it was covered with tapestries which +entirely hid the ruined walls. The subject of the superb pieces was a +series of battles, which made the Duke of Lancaster whimsically +critical of a subject ill-chosen for a peace conference, he suggesting +that it were better to have represented "_la Passion de notre +Seigneur_." + +Not satisfied with having the meeting place a gorgeous and luxurious +temple, this Philip, Duke of Burgundy, demonstrated his magnificence +in his own tent, which was made of wooden planks entirely covered with +"toiles peintes" (authorities state that tapestries with personages +were thus described), and was in form of a chateau flanked with +towers. As a means of pleasing the English dukes and the principal +envoys, Philip gave to them superb gifts of tapestries, the beautiful +tapestries of Flanders such as were made only in the territory of the +duke. It is interesting to note this authentic account of the +importation of certain Arras tapestries into England. + +Subjects at this time introduced, besides Bible people, figures of +Clovis and of Charlemagne. Two hangings represented, the one _The +Seven Cardinal Vices_, with their conspicuous royal exponents in the +shape of seven vicious kings and emperors; the other, _The Seven +Cardinal Virtues_, with the royalties who had been their notable +exponents. Here is a frank criticism on the lives of kings which +smacks of latter-day democracy. All these tapestries were enriched +with gold of Cyprus, as gold threads were called. + +This same magnificent Philip the Hardy, had other treaties to make +later on, and seeing how much his tapestries were appreciated, +continued to make presents of them. One time it was the Duke of +Brittany who had to be propitiated, all in the interests of peace, +peace being a quality much sought and but little experienced at this +time in France. Perhaps this especial Burgundian duke had a bit of +self-interest in his desire for amity with the English, for he was +lord of the Comite of Artois (including Arras) and this was a district +which, because of its heavy commerce with England, might favour that +country. A large part of that commerce was wool for tapestry weaving, +wool which came from the _pres sales_ of Kent, where to-day are seen +the same meadows, salt with ocean spray and breezes, whereon flocks +are grazing now as of old--but this time more for mutton chops than +for tapestry wools. + + [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS + + Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + +The history of the Dukes of Burgundy, because their patronage was +so stimulating to the factories of Flanders, leads us to recall the +horrors of the war with Bajazet, the terrible Sultan of Turkey, and +the way in which this cool monster bartered human lives for human +luxuries. It was when the flower of France (1396) invaded his country +and was in the power of his hand, that he had the brave company of +nobles pass in review before his royal couch that he might see them +mutilated to the death. Three or four only he retained alive, then +sent one of these, the Sire de Helly, back to his France with _parole +d'honneur_ to return--to amass, first, as big a ransom as could be +raised; this, if in the Turk's demanding eyes it appeared sufficient, +he would accept in exchange for the remaining unhappy nobles. + +Added to the money which de Helly was able to collect, were superb +tapestries of Arras contributed by the Burgundian duke, Philip the +Hardy. It was argued that of these luxurious hangings, Bajazet had +none, for the looms of his country had not the craft to make +tapestries of personages. Cloth of gold and of silver, considered an +extreme elegance in France, they argued was no rarity to the terrible +Turk, for it was from Damascus in his part of the world that this +precious fabric came most plentifully. So de Helly took Arras +tapestries into Turkey, a suite representing the history of Alexander +the Great, and the avaricious monarch was persuaded by reason of this +and other ransom to let his prisoners free.[9] + +After the death of Philip the Hardy in 1404, his accumulated luxuries +had to be sold to help pay his fabulous debts. To this end his son +sold, among other things, his superb tapestries, and thus they became +distributed in Paris. And yet John without Fear, who succeeded Philip, +continued to stimulate the Arras weavers. In 1409 he ordered five big +hangings representing his victories of Liege, all battle subjects.[10] + +Philip the Good was the next head of the Burgundian house, and he it +was who assisted in the sumptuous preparations for the entry of the +king, Louis XI, into Paris. The king himself could scarcely equal in +magnificence this much-jewelled duke, whose splendour was a matter of +excitement to the populace. People ran to see him in the streets or to +the church, to feast their eyes on his cortege, his mounted escort of +a hundred knights who were themselves dukes, princes and other nobles. + +His house, in the old quarter of Paris, where we are wont to wander +with a Baedeker veiled, was the wonder of all who were permitted to +view its interior. Here he had brought his magnificent Arras +tapestries and among them the set of the _History of Gideon_, which he +had had made in honour of the order of the Golden Fleece founded by +him at Bruges, in 1429, for, he said, the tale of Gideon was more +appropriate to the Fleece than the tale of Jason, who had not kept his +trust--a bit of unconventionalism appreciable even at this distance of +time. + +Charles le Temeraire--the Bold or rather the foolhardy--how he used +and lost his tapestries is of interest to us, because his possessions +fell into a place where we can see them by taking a little trouble. +Some of them are among the treasures in the museum at Nancy and at +Berne in Switzerland. How they got there is in itself a matter of +history, the history of a war between Burgundy and Switzerland. + +Like all the line of these half-barbaric, picturesque dukes, Charles +could not disassociate himself from magnificence, which in those days +took the place of comfort. When making war, he endeavoured to have his +camp lodgment as near as possible reproduce the elegance of his home. +In his campaign against Switzerland, his tent was entirely hung with +the most magnificent of tapestries. After foolhardy onslaughts on a +people whose strength he miscalculated, he lost his battles, his +life--and his tapestries. And this is how certain Burgundian +tapestries hang in the cathedral at Berne, and in the museums at +Nancy.[11] + +The simple Swiss mountaineers, accustomed more to expediency than to +luxury, are said to have been entirely ignorant of the value of their +spoils of war. Tapestries they had never seen, nor had they the +experienced eye to discern their beauties; but cloth, thick woollen +cloth, that would protect shivering man from the cold, was a commodity +most useful; so, many of the fine products of the high-warp looms that +had augmented the pride of their noble possessor, found their way into +shops and were sold to the Swiss populace in any desired length, +according to bourgeois household needs, a length for a warm bed-cover, +or a square for a table; and thus disappeared so many that we are +thankful for the few whole hangings of that time which are ours to +inspect, and which represent the best work of the day both from Arras +and from Brussels, which was then (about 1476) beginning to produce. + +There is a special and local reason why we should be interested in the +products of the high-warp tapestries in the time of the greatest power +of the Dukes of Burgundy. It is that we can have the happy experience +of studying, in our own country, a set of these hangings, and this +without going farther than to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New +York, where repose the set called _The Sacraments_. (Plates facing +pages 34, 38 and 39.) There are in all seven pieces, although the +grounds are well taken that the set originally included one more. They +represent the four Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Confirmation and +Extreme Unction, first by a series of ideal representations, then by +the everyday ceremonies of the time--the time of Joan of Arc. Thus we +have the early Fifteenth Century folk unveiled to us in their ideals +and in their practicality. The one shows them to be religionists of a +high order, the other reveals a sumptuous and elegant scale of living +belonging to the nobility who made resplendent those early times. + + [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS + + Arras Tapestry, about 1430] + + [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS + + Arras Tapestry, about 1430] + +The drawing is full of simplicity and honesty, the composition limited +to a few individuals, each one having its place of importance. In +this, the early work differed from the later, which multiplied figures +until whole groups counted no more than individuals. The background is +a field of conventionalised fleur-de-lis of so large a pattern as not +to interfere with the details thrown against it. Scenes are divided +by slender Gothic columns, and other architectural features are +tessellated floors and a sketchy sort of brick-work that appears +wherever a limit-line is needed. It is the charming naivete of its +drawing that delights. Border there is none, but its lack is never +felt, for the pictures are of such interest that the eye needs no +barrier to keep it from wandering. Whatever border is found is a +varying structure of architecture and of lettering and of the happy +flowers of Gothic times which thrust their charm into all possible and +impossible places. + +The dress, in the suite of ideals, is created by the imagining of the +artist, admixed with the fashion of the day; but in scenes portraying +life of the moment, we are given an interesting idea of how a bride a +la mode was arrayed, in what manner a gay young lord dressed himself +on his wedding morning, and how a young mother draped her proud +brocade. The colouring is that of ancient stained glass, simple, rich, +the gamut of colours limited, but the manner of their combining is +infinite in its power to please. The conscientiousness of the ancient +dyer lives after him through the centuries, and the fresh ruby-colour, +the golden yellow of the large-figured brocades, glow almost as richly +now as they did when the Burgundian dukes were marching up and down +the land from the Mediterranean, east of France, to the coast of +Flanders, carrying with them the woven pictures of their ideals, their +religion and their conquests. The weave is smooth and even, speaking +for the work of the tapissier or weaver, although time has distorted +the faces beyond the lines of absolute beauty; and hatching +accomplishes the shading. + +The repairer has been at work on this valuable set, not the +intelligent restorer, but the frank bungler who has not hesitated to +turn certain pieces wrong side out, nor to set in large sections +obviously cut from another tapestry. It is surmised that the set +contained one more piece--it would be regrettable, indeed, if that +missing square had been cut up for repairs. + +The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns these tapestries +through the altruistic generosity of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq. They are +the most interesting primitive work which are on public view in our +country, and awake to enthusiasm even the most insensate dullard, who +has a half hour to stand before them and realise all they mean in art, +in morals and in history. + +To the lives of the Prophets and Saints we can always turn; from the +romance of men and women we can never turn away. And so when a Gothic +tapestry is found that frankly omits Biblical folk and gives us a true +picture of men and women of the almost impenetrable time back of the +fifteen hundreds, tells us what they wore, in what manner they +comported themselves, that tapestry has a sure and peculiar value. The +surviving art of the Middle Ages smacks strong of saints, paints at +full length the people of Moses' time, but unhappily gives only a bust +of their contemporaries. + + [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH TAPESTRY + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + + [Illustration: THE LIFE OF CHRIST + + Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. Boston Museum + of Fine Arts] + +Hangings portraying secular subjects were less often woven than those +of religion and morals, but also the former have less lustily outlived +the centuries, owing to the habit of tearing them from the +suspending hooks and packing them about from chateau to chateau, to +soften surroundings for the wandering visitor. Thus it comes that we +have little tapestried record of a time when knights and ladies and +ill-assorted attributes walked hand in hand, a time of chivalry and +cruelty, of roses and war, of sumptuousness and crudity, of privation +and indulgence, of simplicity and deceit. + +If prowling among old books has tempted the hand to take from the +shelves one of those quaint luxuries known as a "Book of Hours," there +before the eye lies the spirit of that age in decoration and design. +There, too, lies much of the old spirit of morality--that, whether +genuine or affected, was bound to be expressed. Morality had a vogue +in those days, was a _sine qua non_ of fashion. That famous amateur +Jean, duc de Berry, uncle of Charles VI of France, had such a book, +"Les Tres Riches Heures"; one was possessed by that gifted Milanese +lady whom Ludovico Sforza put out of the line of Lombardy's throne. +The wonderful Gothic ingenuousness lies in their careful paintings, +the ingenuousness where virtue is expressed by beauty, and vice by +ugliness, and where, with delightful seriousness, standing figures +overtop the houses they occupy--the same people, the same battlements, +we have seen on the early tapestries. Weavers must surely have +consulted the lovely books of Gothic miniature, so like is the spirit +of the designs to that in the Gothic fabrics. + +"The beauties of Agnes Sorel were represented on the wool," says +Jubinal, "and she herself gave a superb and magnificent tapestry to +the church at Loches," but this quaint student is doubtful if the +lovely _amante du roi_ actually gave the tapestries that set forth her +own beauties, which beauty all can see in the quiet marble as she lies +sleeping with her spaniel curled up at her lovely feet in the big +chateau on the Loire. + +By means of a rare set bought by the Rogers Fund for the Metropolitan +Museum of Art in New York, we can see, if not the actual tapestries of +fair Agnes Sorel, at least those of the same epoch and manner. This +set is called _The Baillee des Roses_ and comprises three pieces, +fragments one is inclined to call them, seeing the mutilations of the +ages. (Plate facing page 42.) They were woven probably before 1450, +probably in France, undoubtedly from French drawings, for the hand and +eye of the artist were evidently under the influence of the celebrated +miniaturist, Jean Fouquet of Tours. Childlike is the charm of this +careful artist of olden times, childlike is his simplicity, his +honesty, his care to retain the fundamental virtues of a good little +boy who lives to the tune of Eternal Verities. + +These three tapestries of the Roses illustrate so well so many things +characteristic of their day, that it is not time lost to study them +with an eye to all their points. There is the weave, the wool, the +introduction of metal threads, the colour scale; all these besides the +design and the story it tells. + +The tapestries represent a custom of France in the time when Charles +VII, the Indolent (and likewise through Jeanne d'Arc, the victorious) +had as his favourite the fascinating Agnes Sorel. During the late +spring, when the roses of France are in fullest flower, various +peers of France had as political duty to present to each member of the +Parliament a rose when the members answered in response to roll call. + + [Illustration: LA BAILLEE DES ROSES + + French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + + [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS + + Cathedral of Troyes] + +The great chamber where the body met was for the occasion transformed +into a bower; vines and sprays of roses covered all the grim walls, as +the straying vines in the tapestry reveal. The host of the day, who +might be a foreign prince or cardinal, or one of the "children of +France," began the day with giving a great breakfast which took place +in the several chambers. During the feast the noble host paid a +courtly visit to each chamber, accompanied by a servitor who bore a +huge salver on which were the flowers and souvenirs to be presented. +The air was sweet with blossoms and pungent herbs, music penetrated +from the halls outside as the man of conspicuous elegance played mock +humility and served all with the dainty tribute of a fragrant tender +rose. This part of the ceremony over, the company moved on to the +great audience chamber, where mass was said. + +Our tapestries show the figures of ladies and gentlemen present at +this pretty ceremony--too pretty to associate with desperate Jeanne +d'Arc, who at that very time was rousing France to war to throw off +the foreign yoke. The ladies fair and masters bold are intensely human +little people, for the most part paired off in couples as men and +women have been wont to pair in gardens since Eden's time. They are +dressed in their best, that is evident, and by their distant, +courteous manners show good society. The faces of the ladies are +childlike, dutiful; those of the men more determined, after the +manner of men. + +But the interest of the set centres in the tableau wherein are but +three figures, those of two men and a woman. Here lies a piquant +romance. Who is she, the grand and gracious lady, bending like a lily +stalk among the roses, with a man on either side? A token is being +exchanged between her and the supplicant at her right. He, wholly +elegant, half afraid, bends the knee and fixes her with a regard into +which his whole soul is thrown. She, fair lady, is inclining, yet +withdrawing, eyes of fear and modesty cast down. Yet whatever of +temerity the faces tell, the hands are carrying out a comedy. Hid in +the shadow of a copious hat, which the gentleman extends, lurks a +rose; proffered by the lady's hand is a token--fair exchange, indeed, +of lover's symbols--provided the strong, hard man to the left of the +lady has himself no right of command over her and her favours. Thus +might one dream on forever over history's sweets and romance's +gallantries. + +It is across the sea, in the sympathetic Museum of Cluny that the +beauty of early French work is exquisitely demonstrated. The set of +_The Lady and the Unicorn_ is one of infinite charm. (Plates facing +pages 44 and 45.) In its enchanted wood lives a noble lady tall and +fair, lithe, young and elegant, with attendant maid and two faithful, +fabulous beasts that uphold the standards of maidenhood. A simple +circle denotes the boundary of the enchanted land wherein she dwells, +a park with noble trees and lovely flowers, among which disport the +little animals that associate themselves with mankind. For four +centuries these hangings have delighted the eye of man, and are +perhaps more than ever appreciated now. Certain it is that the art +student's easel is often set before them for copying the quaint design +and soft colour. + + [Illustration: THE LADY AND THE UNICORN + + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musee de Cluny, Paris] + + [Illustration: THE LADY AND THE UNICORN + + French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musee de Cluny, Paris] + +As the early worker in wools could not forget the beauties of earth, +the foreground of many Gothic tapestries is sprinkled with the loved +common flowers of every day, of the field and wood. This is one of the +charming touches in early tapestry, these little flowers that thrust +themselves with captivating inappropriateness into every sort of +scene. The grave and awesome figures in the _Apocalypse_ find them at +their feet, and in scenes of battle they adorn the sanguinary sod and +twinkle between fierce combatants. + +Occasionally a weaver goes mad about them and refuses to produce +anything else but lily-bells newly sprung in June, cowslips and +daisies pied, rosemary and rue, and all these in decorous courtesy on +a deep, dark background like twilight on a bank or moonlight in a +dell--and lo, we have the marvellous bit of nature-painting called +_millefleurs_. + +A Burgundian tapestry that has come to this country to add to our +increasing riches, is the large hanging known as _The Sack of +Jerusalem_. (Plate facing page 46.) Almost more than any other it +revivifies the ancient times of Philip the Hardy, John without Fear, +and Charles the Bold, when these dukes, who were monarchs in all but +name, were leading lives that make our own Twentieth Century fretting +seem but the unrest of aspens. Such hangings as this, _The Sack of +Jerusalem_, were those that the great Burgundian dukes had hung about +their tents in battle, their castles in peace, their facades and +bridges in fetes. + +The subject chosen hints religion, but shouts bloodshed and battle. +Those who like to feel the texture of old tapestries would find this +soft and pliable, and in wondrous state of preservation. Its colours +are warm and fresh, adhering to red-browns and brown-reds and a +general mellow tone differing from the sharp stained-glass contrasts +noticed in _The Sacraments_. Costumes show a naive compromise between +those the artist knew in his own time and those he guessed to +appertain to the year of our Lord 70, when the scene depicted was +actually occurring. The tapestry resembles in many ways the famous +tapestries of the Duke of Devonshire which are known as the Hardwick +Hall tapestries. In drawing it is similar, in massing, in the placing +of spots of interest. This large hanging is a part of the collection +at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. + +The Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibits a primitive hanging which is +probably woven in France, Northern France, at the end of the Fifteenth +Century. (Plate facing page 40.) It represents, in two panels, the +power of the church to drive out demons and to confound the heathen. +Fault can be found with its crudity of drawing and weave, but +tapestries of this epoch can hold a position of interest in spite of +faults. + + [Illustration: THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL) + + Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New + York] + +A fine piece at the same museum is the long, narrow hanging +representing scenes from the life of Christ, with a scene from +Paradise to start the drama. (Plate facing page 41.) This tapestry, +which is of great beauty, is subdivided into four panels by slender +columns suggesting a springing arch which the cloth was too low to +carry. All the pretty Gothic signs are here. The simple flowers +upspringing, the Gothic lettering, the panelling, and a narrow border +of such design as suggests rose-windows or other lace-like carving. +Here is noticeable, too, the sumptuous brocades in figures far too +large for the human form to wear, figures which diminished greatly a +very few decades later. + +The Institute of Art, Chicago, possesses an interesting piece of the +period showing another treatment of a similar subject. (Plate facing +page 48.) In this the columns are omitted, the planes are increased, +and there is an entire absence of the triptych or altar-piece style of +drawing which we associate with the primitive artists in painting. + +We have seen in this slight review that Paris was in a fair way to +cover the castle walls and floors of noble lords with her high loom +and _sarrazinois_ products, when the English occupation ruined the +prosperity of the weaver's guild. Arras supplied the enormous demand +for tapestries through Europe, and made a lasting fame. But this +little city, too, had to go down before the hard conditions of the +Conqueror. Louis XI, in 1477, possessed himself of the town after the +death of the last-famed Burgundian duke, Charles the Bold, and under +his eccentric persecutions the guild of weavers scattered. He saw too +late his mistake. But other towns benefited by it, towns whither the +tapissiers fled with their art. + +There had also been much trouble between the last Duke of Burgundy and +his Flemish cities. His extravagances and expeditions led him to make +extraordinary demands upon one town and another for funds, and even to +make war upon them, as at Liege, the battles of which conflict were +perpetuated in tapestries. Let us trust that no Liegois weaver was +forced to the humiliation of weaving this set. + +This disposition to work to his own ultimate undoing was encouraged in +the duke, wherever possible, by the crafty Louis XI, who had his own +reasons for wishing the downfall of so powerful a neighbour. And thus +it came that Arras, the great tapestry centre, was at first weakened, +then destroyed by the capture of the town by Louis XI immediately +after the tragic death of the duke in 1477. + +Thus everything was favourable to the Brussels factories, which began +to produce those marvels of workmanship that force from the world the +sincerest admiration. It is frankly asserted that toward the end of +the century, or more accurately, during the reigns of Charles VIII and +Louis XII (1483-1515), tapestry attained a degree of perfection which +has never been surpassed. + + [Illustration: SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS + + Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, Chicago] + + [Illustration: HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN + + Angers Cathedral] + +We have a very clear idea of what use to make of tapestries in these +days--to hang them in a part of the house where they will be much seen +and much protected, on an important wall-space where their figures +become the friend of daily life, or the bosky shades of their +verdure invite to revery. They are extended flat against the wall, or +even framed, that not one stroke of the artist's pencil or one flash +of the weaver's shuttle be hid. But, many were their uses and grand +were their purposes in the days when high-warp and low-warp weaving +was the important industry of whole provinces. Palaces and castles +were hung with them, but apart from this was the sumptuous use of a +reserve of hangings for outdoor fetes and celebrations of all sorts. +These were the great opportunities for all to exhibit their +possessions and to make a street look almost as elegant and habitable +as the grandest chamber of the king. + +On the occasion of the entry of a certain queen into Paris, all the +way from Porte St. Denis to the Cathedral of Notre Dame was hung with +such specimens of the weaver's art as would make the heart of the +modern amateur throb wildly. They were hung from windows, draped +across the fronts of the houses, and fluttered their bright colours in +the face of an illuminating sun that yet had no power to fade the +conscientious work of the craftsman. The high lights of silk in the +weave, and the enrichment of gold and silver in the pattern caught and +held the sunbeams. In all the cavalcade of mounted knights and ladies, +there was the flashing of arms, the gleam of jewelled bridles, the +flaunting of rich stuffs, all with a background of unsurpassed +blending of colour and texture. The bridge over the Seine leading to +Notre Dame, its ramparts were entirely concealed, its asperities +softened, by the tapestries which hung over its sides, making the +passage over the river like the approach to a throne, the luxury of +kings combined with the beauty of the flowing river, the blue sky, the +tender green of the trees. + +Indeed, it was so lovely a sight that the king himself was not content +to see it from his honoured but restricted post, but needs must doff +his crown--monarchs wore them in those fairy days--and fling a leg +over a gentleman's charger, behind its owner, and thus ride double to +see the sights. So great was his eagerness to enjoy all the display +that he got a smart reproof from an officer of ceremonies for +trespassing.[12] + +When Louis XI was the young king, and had not yet developed the taste +for bloodshed and torture that as a crafty fox he used later to the +horror of his nation, he, too, had similar festivals with similar +decorations. On one occasion the Pont des Changes was made the chief +point in the royal progress through the streets of Paris. The bridge +was hung with superb tapestries of great size, from end to end, and +the king rode to it on a white charger, his trappings set with +turquoise, with a gorgeous canopy supported over his head. Just as he +reached the bridge the air became full of the music of singing birds, +twenty-five hundred of them at that moment released, and all +fluttering, darting, singing amid the gorgeous scene to tickle the +fancy of a king. + + [Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA + + German Tapestry, about 1450] + + [Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500 + + Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Canon de Haisnes, "La Tapisserie." + +[8] M. de Barante, "Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne." + +[9] Froissart, manuscript of the library of Dijon. + +[10] De Barante, "Histoire." + +[11] See M. Pinchart, "Roger van der Weyden et les Tapisseries de +Berne." + +[12] Enguerrand de Monstrelet, "Chronicles." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HIGH GOTHIC + + +The wonderful time of the Burgundian dukes is gone; Charles le +Temeraire leaves the world at Nancy, where the pitying have set up a +cross in memory of his unkingly death, and where the lover of things +Gothic may wander down a certain way to the exquisite portico of the +Ducal Palace and, entering, find the Gothic room where the duke's +precious tapestries are hung. In this sympathetic atmosphere one may +dream away hours in sheer joy of association with these shadowy hosts +of the past, the relentless slayers in the battle scenes, relentless +moralists in the religious subjects--for morality plays had a parallel +in the morality tapestry, issuing such rigid warnings to those who +make merry as is seen in _The Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets_, +_The Reward of Virtue_, _The Triumph of Right_, _The Horrors of the +Seven Deadly Sins_, all of which were popular subjects for the weaver. + +With the artists who might be called primitives we have almost +finished in the end of the Fifteenth Century. The simplicity of the +very early weavers passed. They were content with comparatively few +figures, and these so strongly treated that in composition one scarce +took on more importance than another. When Arras and other Flemish +towns, as well as Paris and certain French towns, developed the +industry and employed more ambitious artists, the designs became more +crowded, and the tendency was to multiply figures in an effort to +crowd as many as possible into the space. When architecture appeared +in the design, towers and battlements were crowded with peeping heads +in delightful lack of proportion, and forests of spears springing from +platoons of soldiers, filled almost the entire height of the cloth. +The naive fashion still existed of dressing the characters of an +ancient Biblical or classic drama in costumes which were the mode of +the weaver's time, disregarding the epoch in which the characters +actually lived. + +An adherence to the childlike drawing of the early workers continues +noticeable in their quaint way of putting many scenes on one tapestry. +Interiors are readily managed, by dividing--as in _The Sacraments_ set +in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York--with slender Gothic +columns, than which nothing could be prettier, especially when framed +in at the top with the Gothic arch. In outdoor scenes the frank +disregard of the probable adds the charm of audacity. Side by side +with a scene of carnage, a field of blood with victims lying prone, is +inserted an island of flowers whereon youths and dogs are pleasantly +sporting; and adjoining that may be another section cunningly +introduced where a martyred woman is enveloped in flames which spring +from the ground around her as naturally as grass in springtime. + + [Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA + + Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century] + + [Illustration: HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN + + Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century] + +And flowers, flowers everywhere. Those little blossoms of the Gothic +with their perennial beauty, they are one of the smiles of that far +time that shed cheer through the centuries. They are not the +grandiose affairs of the Renaissance whose voluptuous development +contains the arrogant assurance of beauty matured. They do not crown a +column or trail themselves in foliated scrolls; but are just as Nature +meant them to be, unaffected bits of colour and grace, upspringing +from the sod. In the cathedral at Berne is a happy example of the use +of these sweet flowers, as they appear at the feet of the sacred +group, and as they carry the eye into the sky by means of the feathery +branches like fern-fronds which tops the scene; but we find them +nearer home, in almost every Gothic tapestry. + +It was about the end of the last Crusade when Italy began to produce +the inspired artists who broke the bonds of Byzantine traditions and +turned back to the inspiration of all art, which is Nature. Giotto, +tending his sheep, began to draw pictures of things as he saw them, +Savonarola awoke the conscience, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio--a string +of names to conjure with--all roused the intellect. The dawn of the +Renaissance flushed Europe with the life of civilisation. But before +the wonderful development of art through the reversion to classic +lines, came a high perfection of the style called Gothic, and with +that we are pleased to deal first. It is so full of beauty to the eye +and interest to the intellect that sometimes we must be dragged away +from it to regard the softer lines of later art, with the ingratitude +and reluctance of childhood when torn from its fairy tales to read of +real people in the commonplace of every day. + +We are now in the time when the perfection of production was reached +in the tapestries we call Gothic. Artists had grown more certain of +their touch in colour and design, and weavers worked with such +conscientious care as is now almost unknown, and produced a quality of +tapestry superior to that of their forebears. The Fifteenth Century +and the first few years of the Sixteenth were spent in perfecting the +style of the preceding century, and so great was the perfection +reached, that it was impossible to develop further on those lines. + +It must not be supposed from their importance that Brussels and Bruges +were the sole towns of weavers. There were many high-warp looms, and +low-warp as well, in many towns in Flanders and France, and there were +also beginnings in Spain, England and Germany. Italy came later. The +superb set in the Cluny Museum in Paris, _The Lady and the Unicorn_, +than which nothing could be lovelier in poetic feeling as well as in +technique, is accorded to French looms. But as it is impossible in a +cursory survey to mention all, the two most important cities are dwelt +upon because it is from them that the greatest amount of the best +product emanated. + +Tapestries could not well decline with the fortunes of a town, for +they were a heavy article of commerce at the time when Louis XI +attacked Arras. Trade was made across the Channel, whence came the +best wool for their manufacture; they were bought by the French +monarchs and nobility; many drifted to Genoa and Italy, to be sold by +the active merchants of the times to whoever could buy. When, +therefore, Arras was crushed, her able workmen flew to other centres +of production, principally in Flanders, notably to Bruges and +Brussels, and helped to bring these places into their high position. + + [Illustration: VERDURE + + French Gothic Tapestry] + + [Illustration: "ECCE HOMO" + + Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New + York] + +Stories of kings and their magnificence breathe ever of romance, but +kings could not be magnificent were it not for the labour of the +conscientious common people, those who go daily to their task, asking +nothing better than to live their little span in humble endeavour. The +weavers, the tapissiers of that far-away time in Flanders are +intensely appealing now when their beautiful work hangs before us +to-day. They send us a friendly message down through the centuries. It +is this makes us inquire a bit into the conditions of their lives, and +so we find them scattered through the country north of France working +with single-hearted devotion toward the perfection of their art. That +they arrived there, we know by such tapestries as are left us of their +time. + +Bruges was the home of a movement in art similar to that occurring in +Italy. Old traditions of painting were being thrown aside--the +revolution even attacking the painter's medium, tempera, which was +criticised, discarded and replaced by oil on the palettes. Memling, +the brothers Van Eyck, were painting things as they saw them, not as +rules prescribed. Bernard Van Orley was at work with bold originality. + +It were strange if this Northern school of painters had not influenced +all art near by. It is to these men that Brussels owes the beauty of +her tapestries in that apogee of Gothic art which immediately preceded +the introduction of the Renaissance from Italy. + +Cartoons or drawings for tapestries took on the rules of composition +of these talented and original men. Easily distinguishable is the +strong influence of the religious feeling, the fidelity to standards +of the church. When a rich townsman wished to express his praise or +gratitude to God, he ordered for the church an altar-piece or dainty +gilded Gothic carving to frame the painted panels of careful +execution. When Jean de Rome executed a cartoon, he treated it in much +the same way; built up an airy Gothic structure and filled the spaces +with pretty pictures. The so-called Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan's +shows this treatment at its best. Unhappily, the atelier of Jean de +Rome or Jan von Room is too sketchily portrayed in the book of the +past; its records are faint and elusive. We only hear now and then an +interested allusion, a suggestion that this or that beautiful specimen +of work has come from his atelier. + +Cartoons at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century were not all +divided into their different scenes by Gothic column and arch. In much +of the fine work there was no division except a natural one, for the +picture began to develop the modern scheme of treating but one scene +in one picture. Although this might be filled with many groups, yet +all formed a harmonious whole. The practice then fell into disuse of +repeating the same individual many times in one picture. + +A good example of the change and improvement in drawing which assisted +in making Brussels' supremacy and in bringing Gothic art to +perfection, is the fine hanging in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. +(Plate facing page 57.) It depicts with beautiful naivete and much +realism the discomfiture of Pharaoh and his army floundering in the +Red Sea, while the serene and elegant children of Israel contemplate +their distress with well-bred calm from the flowery banks of an +orderly park. + + [Illustration: ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT + + Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.] + + [Illustration: CROSSING THE RED SEA + + Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts] + +This tapestry illustrates so many of the important features of work +during the first period of Brussels' supremacy that it is to be +lingered over, dissected and tasted like a dessert of nuts and wine. +Should one speak first of the cartoon or of the weave, of the artist +or of the craftsmen? If it is to be the tapissier, then to him all +credit, for in this and similar work he has reached a care in +execution and a talent in translation that are inspired. Such quantity +of detail, so many human faces with their varying expressions, could +only be woven by the most adroit tapissier. + +The drawing shows, first, one scene of many groups but a sole +interest, with none but probable divisions. Much grace and freedom is +shown in the attitudes of the persons on the shore, and strenuous +effort and despair among the engulfed soldiers. Extreme attention to +detail, the making one part as finished as another, even to the least +detail, is noticeable. The exaggerated patterns of the stuffs +observable in earlier work is absent, and a sense of proportion is +displayed in dress ornament. The free movement of men and beasts, and +the variety of facial expression all show the immense strides made in +drawing and the perfection attained in this brilliant period. + +It was a time when the artist perfected the old style and presaged the +new, the years before the Renaissance had left its cradle and marched +over Europe. This perfection of the Gothic ideal has a purity and +simplicity that can never fail to appeal to all who feel that +sincerity is the basic principle of art as it is of character. The +style of Quentin Matsys, of the Van Eycks, was the mode at the end of +the Fifteenth Century and the beginning of the Sixteenth, and after +all this lapse of time it seems to us a sweet and natural expression +of admirable human attributes. + +In the new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the +labels of certain exhibits, purchases and loans allude briefly to +"studio of Jean de Rome." It is an allusion which especially interests +us, as our country now holds examples of this atelier which make us +wish to know more about its master. He was a designer in the +marvellous transition period of about 1500, when art trembled between +the restraint of ecclesiastic Gothic and the voluptuous freedom of the +Renaissance; hesitated between the conventions of religion and the +abandonment to luxury, to indulgence of the senses. It is the fashion +to regard periods of transition as times of decadence, of false +standards of hybrid production, but at least they are full of deepest +interest to the student of design who finds in the tremulous dawn of +the new idea a flush which beautifies the last years of the old +method. + + [Illustration: THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN + + Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, + Esq., New York] + +Attributed to this newly unearthed studio of Jean de Rome hangs a +marvellous tapestry in the new wing alluded to, one which deserves +repeated visits. (Plate facing page 58.) Indeed, to see it once +creates the desire to see it again, so beautiful is it in drawing and +so exquisite in colour and weave. It is suggested that Quentin +Matsys is responsible for the drawing, and it is known that only +Bruges or Brussels could produce such perfection of textile. Indeed, +Jean de Rome is by some authorities spoken of as Jean de Brussels, for +it is there that he worked long and well, assisting to produce those +wonders of textile art that have never been surpassed, not even by the +Gobelins factory in the Seventeenth Century. The tapestry in the +Metropolitan Museum is now the property of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., +but began life as the treasure of the King and Queen of Spain who, at +the time when Brussels was producing its best, were sitting firmly on +a throne but just wrested from the Saracenic occupancy. Spain, while +unable to establish famous and enduring tapestry factories of her own, +yet was known always as a lavish buyer. Later, Cardinal Mazarin, with +his trained Italian eye, detected at once the value of the tapestry +and became possessed of it, counting it among his best treasures of +art. It is a woven representation of the triptych, so favourite in the +time of the Van Eycks, and is almost as rich with gold as those +ancient altar decorations. The tapestry is variously called _The +Kingdom of Heaven_, and _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ and is +the most beautiful and important of its kind in America. Fortunate +they who can go to the museum to see it--only less fortunate than +those who can go to see it many times. + +In the private collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., of Chicago, are +three examples of great perfection. They belonged to the celebrated +art collection of Baron Spitzer, which fact, apart from their beauty, +gives them renown. The first of these (plate facing page 60) is an +appearance of Christ to the Magdalen after the Entombment, and is +Flemish work of late in the Fifteenth Century. It is woven in silk and +gold with infinite skill. With exquisite patience the weaver has +brought out the crowded detail in the distance; indeed, it is this +background, stretching away to the far sky, past the Tomb, beyond +towns and plains of fruited trees to yet more cities set on a hill, +that constitutes the greatest charm of the picture, and which must +have brought hours of happy toil to the inspired weaver. + +The second tapestry of Mr. Ryerson's three pieces is also Flemish of +the late Fifteenth Century. (Plate facing page 61.) This small group +of the Holy Family shows at its best the conscientious work of the +time, a time wherein man regarded labour as a means of worshipping his +God. The subject is treated by both artist and weaver with that loving +care which approaches religion. The holy three are all engaged in +holding bunches of grapes, while the Child symbolically spills their +juice into a chalice. Other symbols are found in the book and the +cross-surmounted globe. A background of flat drapery throws into +beautiful relief the inspired faces of the group. Behind this +stretches the miniature landscape, but the foreground is unfretted by +detail, abounding in the repose of the simple surfaces of the garments +of Mother and Child. By a subtle trick of line, St. Joseph is +separated from the holier pair. The border is the familiar +well-balanced Gothic composition of flower, fruit, and leaf, all +placed as though by the hand of Nature. The materials used are silk +and gold, but one might well add that the soul of the weaver also +entered into the fabric. + + [Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY + + Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the + Spitzer Collection] + + [Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY + + Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin + A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection] + +The third piece from the Spitzer collection bears all those marks of +exquisite beauty with which Italy was teeming in the Fifteenth +Century. (Colour plate facing page 82.) Weavers from Brussels went +down into Italy and worked under the direction of Italian artists who +drew the designs. Andrea Mantegna was one of these. The patron of the +industry was the powerful Gonzaga family. This tapestry of _The +Annunciation_ which Mr. Ryerson is so fortunate as to hang in his +collection, is decorated with the arms of the Gonzaga family. The +border of veined marble, the altar of mosaics and fine relief, the +architecture of the outlying baptistry, the wreathed angel, all speak +of Italy in that lovely moment when the Gothic had not been entirely +abandoned and the Renaissance was but an opening bud. + +The highest work of painter and weaver--artists both--continued +through thirty or forty years. Pity it is, the time had not been long +enough for more remains of it to have come to us than those that +scantily supply museums. After the Gothic perfection came the great +change made in Flanders by the introduction of the Renaissance. + +It came through the excellence of the weavers. It was not the worth of +the artists that brought Brussels its greatest fame, but the humbler +work of its tapissiers. Their lives, their endeavours counted more in +textile art than did the Flemish school of painting. No such weavers +existed in all the world. They were bound together as a guild, had +restrictions and regulations of their own that would shame a trades +union of to-day, and in change of politics had scant consideration +from new powers. But in the end they were the ones to bring fame to +the Brussels workshops. + +In 1528 they were banded together by organisation, and from that time +on their work is easily followed and identified. It was in that year +that a law was made compelling weavers--and allowing weavers--to +incorporate into the encompassing galloon of the tapestry the Brussels +Brabant mark of two B's with a shield between. And it was about this +time and later that the celebrated family of weavers named Pannemaker +came into prominence through the talent of Wilhelm de Pannemaker, he +who accompanied the Emperor Charles V on his expedition to Tunis. + +This expedition flaunts itself in the set of tapestries now in Madrid. +(Plate facing page 62.) The emperor seems, from our point of view, to +have done it all with dramatic forethought. There was his special +artist on the spot, Jan Vermeyen, to draw the superb cartoons, and +accompanying him was Wilhelm de Pannemaker, the ablest weaver of his +day, to set the loom and thrust the shuttle. Granada was the place +selected for the weaving, and the finest of wool was set aside for it, +besides lavish amounts of silk, and pounds of silver and gold. In +three years, by the help of eighty workmen, Pannemaker completed his +colossal task. Such was the master-weaver of the Sixteenth Century. + + [Illustration: CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL) + + Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal Collection at + Madrid] + +As for Pannemaker's imperial patron, John Addington Symonds +discriminatingly says of him: "Like a gale sweeping across a forest of +trees in blossom, and bearing their fertilising pollen to far distant +trees, the storm of Charles Fifth's army carried far and wide through +Europe the productive energy of the Renaissance." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE + + +Brussels in 1515, with her workmen at the zenith of their perfection, +was given the order to weave the set of the _Acts of the Apostles_ for +the Pope to hang in the Sistine Chapel. (Plate facing page 64.) The +cartoons were by the great Raphael. Not only did he draw the splendid +scenes, but with his exquisite invention elaborated the borders. Thus +was set in the midst of the Brussels ateliers a pattern for the new +art that was to retire the nice perfection of the previous school of +restraint. From that time, all was regulated by new standards. + +Before considering the change that came to designs in tapestry, it is +necessary that both mind and eye should be literally savants in the +Gothic. Without this the greatest point in classifying and +distinguishing is missed. The dainty grace of the verdure and flowers, +the exquisite models of the architectural details, the honest, simple +scheme of colour, all these are distinguishing marks, but to them is +added the still greater one of the figures and their grouping. In the +very early work, these are few in number, all equally accented in size +and finish, but later the laws of perspective are better understood, +and subordinates to the subject are drawn smaller. This gives +opportunity for increase in the number of personages, and for the +introduction of the horses and dogs and little wild animals that cause +a childish thrill of delight wherever they are encountered, so like +are they to the species that haunt childhood's fairyland. + + [Illustration: DEATH OF ANANIAS.--FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY + RAPHAEL + + From the Palace of Madrid] + + [Illustration: THE STORY OF REBECCA + + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor + Carey, Esq., Boston] + +Indeed, the Gothic tapestries more than any other existing pictures +take us back to that epoch of our lives when we lived in romance, when +the Sleeping Beauty hid in just such towers, when the prince rode such +a horse and appeared an elegant young knight. The inscrutable mystery +of those folk of other days is like the inscrutable mystery of that +childhood time, the Mediaeval time of the imagination, and those of us +who remember its joys gaze silent and happy in the tapestry room of +the Ducal Palace at Nancy, or in Mary's Chamber at Holyrood, or in any +place whatever where hang the magic pictured cloths. + +When the highest development of a style is reached a change is sure to +come. It may be a degeneration, or it may be the introduction of a new +style through some great artistic impulse either native or introduced +by contact with an outside influence. Fortunately, the Gothic passed +through no pallid process of deterioration. The examples that nest +comfortably in the museums of the world or in the homes of certain +fortunate owners, do not contain marks of decadence--only of +transition. It is a style that was replaced, but not one that died the +death of decadence. + +It is with reluctance that one who loves the Gothic will leave it for +the more recent art of the Renaissance. Its charm is one that embodies +chasteness, grace, and simplicity, one that is so exquisitely +finished, and so individual that the mind and eye rest lovingly upon +its decorative expressions. It is averred that the introduction of the +revived styles of Greece and Rome into France destroyed an art +superior. One is inclined to this opinion in studying a tapestry of +the highest Gothic expression, a finished product of the artist and +the craftsman, both having given to its execution their honest labour +and highest skill. Unhappily it is often, with the tapestry lover, a +case similar to that of the penniless boy before the bakeshop +window--you may look, but you may not have,--for not often are +tapestries such as these for sale. Only among the experienced +dealer-collectors is one fortunate enough to find these rare remnants +of the past which for colour, design and texture are unsurpassed. + +But the Gothic was bound to give way as a fashion in design. Politics +of Europe were at work, and men were more easily moving about from one +country to another. The cities of the various provinces over which the +Burgundian dukes had ruled were prevented by natural causes, from +being united. Arras, Ghent, Liege instead of forming a solidarity, +were separate units of interest. This made the subjugation of one or +the other an easy matter to the tyrant who oppressed. As Arras +declined under the misrule of Charles le Temeraire (whose possessions +at one time outlined the whole northern and eastern border of France) +Brussels came into the highest prominence as a source of the finest +tapestries. + + [Illustration: THE CREATION + + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century] + + [Illustration: THE ORIGINAL SIN + + Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century] + +The great change in tapestries that now occurs is the same that +altered all European art and decoration and architecture. Indeed it +cannot be limited to these evidences alone, for it affected +literature, politics, religion, every intellectual evidence. Man was +breaking his bonds and becoming freed for centuries to come. The time +was well-named for the new birth. Like another Birth of long ago, it +occurred in the South, and its influence gradually spread over the +entire civilised world. The Renaissance, starting in Italy, gradually +flushed the whole of Europe with its glory. Artists could not be +restrained. Throbbing with poetry to be expressed, they threw off +design after design of inspired beauty and flooded the world with +them. The legitimate field of painting was not large enough for their +teeming originality which pre-empted also the field of decorative +design as well. Many painters apprenticed themselves to goldsmiths and +silversmiths to become yet more cunning in the art of minute design, +and the guilds of Florence held the names best known in the fine arts. + +Tapestry weaving seems a natural expression in the North, the +impulsive supplying of a local need. Possibly Italy felt no such need +throughout the Middle Ages. However that may be, when her artists +composed designs for woven pictures there were no permanent artisans +at home of sufficient skill to weave them. + +But up in the North, craftsmen were able to produce work of such +brilliant and perfect execution that the great artists of Italy were +inspired to draw cartoons. And so it came, that to make sure of having +their drawings translated into wool and silk with proper artistic +feeling, the cartoons of Raphael were bundled off by trusty carriers +to the ateliers of Flanders. Thus Italy got her tapestries of the +Renaissance, and thus Flanders acquired by inoculation the rich art of +the Renaissance. + +The direct cause of the change in Flemish style of tapestries was in +this way brought about by the Renaissance of Italy. New rules of +drawing were dominating. Changes were slower when travelling was +difficult, and the average of literacy was low; but gradually there +came creeping up to Brussels cartoon after cartoon in the new method, +for her skilled workmen to transpose into wool and silk and metal, +"thread of Arras," and "gold and silver of Cyprus." Italy had the +artists, Brussels had the craftsmen--what happier combination could be +made than the union of these two? Thus was the great change brought +about in tapestries, and this union is the great fact to be borne in +mind about the difference between the Gothic tapestries and those +which so quickly succeeded them. + +From now on the old method is abandoned, not only in Brussels, but +everywhere that the high-warp looms are set up. The "art nouveau" of +that day influenced every brush and pencil. The great crowding of +serried hosts on a single field disappeared, and fewer but perfect +figures played their parts on the woven surface. Wherever +architectural details, such as porticoes or columns, were introduced, +these dropped the old designs of "pointed" style or battlements, and +took on the classic or the high Renaissance that ornaments the facade +of Pavia's Certosa. One by one the wildwood flowers receded before the +advance of civilisation, very much as those in the veritable land +are wont to do, and their place was taken by a verdure as rich as the +South could produce, with heavy foliage and massive blossoms. + + [Illustration: MELEAGER AND ATALANTA + + Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. Woven in Paris + workshops by Charles de Comans] + + [Illustration: PUNIC WAR SERIES + + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor + Carey, Esq., Boston] + +It is impossible to overestimate the importance to Brussels of the +animating experience and distinguished commission of executing the set +of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel after cartoons by Raffaelo +Sanzio. The date is one to tie to (1515) and the influence of the work +was far-reaching. The Gothic method could no longer continue. + +The Renaissance spread its influence, established its standards and +introduced that wave of productiveness which always followed its +introduction. There are many who doubt the superiority of the +voluptuous art of the high Renaissance. There are those who prefer +(perhaps for reasons of sentiment) the early Gothic, and many more who +love far better the sweet purity of the early Renaissance. Before us +Raphael presents his full figures replete with action, rich with +broad, open curves in nudity, and magnificent with lines of flowing +drapery. To him be accorded all due honour; but, if it is the +privilege of the artist's spirit to wander still on earth, he must +find his particular post-mortem punishment in viewing the deplorable +school of exaggeration which his example founded. Who would not prefer +one of the chaste tapestries of perfected Gothic to one of those which +followed Raphael, imitating none of his virtues, exaggerating his +faults? It is these followers, the virilities of whose false art is as +that of weeds, who have come almost to our own day and who have +succeeded in spoiling the historical aspect of the New Testament for +many an imaginative Sunday-school attendant by giving us Bible folk in +swarthy undress, in lunatic beards and in unwearable drapings. These +terrible persons, descendants of Raphael's art, can never stir a human +sympathy. + +Just here a word must be said of the workmen, the weavers of Brussels. +For them certain fixed rules were made, but also they were allowed +much liberty in execution. The artist might draw the big cartoons and +thus become the governing influence, but much of the choice of colour +and thread was left to the weaver. This made of him a more important +factor in the composition than a mere artisan; he was, in fact, an +artist, must needs be, to execute a work of such sublimity as the +Raphael set. + +And as a weaver, his patience was without limit. Thread by thread, the +warp was set, and thread by thread the woof was woven and coerced into +place by the relentless comb of the weaver. Perhaps a man might make a +square foot, by a week of close application; but "how much" mattered +nothing--it was "how well" that counted. Haste is disassociable from +labour of our day; we might produce--or reproduce--tapestries as good +as the old, but some one is in haste for the hanging, and excellency +goes by the board. The weaver of those days of perfection was content +to be a weaver, felt his ambition gratified if his work was good. + + [Illustration: EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CAESAR + + Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, + Florence] + + [Illustration: WILD BOAR HUNT + + Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the + Arazzi, Florence] + +Peter van Aelst was the master chosen to execute the Raphael +tapestries, and the pieces were finished in three or four years. Those +who think present-day prices high, should think on the fact that Pope +Leo X paid $130,000 for the execution of the tapestries, which in +1515 counted for more than now. Raphael received $1,000 each for the +cartoons, almost all of which are now guarded in England. The +tapestries after a varied history are resting safely in the Vatican, a +wonder to the visitor. + +When Van Aelst had finished his magnificent work, the tapestries were +sent to Rome. Those who go now to the Sistine Chapel to gaze upon +Michael Angelo's painted ceiling, and the panelled sidewalls of +Botticelli and other cotemporary artists, are more than intoxicated +with the feast. But fancy what the scene must have been when Pope Leo +X summoned his gorgeous guard and cardinals around him in this chapel +enriched also with the splendour of these unparalleled hangings. + +And thus it came that Italy held the first place--almost the only +place--in design, and Brussels led in manufacture. + +In 1528 appeared a mark on Brussels' tapestries which distinguished +them from that time on. Prior to that their works, except in certain +authenticated instances, are not always distinguishable from those of +other looms--of which many existed in many towns. The mark alluded to +is the famous one of two large B's on either side of a shield or +scutcheon. This was woven into a plain band on the border, and the +penalty for its misuse was the no small one of the loss of the right +hand--the death of the culprit as a weaver. This mark and its laws +were intended to discourage fraud, to promote perfection and to +conserve a high reputation for weavers as well as for dealers. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS + + +When the Raphael cartoons first came to Brussels the new method was a +little difficult for the tapissier. His hand had been accustomed to +another manner. He had, too, been allowed much liberty in his +translations--if one may so call the art of reproducing a painted +model on the loom. He might change at will the colour of a drapery, +even the position of a figure, and, most interesting fact, he had on +hand a supply of stock figures that he might use at will, making for +himself suitable combination. The figures of Adam and Eve gave a +certain cachet to hangings not entirely secular and these were slipped +in when a space needed filling. There were also certain lovely ladies +who might at one time play the role of attendant at a feast _al +fresco_, at another time a character in an allegory. The weaver's hand +was a little conventional when he began to execute the Raphael +cartoons, but during the three years required for their execution he +lost all restriction and was ready for the freer manner. + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + +It must not be supposed the Flemish artists were content to let the +Italians entirely usurp them in the drawing of cartoons. The lovely +refinement of the Bruges school having been thrust aside, the Fleming +tried his hand at the freer method, not imitating its classicism but +giving his themes a broader treatment. The Northern temperament +failed to grasp the spirit of the South, and figures grew gross and +loose in the exaggerated drawing. Borders, however, show no such +deterioration; the attention to detail to which the old school was +accustomed was here continued and with good effect. No stronger +evidence is needed than some of these half savage portrayals of life +in the Sixteenth Century to declare the classic method an exotic in +Flanders. + +But with the passing of the old Gothic method, there was little need +for other cartoonists than the Italian, so infinitely able and +prolific were they. Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Giulio +Romano, these are among the artists whose work went up to Brussels +workshops and to other able looms of the day. We can fancy the fair +face of Andrea's wife being lovingly caressed by the weaver's fingers +in his work; we can imagine the beauties of Titian, the sumptuousness +of Veronese's feasts, and the fat materialism of Giulio Romano's heavy +cherubs, all contributing to the most beautiful of textile arts. + +Still earlier, Mantegna supplied a series of idealised Pompeian +figures exquisitely composed, set in a lacy fancy of airy +architectural detail, in which he idealised all the gods of Olympus. +Each fair young goddess, each strong and perfect god, stood in its +particular niche and indicated its _penchant_ by a tripod, a peacock, +an apple or a caduceus, as clue to the proper name. Such airy beauty, +such dainty conception, makes of the gods rulers of aesthetics, if not +of fate. This series of Mantegna was the inspiration two centuries +later of the _Triumphs of the Gods_, and similar hangings of the +newly-formed Gobelins. + +Giulio Romano drew, among other cartoons, a set of _Children Playing_, +which were the inspiration later at the Gobelins for Lebrun's _Enfants +Jardiniers_. + +As classic treatment was the mode in the Sixteenth Century, so classic +subject most appealed. The loves and adventures of gods and heroes +gave stories for an infinite number of sets. As it was the fashion to +fill a room with a series, not with miscellaneous and contrasting +bits, several tapestries similar in subject and treatment were a +necessity. The gods were carried through their adventures in varying +composition, but the borders in all the set were uniform in style and +measurement. + +In those prolific days, when ideas were crowding fast for expression, +the border gave just the outlet necessary for the superfluous designs +of the artist. He was wont to plot it off into squares with such +architectonic fineness as Mina da Fiesole might have used, and to make +of each of these a picture or a figure so perfect that in itself it +would have sufficient composition for an entire tapestry. All honour +to such artists, but let us never once forget that without the skill +and talent of the master-weaver these beauties would never have come +down to us. + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + + [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA + + First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] + +The collection of George Blumenthal, Esquire, of New York, contains as +beautiful examples of Sixteenth Century composition and weaving as +could be imagined. Two of these were found in Spain--the country +which has ever hoarded her stores of marvellous tapestries. They +represent the story of _Mercury_. (Frontispiece.) The cartoon is +Italian, and so perfect is its drawing, so rich in invention is the +exquisite border, that the name of Raphael is half-breathed by the +thrilled observer. But if the artist is not yet certainly identified, +the name of the weaver is certain, for on the galloon he has left his +sign. It is none other than the celebrated Wilhelm de Pannemaker. + +In addition to this is the shield and double B of the Brussels +workshop, which after 1528 was a requirement on all tapestries beyond +a certain small size. In 1544 the Emperor Charles V made a law that +the mark or name of the weaver and the mark of his town must be put in +the border. It was this same Pannemaker of the Blumenthal tapestries +who wove in Spain the _Conquest of Tunis_ for Charles V. (Plate facing +page 62.) + +Mr. Blumenthal's tapestries must have carried with them some such +contract for fine materials as that which attended the execution of +the _Tunis_ set, so superb are they in quality. Indeed, gold is so +lavishly used that the border seems entirely made of it, except for +the delicate figures resting thereon. It is used, too, in an unusual +manner, four threads being thrown together to make more resplendent +the weave. + +The beauty of the cartoon as a picture, the decorative value of the +broad surfaces of figured stuffs, the marvellous execution of the +weaver, all make the value of these tapestries incalculable to the +student and the lover of decorative art. Mr. Blumenthal has graciously +placed them on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New +York. Fortunate they who can absorb their beauty. + +That treasure-house in Madrid which belongs to the royal family +contains a set which bears the same ear-marks as the Blumenthal +tapestries. It is the set called _The Loves of Vertumnus and Pomona_. +(Plates facing pages 72, 73, 74 and 75.) Here is the same manner of +dress, the same virility, the same fulness of decoration. Yet the +Mercury is drawn with finer art. + +The delight in perfected detail belonging to the Italian school of +artists resulted in an arrangement of _grotesques_. Who knows that the +goldsmith's trade was not responsible for these tiny fantastics, as so +many artists began as apprentices to workers in gold and silver? This +evidence of talented invention must be observed, for it set the +fashion for many a later tapestry, notably the _Grotesque Months_ of +the Seventeenth Century. Mingled with verdure and fruit, it is seen in +work of the Eighteenth Century. But in its original expression is it +the most talented. There we find that intellectual plan of design, +that building of a perfect whole from a subtle combination of +absolutely irreconcilable and even fabulous objects. Yet all is done +with such beguiling art that both mind and eye are piqued and pleased +with the impossible blending of realism and imagination. + +Bacchiacca drew a filigree of attenuated fancies, threw them on a +ground of single delicate colour, and sent them for weave to the +celebrated masters, John Rost and Nicholas Karcher. (Plates facing +pages 84 and 85.) These men at that time (1550) had set their +Flemish looms in Italy. + + [Illustration: TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED + + Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid] + + [Illustration: THE STORY OF REBECCA + + Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor + Carey, Esq., Boston] + +And so it came that the Renaissance swept all before it in the world +of tapestry. More than that, with the increase of culture and of +wealth, with the increased mingling of the peoples of Europe after the +raid of Charles V into Italy, the demand for tapestries enormously +increased. They were wanted for furnishing of homes, they were wanted +as gifts--to brides, to monarchs, to ambassadors. And they were wanted +for splendid decoration in public festivals. They had passed beyond +the stage of rarity and had become almost as much a matter of course +as clothing. + +Brussels being in the ascendency as a producer, the world looked to +her for their supply, and thereby came trouble. More orders came than +it was possible to fill. The temptation was not resisted to accept +more work than could be executed, for commercialism has ever a hold. +The result was a driving haste. The director of the ateliers forced +his weavers to quick production. This could mean but one thing, the +lessening of care in every department. + +Gradually it came about that expedition in a tapissier, the ability to +weave quickly, was as great a desideratum as fine work. Various other +expedients were resorted to beside the Sixteenth Century equivalent of +"Step lively." Large tapestries were not set on a single loom, but +were woven in sections, cunningly united when finished. In this manner +more men could be impressed into the manufacture of a single piece. A +wicked practice was introduced of painting or dyeing certain woven +parts in which the colours had been ill-selected. + +All these things resulted in constantly increasing restrictions by the +guild of tapissiers and by order of royal patrons. But fraud is hard +to suppress when the animus of the perpetrator is wrong. Laws were +made to stop one fault after another, until in the end the weavers +were so hampered by regulations that work was robbed of all enthusiasm +or originality. + +It was at this time that Brussels adopted the low-warp loom. In other +words, after a brilliant period of prolific and beautiful production, +Brussels began to show signs of deterioration. Her hour of triumph was +past. It had been more brilliant than any preceding, and later times +were never able to touch the same note of purity coupled with +perfection. The reason for the decline is known, but reasons are of +scant interest in the face of the deplorable fact of decadence. + +The Italian method of drawing cartoons was adopted by the Flemish +cartoonists at this time, but as it was an adoption and not a natural +expression of inborn talent, it fell short of the high standard of the +Renaissance. But that is not to say that we of to-day are not ready to +worship the fruit of the Italian graft on Flemish talent. A tapestry +belonging to the Institute of Art in Chicago well represents this +hybrid expression of drawing. (Plate facing page 78.) The principal +figures are inspired by such as are seen in the _Mercury_ of Mr. +Blumenthal's collection, or the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ series, but +there the artist stopped and wandered off into his traditional +Flemish landscape with proper Flemings in the background dressed in +the fashion of the artist's day. + + [Illustration: BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY + + Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago] + + [Illustration: MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA + + Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon + attributed to Rubens] + +The border was evidently inspired by Raphael's classic figures and +arabesques, but the column of design is naively broken by the far +perspective of a formal garden. The Italian cartoonist would have +built his border, figure and arabesque, one above another like a +fantastic column (_vide_ Mr. Blumenthal's _Mercury_ border). The +Fleming saw the intricacy, the multiplied detail, but missed the +intellectual harmony. But, such trifles apart, the Flemish examples of +this style that have come to us are thrilling in their beauty of +colour, and borders such as this are an infinite joy. This tapestry +was woven about the last quarter of the Sixteenth Century by a weaver +named Jacques Geubels of Brussels, who was employed by Carlier, a +merchant of Antwerp. + +As the fruit of the Renaissance graft on Flanders coarsened and +deteriorated, a new influence arose in the Low Countries, one that was +bound to submerge all others. Rubens appeared and spread his great +decorative surfaces before eyes that were tired of hybrid design. This +great scene-painter introduced into all Europe a new method in his +voluptuous, vigorous work, a method especially adapted to tapestry +weaving. It is not for us to quarrel with the art of so great a +master. The critics of painting scarce do that; but in the lesser art +of tapestry the change brought about by his cartoons was not a happy +one. + +His great dramatic scenes required to be copied directly from the +canvas, no liberty of line or colour could be allowed the weaver. In +times past, the tapissier--with talent almost as great as that of the +cartoonist--altered at his discretion. Even he to whom the Raphael +cartoons were entrusted changed here and there the work of the master. + +But now he was expected to copy without license for change. In other +words, the time was arriving when tapestries were changing from +decorative fabrics into paintings in wool. It takes courage to avow a +distaste for the newer method, seeing what rare and beautiful hangings +it has produced. But after a study of the purely decorative hangings +of Gothic and Renaissance work, how forced and false seem the later +gods. The value of the tapestries is enormous, they are the work of +eminent men--but the heart turns away from them and revels again in +the Primitives and the Italians of the Cinque Cento. + +Repining is of little avail. The mode changes and tastes must change +with it. If the gradual decadence after the Renaissance was +deplorable, it was well that a Rubens rose in vigour to set a new and +vital copy. To meet new needs, more tones of colour and yet more, were +required by the weaver, and thus came about the making of woven +pictures. + +As one picture is worth many pages of description, it were well to +observe the examples given (plate facing page 79) of the superb set of +_Antony and Cleopatra_, a series of designs attributed to Rubens, +executed in Brussels by Gerard van den Strecken. This set is in the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ITALY + +FIFTEENTH THROUGH SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES + + +The history of tapestry in Italy is the story of the great families, +their romances and achievements. These families were those which +furnished rulers of provinces--kings, almost--which supplied popes as +well, and folk who thought a powerful man's pleasurable duty was to +interest himself seriously in the arts. + +With the fine arts all held within her hand, it was but logical that +Italy should herself begin to produce the tapestries she was importing +from the land of the barbarians as those beyond her northern borders +were arrogantly called. First among the records is found the name of +the Gonzaga family which called important Flemish weavers down to +Mantua, and there wove designs of Mantegna, in the highest day of +their factory's production, about 1450. + +Duke Frederick of Urbino is one of the early Italian patrons of +tapestry whose name is made unforgettable in this connexion by the +product of the factory he established toward the end of the Fifteenth +Century, at his court in the little duchy which included only the +space reaching from the Apennines to the Adriatic and from Rimini to +Ancona. The chief work of this factory was the _History of Troy_ which +cost the generous and enthusiastic duke a hundred thousand dollars. + +The great d'Este family was one to follow persistently the art, +possibly because it habited the northern part of the peninsula and was +therefore nearer Flanders, but more probably because the great Duke of +Ferrara was animated by that superb pride of race that chafes at +rivalry; this, added to a wish to encourage art, and the lust of +possession which characterised the great men of that day. + +It was the middle of the Sixteenth Century that Ercole II, the head of +the d'Este family, revived at Ferrara the factory of his family which +had suffered from the wars. The master-weavers were brought from +Flanders, not only to produce tapestries almost unequalled for +technical perfection, but to instruct local weavers. These two +important weavers were Nicholas and John Karcher or Carcher as it is +sometimes spelled, names of great renown--for a weaver might be almost +as well known and as highly esteemed as the artist of the cartoons in +those days when artisan's labour had not been despised by even the +great Leonardo. The foremost artist of the Ferrara works was chosen +from that city, Battista Dosso, but also active as designer was the +Fleming, Lucas Cornelisz. In Dosso's work is seen that exquisite and +dainty touch that characterises the artists of Northern Italy in their +most perfect period, before voluptuous masses and heavy scroll-like +curves prevailed even in the drawing of the human figure. + + [Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION + + Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. + Ryerson, Esq., Chicago] + +The House of Este had a part to play in the visit of the Emperor +Charles V when he elected to be crowned with Lombardy's Iron Crown, in +1530, at Bologna instead of in the cathedral at Monza where the relic +has its home. "Crowns run after me; I do not run after them," he +said, with the arrogance of success. At this reception at Bologna +we catch a glimpse of the brilliant Isabella d'Este amid all the +magnificence of the occasion. It takes very little imagination to +picture the effect of the public square at Bologna--the same buildings +that stand to-day--the square of the Palazzo Publico and the +Cathedral--to fancy these all hung with the immense woven pictures +with high lights of silk and gold glowing in the sun, and through this +magnificent scene the procession of mounted guards, of beautiful +ladies, of church dignitaries, with Charles V as the central object of +pomp, wearing as a clasp to the cope of state the great diamond found +on the field of Marat after the defeat of the Duke of Burgundy. The +members of the House of Este were there with their courts and their +proteges, their artists and their literati, as well as with their +display of riches and gaiety. + +The manufactory at Ferrara was now allowed to sell to the public, so +great was its success, and to it is owed the first impetus given to +the weaving in Italy and the production of some of the finest hangings +which time has left for us to enjoy to-day. It is a sad commentary on +man's lust of novelty that the factory at Ferrara was ultimately +abandoned by reason of the introduction into the country of the +brilliant metal-illuminated leathers of Cordova. The factory's life +was comprised within the space of the years 1534 to 1597, the years in +which lived Ercole II and Alfonso II, the two dukes of the House of +Este who established and continued it. + +It was but little wonder that the great family of the Medici looked +with envious eyes on any innovation or success which distinguished a +family which so nearly approached in importance its own. When Ercole +d'Este had fully proved the perfection of his new industry, the +weaving of tapestry, one of the Medici established for himself a +factory whereby he, too, might produce this form of art, not only for +the furtherance of the art, but to supply his own insatiable desires +for possession. + +The _Arazzeria Medicea_ was the direct result of the jealousy of +Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1537-1574. It was established in +Florence with a success to be anticipated under such powerful +protection, and it endured until that patronage was removed by the +extinction of the family in 1737. + +It was to be expected that the artists employed were those of note, +yet in the general result, outside of delicate grotesques, the drawing +is more or less the far-away echo of greater masters whose faults are +reproduced, but whose inspiration is not obtainable. After Michael +Angelo, came a passion for over-delineation of over-developed muscles; +after Raphael--came the debased followers of his favourite pupil, +Giulio Romano, who had himself seized all there was of the carnal in +Raphael's genius. But if there is something to be desired in the +composition and line of the cartoons of the Florentine factory, there +is nothing lacking in the consummate skill of the weavers. + + [Illustration: ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY + + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher] + + [Illustration: ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY + + Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost] + +The same Nicholas Karcher who set the standard in the d'Este works, +gave of his wonderful skill to the Florentines, and with him was +associated John Rost. These were both from Flanders, and although +trade regulations for tapestry workers did not exist in Italy, Duke +Cosimo granted each of these men a sufficient salary, a habitat, as +well as permission to work for outsiders, and in addition paid them +for all work executed for himself. + +The subjects for the set of tapestries had entirely left the old +method of pious interpretation and of mediaeval allegory and revelled +in pictured tales of the Scriptures and of the gods and heroes of +mystical Parnassus and of bellicose Greece, not forgetting those +dainty exquisite impossibilities called grotesques. It was about the +time of the death of Cosimo I (1574), the founder of the Medicean +factory, that a new and unfortunate influence came into the +directorship of the designs. This was the appointment of Stradano or +Johan van der Straaten, to give his Flemish name, as dominating +artist. + +He was a man without fine artistic feeling, one of those whose eye +delighted in the exaggerations of decadence rather than in the +restraint of perfect art. He was inspired, not by past perfection of +the Italians among whom he came to live, but by those of the decline, +and on this he grafted a bit of Northern philistinism. His brush was +unfortunately prolific, and at this time the fine examples of weaving +set by Rost and Karcher had been replaced by quicker methods so that +after 1600 the tapestries poured out were lamentably inferior. +Florentine tapestry had at this time much pretence, much vulgar +display in its drawing, missing the fine virtues of the time when +Cosimo I dictated its taste, the fine virtues of "grace, gaiety and +reflectiveness." + +Leo X, the great Medicean pope, was elected in 1513, he who ordered +the great Raphael set of the _Acts of the Apostles_, but it was before +the establishment of important looms in Italy, so to Flanders and Van +Aelst are due the glory of first producing this series which afterward +was repeated many times, in the great looms of Europe. Leo X emulated +in the patronage of the arts his father Lorenzo, well-named +Magnificent. What Lorenzo did in Florence, Leo X endeavoured to do in +Rome; make of his time and of his city the highest expression of +culture. His record, however, is so mixed with the corruption of the +time that its golden glory is half-dimmed. It was from the +licentiousness of cardinals and the wanton revels of the Vatican in +Leo's time that young Luther the "barbarian" fled with horror to nail +up his theses on the doors of the churches in Wittenberg. + +The history of tapestry in Italy at the Seventeenth Century was all in +the hands of the great families. Italy was not united under a single +royal head, but was a heterogeneous mass of dukedoms, of foreign +invaders, with the popes as the head of all. But Italy had experienced +a time of papal corruption, which had, as its effect, wars of +disintegration, the retarding of that unity of state which has only +recently been accomplished. State patronage for the factories was not +known, that steady beneficent influence, changeless through changing +reigns. Popes and great families regulated art in all its +manifestations, and who shall say that envy and rivalry did not act +for its advancement. + + [Illustration: ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] + +The desire to imitate the cultivation and elegance of Italy was +what made returning invaders carry the Renaissance into the rest of +Europe; and in a lesser degree the process was reversed when, in the +Seventeenth Century, a cardinal of the House of Barberini visited +France and, on viewing in the royal residences a superb display of +tapestries, his envy and ambition were aroused to the extent of +emulation. He could not, with all his power, possess himself of the +hangings that he saw, but he could, and did, arrange to supply himself +generously from another source. He was the powerful Francesco +Barberini, the son of the pope's brother (Pope Urban VIII, 1623-1644), +and it was he who established the Barberini Library and built from the +ruins of Rome's amphitheatres and baths the great palace which to-day +still dominates the street winding up to its aristocratic elegance. It +was to adorn this palace that Cardinal Francesco established ateliers +and looms and set artists and weavers to work. This tapestry factory +is of especial interest to America, for some of its chief hangings +have come to rest with us. _The Mysteries of the Life and Death of +Jesus Christ_, one set is called, and is the property of the Cathedral +of St. John, the Divine, in New York, donated by Mrs. Clarke. + +Cardinal Francesco Barberini chose as his artists those of the school +of Pietro di Cortona with Giovanni Francesco Romanelli as the head +master. The director of the factory was Giacomo della Riviera allied +with M. Wauters, the Fleming.[13] The former was especially concerned +with the pieces now owned by the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, +in New York, and which are signed with his name. Romanelli was the +artist of the cartoons, and his fame is almost too well known to dwell +upon. His portrait, in tapestry, hangs in the Louvre, for in Paris he +gained much fame at the Court of Louis XIV, where he painted portraits +of the Grand Monarch, who never wearied of seeing his own magnificence +fixed on canvas. + +It was the hard fate of the Barberini family to lose power and wealth +after the death of their powerful member, Pope Urban VIII, in 1644. +Their wealth and influence were the shining mark for the arrows of +envy, so it was to be expected that when the next pope, Innocent X, +was elected, they were robbed of riches and driven out of the country +into France. This ended for a time the work of the tapestry factory, +but later the family returned and work was resumed to the extent of +weaving a superb series picturing scenes especially connected with the +glory of the family, and entitled _History of Urban VIII_. + +Although Italy is growing daily in power and riches under her new +policy of political unity, there were dreary years of heavy expense +and light income for many of her famous families, and it was during +such an era that the Barberini family consented to let their +tapestries pass out from the doors of the palace they were woven to +decorate. In 1889, the late Charles M. Ffoulke, Esq., became the +possessor of all the Barberini hangings, and added them to his famous +collection. Thus through the enterprise and the fine artistic +appreciation of Mr. Ffoulke, is America able to enjoy the best +expression of Italian tapestry of the Seventeenth Century. + +The part that Venice ever played in the history of tapestry is the +splendid one of consumer. In her Oriental magnificence she exhibited +in palace and pageant the superb products of labour which others had +executed. Without tapestries her big stone palaces would have lacked +the note of soft luxury, without coloured hangings her balconies would +have been but dull settings for languid ladies, and her water-parades +would have missed the wondrous colour that the Venetian loves. Yet to +her rich market flowed the product of Europe in such exhaustless +stream that she became connoisseur-consumer only, nor felt the need of +serious producing. Workshops there were, from time to time, but they +were as easily abandoned as they were initiated, and they have left +little either to history or to museums. Venice was, in the Sixteenth +Century, not only a buyer of tapestries for her own use, but one of +the largest markets for the sale of hangings to all Europe. Men and +monarchs from all Christendom went there to purchase. The same may be +said of Genoa, so that although these two cities had occasional +unimportant looms, their position was that of middleman--vendors of +the works of others. In addition to this they were repairers and had +ateliers for restoring, even in those days. + + +FOOTNOTE: + +[13] E. Muentz, "La Tapisserie." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +FRANCE + +WORKING UP TO GOBELINS FACTORY + + +In following the great sweep of tapestry production we arrive now in +France, there to stay until the Revolution. The early beginnings were +there, briefly rivalling Arras, but Arras, as we have seen, caught up +the industry with greater zeal and became the ever-famous leader of +the Fifteenth Century, ceding to Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, +whence the high point of perfection was carried to Paris and caused +the establishment of the Gobelins. The English development under James +I, we defer for a later considering. + +Francis I stands, an over-dressed, ever ambitious figure, at the +beginning of things modern in French art. He still smacks of the +Middle Ages in many a custom, many a habit of thought; his men clank +in armour, in his chateaux lurk the suggestion of the fortress, and +his common people are sunk in a dark and hopeless oppression. Yet he +himself darts about Europe with a springing gait and an elegant +manner, the type of the strong aristocrat dispensing alike arts of war +and arts of the Renaissance. + +Was it his visits, bellicose though they were, to Italy and Spain, +that turned his observant eye to the luxury of woven story and made +him desire that France should produce the same? The Sforza Castle at +Milan had walls enough of tapestry, the pageants of Leonardo da +Vinci, organised at royal command of the lovely Beatrice d'Este, +displayed the wealth of woven beauty over which Francis had time to +deliberate in those bad hours after the battle at Milan's noted +neighbour, Pavia. + + [Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES + + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. The Louvre + Museum] + + [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF JUNO + + Gobelins under Louis XIV.] + +The attention of Francis was also turned much to Spain through envy of +that extraordinary man of luck and ability, the Emperor Charles V, and +from whom he made abortive and sullen efforts to wrest Germany, Italy, +anything he could get. In his imprisonment in Madrid, Francis had time +in plenty on which to think of many things, and why not on the +wonderful tapestries of which Spain has always had a collection to +make envious the rest of Europe. He might forget his two poor little +boys who were left as hostages on his release, but he forgot not +whatever contributes to the pleasure of life. That peculiarity was one +which was yielding luscious fruit, however, for Francis was the bearer +of the torch of the Renaissance which was to illumine France with the +same fire that flashed and glowed over Italy. This is a fact to +remember in regard to the class of designs of his own and succeeding +periods in France. + +How he got his ideas we can reasonably trace, and the result of them +was that he established a royal tapestry factory in beautiful +Fontainebleau, which lies hid in grateful shade, stretching to +flowered fields but a reasonable distance from the distractions of +Paris. + +It pleased Francis--and perhaps the beautiful Diane de Poitiers and +Duchesse d'Etampes--to critique plays in that tiny gem of a theatre at +the palace, or to feed the carp in the pool; but also it gave him +pleasure to wander into the rooms where the high-warp looms lifted +their utilitarian lengths and artists played at magic with the wools. + +Alas, one cannot dress this patronage of art with too much of +disinterestedness, for these marvellous weavings were for the +adornment of the apartments of the very persons who caused their +productions. + +The grand idea of state ateliers had not yet come to bless the +industry. For this reason the factory at Fontainebleau outlasted the +reign of its founder, Francis I, but a short time. + +Nevertheless, examples of its works are still to be seen and are of +great beauty, notably those at the Museum of the Gobelins in Paris. +That a series called the _History of Diana_ was produced is but +natural, considering the puissance at court of the famous Diane de +Poitiers. + +When Francis' son, Henri II, enfeebled in constitution by the Spanish +confinement, inherited the throne, it was but natural that he should +neglect the indulgences of his father and prefer those of his own. The +Fontainebleau factory strung its looms and copied its cartoons and +produced, too, certain hangings for Henri's wife, the terrible +Catherine de Medici, on which her vicious eyes rested in forming her +horrid plots; but Henri had ambitions of his own, small ambitions +beside those which had to do with jealousy of Charles Quint. He let +the factory of Francis I languish, but carried on the art under his +own name and fame. + +To give his infant industry a home he looked about Paris and decided +upon the Hopital de la Trinite, an institution where asylum was found +for the orphans of the city who seem, in the light of the general +brutality of the time, to have been even in more need of a home than +the parentless child of modern civilisation. A part of the scheme was +to employ in the works such children as were sufficiently mature and +clever to work and to learn at least the auxiliary details of a craft +that is also an art. + +In this way the sixty or so of the orphans of La Trinite were given a +means of earning a livelihood. Among them was one whose name became +renowned. This was Maurice du Bourg, whose tapestries surpassed all +others of his time in this factory--an important factory, as being one +of the group that later was merged into the Gobelins. + +It must be remembered in identifying French tapestries of this kind +that things Gothic had been vanquished by the new fashion of things +Renaissance, and that all models were Italian. Giulio Romano and his +school of followers were the mode in France, not only in drawing, but +in the revival of classic subject. This condition in the art world +found expression in a set of tapestries from the factory of La Trinite +that are sufficiently celebrated to be set down in the memory with an +underscoring. This set was composed of fifteen pieces illustrating in +sweeping design and gorgeous colouring the _History of Mausolus and +Artemisia_. Intense local and personal interest was given to the set +by making an open secret of the fact that by Artemisia, the Queen of +Halicarnassus, was meant the widowed Queen of France, Catherine de +Medici, who adored posing as the most famous of widows and adding +ancient glory to her living importance. To this _History_ French +writers accord the important place of inspirer of a distinctively +French Renaissance. + +The weaver being Maurice du Bourg, the chief of the factory of La +Trinite, the artists were Henri Lerambert and Antoine Carron, but the +set has been many times copied in various factories, and Artemisia has +symbolised in turn two other widowed queens of France. + +Into the throne of France climbed wearily a feeble youth always under +the influence of his mother, Catherine de Medici; and then it was +filled by two other incapable and final Orleans monarchs, until at +last by virtue of inheritance and sword, it became the seat of that +grand and faulty Henri IV, King of Navarre. By fighting he got his +place, and the habit being strong upon him, he was in eternal +conflict. Some there be who are developed by sympathy, but Henri IV +was developed by opposition, and thus it was that although opposed in +the matter by his Prime Minister, Sully, he established factories for +the weaving of tapestries in both high and low warps. + +With the desire to see the arts of peace instead of evidences of war +throughout his kingdom just rescued from conflict, he took all means +to set his people in the ways of pleasing industry. The indefatigable +Sully was plucking the royal sleeve to follow the path of the plough, +to see man's salvation, material and moral, in the ways of +agriculture. But Henri favoured townspeople as well as country +people, and with the Edict of Nantes, releasing from the bondage of +terror a large number of workers, he showed much industry in +encouraging tapestry factories in and near Paris, and as these all +lead to Gobelins we will consider them. + + [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) + + Gobelins, Seventeenth Century] + + [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) + + Gobelins Tapestry] + +Henri IV, notwithstanding his Prime Minister Sully's opposition to +what he considered a favouring of vicious luxury, began to occupy +himself in tapestry factories as early in his reign as his people +could rise from the wounds of war. Taking his movements +chronologically we will begin with his establishment in 1597 (eight +years after this first Bourbon took the throne) of a high-warp +industry in the house of the Jesuits in the Faubourg St. Antoine, +associating here Du Bourg of La Trinite and Laurent, equally renowned, +and the composer of the St. Merri tapestries.[14] + +Flemish workers in Paris were at this same time, about 1601, +encouraged by the king and under protection of his steward. These +Flemings were the nucleus of a great industry, for it was over them +that two famous masters governed, namely, Francois de la Planche and +Marc Comans or Coomans. In 1607 Henri IV established the looms which +these men were called upon to direct. + +These two Flemings, great in their art, were men of family and of some +means, for their first venture in the manufacture of tapestry was a +private enterprise like any of to-day. They looked to themselves to +produce the money for the support of the industry. Combining +qualities of both the artist and the business man, they took on +apprentices and also established looms in the provinces (notably Tours +and Amiens) where commercialism was as prominent as in modern methods; +that is to say, that by turning off a lot of cheaper work for smaller +purses, a quick and ready market was found which supplied the money +necessary for the production of those finer works of art which are +left to delight us to-day. + +This manner of procedure of De la Planche and Comans has an interest +far deeper than the mere financial venture of the men of the early +Seventeenth Century, because it forces upon us the fact that at that +time, and earlier, no state ateliers existed. It was Henri IV who +first saw the wisdom of using the public purse in advancing this +industry. He established Du Bourg in the Louvre. With Henri Laurent he +was placed in the Tuileries, in 1607, and that atelier lasted until +the ministry of Colbert in the reign of Louis XIV. + +In about 1627 the great De la Planche died and his son, Raphael, +established ateliers of his own in the Faubourg St. Germain, turning +out from his looms productions which were of sufficient excellence to +be confused with those of his father's most profitable factory. +Chronologically this fact belongs later, so we return to the influence +of Henri IV and the master gentleman tapissiers, De la Planche and +Comans. + +The very name of the old palace, Les Tournelles, calls up a crowd of +pictures: the death of Henri II at the tournament in honour of the +marriage of his son with Marie Stuart, the subsequent razing of this +ancient home of kings by Catherine de Medici, and its reconstruction +in its present form by Henri IV. It is here that Richelieu honoured +the brief reign of Louis XIII by a statue, and it is here that Madame +de Sevigne was born. But more to our purpose, it was here that, in +1607, Henri IV cast his kingly eye when establishing a certain +tapestry factory. It was here he placed as directors the celebrated +Comans and De la Planche. It happened in time, that the looms of Les +Tournelles were moved to the Faubourg St. Marceau and these two men +came in time to direct these and all other looms under royal +patronage. + +Examples are not wanting in museums of French work of this time, +showing the development of the art and the progress that France was +making under Henri IV, whose energy without limit, and whose interests +without number, would to-day have given him the epithet of strenuous. + +Under his reign we see the activity that so easily led France up to +the point where all that was needed was the assembling of the +factories under the direction of one great master. The factories +flourishing under Henri IV were La Trinite, the Louvre, the +Savonnerie, the Faubourg St. Marceau and one in the Tuileries. But it +needed the power of Louis XIV to tie all together in the strength of +unity. + +The assassin Ravaillac, fanatically muttering through the streets of +Paris, alternately hiding and swaggering throughout the loveliest +month of May, when he thrust his murderous dagger through the royal +coach, not only gave a death blow to Henri IV, but to many of these +industries that the king had cherished for his people against the +opposition of his prime minister. The tale of tapestry is like a vine +hanging on a frame of history, and frequent allusion therefore must be +made to the tales of kings and their ministers. + +As it is not always a monarch, but often the power behind the throne +that rules, we see the force of Richelieu surging behind the reign of +the suppressed Louis XIII, whose rule followed that of the regretted +Henri IV. The master of the then new Palais-Royal had minor interests +of his own, apart from his generous plots of ruin for the Protestants, +for all the French nobility, and for the House of Austria to which the +queen belonged. Luxurious surroundings were a necessity to this man, +refined in the arts of cruelty and of living. It was no wonder that +under him tapestry weaving was not allowed to die, but was fostered +until that day when the Grand Monarch would organise and perfect. + +In 1643, Louis XIV came to the throne under the guidance of Anne of +Austria, but it was many years before he was able to make his +influence appreciable. Meanwhile, however, others were fostering the +elegant industry. It was as early as 1647 that two celebrated tapestry +weavers came to Paris from Italy. They were Pierre Lefevre or Lefebvre +and his son Jean. The first of these was the chief of a factory in +Florence, whither he presently returned. Jean Lefebvre stayed in +Paris, won his way all the better for being released from parental +rule, and in time received the great honour of being appointed one +of the directors of the Gobelins, when that factory was finally +organised as an institution of the state. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] + + [Illustration: CHILDREN GARDENING + + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Chateau Henri + Quatre, Pau] + +During the regency of Louis XIV there were also factories outside of +Paris. The high-warp looms of Tours were of such notable importance +that the great Richelieu placed here an order for tapestries of great +splendour with which to soften his hours of ease. Rheims Cathedral +still harbours the fine hangings which were woven for the place they +now adorn, an unusual circumstance in the world of tapestry. These +hangings (_The Story of Christ_) were woven at Rheims, where the +factory existed well known throughout the first half of the +Seventeenth Century. The church had previously ordered tapestries from +another town executed by one Daniel Pepersack, and so highly approved +was his work that he was made director of the Rheims factory.[15] + +A factory which lasted but a few years, yet has for us a special +interest, is that of Maincy, founded in 1658. It is here that we hear +of the great Colbert and of Lebrun, whose names are synonymous with +prosperity of the Gobelins. For the factory at Maincy, Lebrun made +cartoons of great beauty, notably that of _The Hunt of Meleager_, +which now hangs in the Gobelins Museum in Paris. Louis Blamard was the +director of the workmen, who were Flemish, and who were afterwards +called to Paris to operate the looms of the newly-formed Gobelins, and +the reason of the transference forms a part of the history of the +great people of that day. + +Richelieu in dying had passed over his power to Mazarin, who had used +it with every cruelty possible to the day. He had coveted riches and +elegance and had possessed himself of them; had collected in his +palace the most beautiful works of art of his day or those of a +previous time. After Mazarin came Foucquet, the great, the +iconoclastic, the unfortunate. + +It was at Foucquet's estate of Vaux near Maincy that this tapestry +factory of short duration was established and soon destroyed. The +powerful Superintendent of Finance, with his eye for the beautiful and +desire for the luxury of kings, built for himself such a chateau as +only the magnificence of that time produced. It was situated far +enough from Paris to escape any sort of ennui, and was surrounded by +gardens most marvellous, within a beauteous park. It lay, when +finished, like a jewel on the fair bosom of France. The great +superintendent conceived the idea of pleasing the young king, Louis +XIV, by inviting the court for a wondrous fete in its lovely +enclosure. + +Foucquet was a man of the world, and of the court, knew how to please +man's lighter side, and how to use social position for his own ends. +France calls him a "dilapidateur," but when his power and incidentally +the revenues of state, were laid out to produce a day of pleasure for +king and court, his taste and ability showed such a fete as could +scarce be surpassed even in those days of artistic fetes champetres. + +The great gardens were brought into use in all the beauty of flower +and vine, of lawn and bosquet, of terrace and fountain. When the +guests arrived, weary of town life, they were turned loose in the +enchanting place like birds uncaged, and to the beauty of Nature was +added that of folk as gaily dressed as the flowers. The king was +invited to inspect it all for his pleasure, asked to feast in the +gardens, and to repose in the splendid chateau. + +He was young then, in the early twenties, and luxury was younger then +than now, so he was pleased to spend the time in almost childish +enjoyments. A play _al fresco_ was almost a necessity to a royal +garden party, which was no affair of an hour like ours in the busy +to-day, but extended the livelong day and evening. Moliere was ready +with his sparkling satires at the king's caprice, and into the garden +danced the players before an audience to whom vaudeville and _cafe +chantant_ were exclusively a royal novelty arranged for their +delectation. + +It is easy to see the elegant young king and his court in the setting +of a sophisticated out-of-doors, wandering on grassy paths, lingering +under arches of roses, plucking a flower to nest beside a smiling +face, stopping where servants--obsequious adepts, they were +then--supplied dainty things to eat and drink. Madame de Sevigne was +there, she of the observant eye, an eye much occupied at this time +with the figure of Superintendent Foucquet, the host of this glorious +occasion. This gracious lady lacked none of the appearance of +frivolity, coiffed in curls, draped in lace and soft silks, but her +mind was deeply occupied with the signs of the times. All the elegance +of the chateau, all the seductive beauty of terrace, garden, and +bosquet, all the piquant surprises of play and pyrotechnics, what were +they? Simply the disinterested effort of a subject to give pleasure +to His Majesty, the King. + +There were those present who had long envied Foucquet, with his +ever-increasing power and wealth, his ability to patronise the arts, +to collect, and even to establish his tapestry looms like a king, for +his own palace and for gifts. This grand fete in the lovely month of +June did more than shower pleasure, more than gratify the lust of the +eye. In effect, it was a gathering of exquisite beauties and charming +men, lost in light-hearted play; in reality, it proved to be an +incitive to envy and malice, and a means to ruin. + +Among the observant guests at this wondrous fete champetre was +Colbert, young, ambitious, keen. He was not slow to see the holes in +Foucquet's fabric, nor were others. And so, whispers came to the king. +Foucquet's downfall is the old story of envy, man trying to climb by +ruining his superiors, hating those whose magnificence approaches +their own. Foucquet's unequalled entertainment of the king was made to +count as naught. Louis, even before leaving for Paris, had begun to +ask whence came the money that purchased this wide fertile estate +stretching to the vision's limit, the money that built the chateau of +regal splendour, the money that paid for the prodigal pleasures of +that day of delights? Foucquet thought to have gained the confidence +and admiration of the king. But, on leaving, Louis said coldly, "We +shall scarce dare ask you to our poor palace, seeing the superior +luxury to which you are accustomed." A fearful cut, but only a straw +to the fate which followed, the investigations into the affairs of +Superintendent Foucquet. His arrest and his conviction followed and +then the eighteen dreary years of imprisonment terminating only with +the superintendent's life. Madame de Sevigne saw him in the beginning, +wept for her hero, but after a while she, too, fell away from his +weary years. + + [Illustration: CHILDREN GARDENING + + After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Chateau Henri + Quatre, Pau] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS GROTESQUE + + Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris] + +With his arrest came the end of the glories of the Chateau of Vaux +near Maincy, and so, too, came an end to the factory where so fine +results had been obtained in tapestry weaving. Yet the effort was not +in vain, for some of the tapestries remain and the factory was the +school where certain celebrated men were trained. + +It may easily have been that Louis XIV discovered on that day at Vaux +the excellence of Lebrun whom he made director at the Gobelins in +Paris when they were but newly formed. Foucquet, wasting in prison, +had many hours in which to think on this and on the advancement of the +very man who had been keenest in running him to cover, the great +Colbert. It was well for France, it was well for the artistic industry +whose history occupies our attention, that these things happened; but +we, nevertheless, feel a weakness towards the man of genius and energy +caged and fretted by prison bars, for he had shown initiative and +daring, qualities of which the world has ever need. + +Foucquet's factory lasted three years. It was directed by Louis +Blamard or Blammaert of Oudenarde, and employed a weaver named Jean +Zegre, who came from the works at Enghien, works sufficiently known to +be remarked. Lebrun composed here and fell under the influence of +Rubens, an influence that pervaded the grandiose art of the day. The +earliest works of Lebrun, three pieces, were later used to complete a +set of Rubens' _History of Constantine_. _The Muses_ was a set by +Lebrun, also composed for the Chateau of Vaux. The charm of this set +is a matter for admiration even now when, alas, all is destroyed but a +few fragments. + +The disgrace of Foucquet was the last determining cause of the +establishment of the Gobelins factory under Louis XIV, an act which +after this brief review of Paris factories (and an allusion to +sporadic cases outside of Paris) we are in position at last to +consider. Pursuit of knowledge in regard to the Gobelins factory leads +us through ways the most flowery and ways the most stormy, through +sunshine and through the dark, right up to our own times. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV + + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York] + + [Illustration: THE VILLAGE FETE + + Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] For the facts here cited see E. Muentz, "Histoire de la +Tapisserie," and Jules Guiffrey, "Les Gobelins." + +[15] See Loriquet, "Les Tapisseries de Notre Dame de Rheims." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY, 1662 + + +Colbert saw the wisdom of taking direction for the king, Louis XIV, of +the looms of Foucquet's chateau. Travel being difficult enough to make +desirable the concentration of points of interest, Colbert transferred +the looms of Vaux to Paris. To do this he had first to find a habitat, +and what so suitable as the Hotel des Gobelins, a collection of +buildings on the edge of Paris by which ran a little brook called the +Bievre. The Sieur Leleu was then the owner, and the sale of the +buildings was made on June 6, 1662. + +This was the beginning only of the purchase, for Louis XIV added +adjoining houses for the various uses of the large industries he had +in mind, for the development of arts and crafts of all sorts, and for +the lodging of the workers. + +The story of the original occupants of the premises is almost too well +known to recount. The simple tale of the conscientious "dyers in +scarlet" is told on the marble plaque at the present entry into the +collection of buildings still standing, still open to visitors. It is +a tale with a moral, an obvious simple moral with no need of Alice's +Duchess to point it out, and it smacks strong of the honesty of a +labour to which we owe so much. + +Late in the Fifteenth Century the brothers Gobelin came to the city +of Paris to follow their trade, which was dyeing, and their ambition, +which was to produce a scarlet dye like that they had seen flaunting +in the glowing city of Venice. The trick of the trade in those days +was to find a water of such quality that dyes took to it kindly. The +tiny river, or rather brook, called the Bievre, which ran softly down +towards the Seine had the required qualities, and by its murmuring +descent, Jean and Philibert pitched the tents of their fortune. + +They succeeded, too, so well that we hear of their descendants in +later centuries as having become gentlemen, not of property only, but +of cultivation, and far removed from trades or bartering. Their name +is ever famous, for it tells not only the story of the two original +dyers, but of their subsequent efforts in weaving, and finally it has +come to mean the finest modern product of the hand loom. Just as Arras +gave the name to tapestry in the Fourteenth Century, so the Gobelins +has given it to the time of Louis XIV, even down to our own day--more +especially in Europe, where the word tapestry is far less used than +here. + +The tablet now at the Gobelins--let us re-read it, for in some hasty +visit to the Latin Quarter we may have overlooked it. Translated +freely it reads, "Jean and Philibert Gobelin, merchant dyers in +scarlet, who have left their name to this quarter of Paris and to the +manufacture of tapestries, had here their atelier, on the banks of the +Bievre, at the end of the Fifteenth Century." + +Another inscription takes a great leap in time, skips over the +centuries when France was not in the lead in this art, and +recommences with the awakening strength under the wise care of Henri +IV. It reads: + +"April 1601. Marc Comans and Francois de la Planche, Flemish tapestry +weavers, installed their ateliers on the banks of the Bievre." + +"September 1667, Colbert established in the buildings of the Gobelins +the manufacture of the furniture (_meubles_) of the Crown, under the +direction of Charles Lebrun." + +The tablet omits the date that is fixed in our mind as that of the +beginning of the modern tapestry industry in France, the year 1662, +but that is only because it deals with a date of more general +importance, the time when the Gobelins was made a manufactory of all +sorts of gracious products for the luxury of palaces and chateaux, not +tapestries alone, but superb furniture, and metal work, inlay, +mounting of porcelains and all that goes to furnish the home of +fortunate men. + +In that year of 1667 was instituted the ateliers supported by the +state, not dependent upon the commercialism of the workers. This made +possible the development of such men as Boulle with his superb +furniture, of Riesner with his marquetry, of Caffieri with his marvels +in metal to decorate all _meubles_, even vases, which were then coming +from China in their beauty of solid glaze or eccentric ornament. + +Here lies the great secret of the success of Louis XIV in these +matters, with the coffers of the Crown he rewarded the artists above +the necessity of mere living, and freed each one for the best +expression of his own especial art. The day of individual financial +venture was gone. The tapestry masters of other times had both to work +and to worry. They had to be artists and at the same time commercial +men, a chimerical combination. + +The expense of maintaining a tapestry factory was an incalculable +burden. A man could not set up a loom, a single one, as an artist sets +up an easel, and in solitude produce his woven work of art. Other +matters go to the making of a tapestry than weaving, matters which +have to do with cartoons for the design, dyes, wools, threads, etc.; +so that many hands must be employed, and these must all be paid. The +apprentice system helped much, but even so, the master of the atelier +was responsible for his finances and must look for a market for his +goods. + +What a relief it was when the king took all this responsibility from +the shoulders and said to the artists and artisans, "Art for Art's +sake," or whatever was the equivalent shibboleth of that day. Here was +comfort assured for the worker, with a housing in the Gobelins, or in +that big asylum, the Louvre, where an apartment was the reward of +virtue. And now was a market assured for a man's work, a royal market, +with the king as its chief, and his favourites following close. + +The ateliers scattered about Paris were allied in spirit, were all the +result of the encouragement of preceding monarchs, but it remained for +Le Grand Monarque to gather all together and form a state solidarity. + +Kings must have credit, even though others do the work. It was the +labour of the able Colbert to organise this factory. He was in favour +then. It was after his acuteness had helped in deposing the splendid +brigand Foucquet, and his power was serving France well, so well that +he brought about his head the inevitable jealousy which finally threw +him, too, into unmerited disgrace. + +Colbert, then, although a Minister of State, head of the Army of +France, and a few other things, had the fate of the Gobelins in his +hand. As the ablest is he who chooses best his aids, Colbert looked +among his countrymen for the proper director of the newly-organised +institution. He selected Charles Lebrun. + +The very name seems enough, in itself. It is the concrete expression +of ability, not only as an artist, but as a leader of artists, a +director, an assembler, a blender. He called to the Gobelins, as +addition to those already there, the apprentices from La Trinite, the +weavers from the Faubourg St. Germain, and from the Louvre. He +established three ateliers of high-warp under Jean Jans, Jean Lefebvre +and Henri Laurent; also two ateliers of low-warp under Jean Delacroix +and Jean-Baptiste Mozin. When charged with the decoration of +Versailles he had under his direction fifty artists of differing +scopes, which alone would show his power of assembling and leading, of +blending and ordering. Workers at the Gobelins numbered as many as two +hundred fifty, and apprentices were legion. + +Ten or twelve important artists composed the designs for tapestries, +yet the mind of Lebrun is seen to dominate all; his genius was their +inspiration. It was he whose influence pervaded the decorative art of +the day. More than any others in that grand age he influenced the +tone of the artistic work. We may say it was the king, we may have +styles named for the king, but it was Lebrun who made them what they +were. The spirit of the time was there, monarch and man made that, but +it was Lebrun who had the talent to express it in art. It was a time +when France was fully awake, more fully awake than Italy who had, in +fact, commenced the somnolence of her art; she was strong with that +brutal force that is recently up from savagery, and she took her +grandeur seriously. + +At least that was the attitude of the king. No lightness, no +effervescing cynical humour ever disturbed the heavy splendour of his +pose. And this grand pose of the king, Lebrun expressed in the heavy +sumptuousness of decoration. The tapestries of that time show the mood +of the day in subject, in border and in colour. All is superb, +grandiose. + +Rubens, although not of France, dominated Europe with his magnificence +of style, a style suited to the time, expressing force rather than +refinement, yet with a splendid decorative value in the art we are +considering. Flanders looked to him for inspiration, and his lead was +everywhere followed. His virile work had power to inspire, to transmit +enthusiasm to others, and thus he was responsible for much of the +improvement in decorative art, the re-establishment of that art upon +an intellectual basis. Designs from his hands were full, splendid and +self-assertive; harmony and proportion were there. A study of the +_Antony and Cleopatra_ series and of the plates given in this volume +will establish and verify this. + + [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] + + [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] + +Lebrun's century was the same as that of Rubens, but the former had +the fine feeling for art of the Latin, who knows that its first +province is to please. A comparison between the two men must not be +carried too far, for Rubens was essentially a painter, attacking the +field of decoration only with the overflow of imagination, while +Lebrun's life and talent were wholly directed in the way of +beautifying palaces and chateaux. Yet Rubens' work gave a fresh +impulse to tapestry weaving in Brussels while Lebrun was inspiring it +in France. + +Lebrun had, then, to direct the talent and the labour of an army of +artists and artisans, and to keep them working in harmony. It was no +mean task, for one artist alone was not left to compose an entire +picture, but each was taken for his specialty. One artist drew the +figures, another the animals, another the trees, and another the +architecture; but it was the director, Lebrun, who composed and +harmonised the whole. Thus, although the number of tapestries actually +composed by him is few, it was his great mind that ordered the work of +others. He was the leader of the orchestra, the others were the +instruments he controlled. + +It was while at Vaux that Lebrun had more time for his own +composition. He there produced a series called _Les Renommes_, +masterpieces of pure decorative composition. These were designed as +portieres for the Chateau of Maincy. They came to be models for the +Gobelins, and were woven to hang at royal doors, the doors of Foucquet +being at this time dressed with iron bars. + +The Gobelins wove seventy-two sets after this beautiful model which +had made Lebrun's debut as an artist. Foucquet had given him a more +pretentious work; it was to complete a suite, the _History of +Constantine_, after Raphael. Rubens had given a fresh flush of +popularity to this subject, which again became the mode. The _History +of Meleager_ was begun at Vaux and finished at the Gobelins. Later, +Vaux forgotten, or at least a thing of the past, Lebrun's decorative +genius found expression in the series called _The Months_ or _The +Royal Residences_, of which there were twelve hangings. + +In these last the scheme is the perfection of decoration, with the +subject well subdued, yet so subtly placed that notwithstanding its +modesty, the eye promptly seeks it. The castle in the distance, the +motive holding aloft the sign of the Zodiac, are seen even before the +splendid columns and the foliage of the middle-ground. + +Such a hanging has power to play pretty tricks with the imagination of +him who gazes upon it. The columns, smooth and solid, declare him at +once to be in a place of luxury. Beyond the foreground's columns, but +near enough for touching, are trees to make a pleasant shade, and +beyond, in the far distance, is the chateau set in fair gardens, even +the chateau where the lovely Louise de la Valliere held her court +until conscience drove her to the convent. + +The set of most renown, woven under Lebrun's generalship, was that +splendid advertisement of the king's magnificence known as the +_History of the King_. Louis demanded above all else that he should +appear splendidly before men. He was jealous of the magnificence of +all kings and emperors, whether living or dead. Even Solomon's +glory was not to typify greater than his. With this end in view, pomp +was his pleasure, ceremony was his gratification. Add to these an +insatiable vanity that knows not the disintegrating assaults of a +sense of humour, and we have a man to be fed on profound adulation. + + [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS + + Royal Collection, Madrid] + +The subjects for the _History of the King_ were chosen from official +solemnities during the first twelve years of his reign. Lebrun's task, +into which he threw his whole soul, was to celebrate the power and the +glory of his master, to show the king in perpetual picture as the +greatest living personage, and to still his fears with regard to long +defunct royal rivals. His life as a man was pictured, his marriage, +his treaties with other nations, and his actions as a soldier in the +various battles or military conquests. In the latter affairs he had +not even been present, but poet's license was given where the +glorification of the king was concerned. The flattery that surrounds a +king thus gave him reason to think that his persecutions in the +Palatinate and his constant warfare were greatly to his glory. + +It is the tapestry in this set that is called _Visit of Louis XIV to +the Gobelins_ that interests us strongly, as being delightfully +pertinent to our subject. The picture shows the king in chary +indulgence standing just within the court of the Royal Factory, while +eager masters of arts and crafts strenuously heap before him their +masterpieces. (Plate facing page 114.) + +The borders of these sumptuous hangings are to be enjoyed when the +original set can be seen, for the borders are Lebrun's special care. +The three pieces added late in the reign are drawn with different +borders, and no stronger example of deteriorating change can be given, +the change in the composition of the border which took place after the +passing of Lebrun. The pieces in the set of the _Life of the King_ +numbered forty; with the addition of the later ones, forty-three. They +were repeated many times in the succeeding years, but on low-warp, +reduced in size, and without the superb decorative border which was +composed by Lebrun's own hand for the original series. + +Francois de la Meulen was Lebrun's able coadjutor in the direction of +this famous set. Eight artists accustomed to the work were charged +with the cartoons, but Lebrun headed it all. It is interesting to note +that the temptation to sport in the fields of pure decoration, led him +into the personal composition of the border. These borders are the +very acme of perfection in decoration, full of strength, of grace, and +of purity. They suggest the classic, yet are full of the warm blood of +the hour; they are Greek, yet they are French, and they foreshadow the +centuries of beautiful design which France supplies to the world. + +The colouring of these tapestries seems to us strong, but it is not a +strength of tone that offends, rather it adds force to the subject. The +charge is made that in this suite the deplorable change had taken place +which lifted tapestries from their original intent and made of them +paintings in wool. That change certainly did come later, as we shall +see and deplore, but at present the colours kept comparatively low +in number. The proof of this was that only seventy-nine tones were +discoverable when the Gobelins factory in recent years examined this +hanging for the purposes of reproducing it. + + [Illustration: LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY + + Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV] + +Lebrun's task in this series seems to us far more simple in point of +picturesqueness than it did to him, for the affairs of the time were +those depicted. They were the events of the moment, and the personages +taking part in them were given in recognisable portraiture. Figure a +tapestry of to-day depicting the laying of a cornerstone by our +National President, every one in modern dress, every face a portrait, +and Lebrun's task appears in a new light. Yet he was able to +accomplish it in a way which gratified the overfed vanity of Louis and +which more than gratifies the art lover of to-day. + +The set called the _History of Alexander_ is one of Lebrun's famous +works. In subject it departs from the affairs of the time of the Sun +King, to portray the Greek Conqueror, to whom Louis liked to be +compared. For us the classic dress is less piquant than the gorgeous +toilettes of France in the Seventeenth Century, and the battle of the +Granicus is less engaging than scenes from the life of Louis XIV. But +this is a famous set, and paintings of the same may be found in the +Louvre. + +Originally the tapestries were but five, but the larger ones having +been divided into three each, the number is increased. The Gobelins +factory wove several sets, and, the model becoming popular, it was +copied many times in Brussels and elsewhere, often with distressing +alterations in drawing, in border, and in colour. + +There were other suites produced at the Gobelins at this wonderful +time of co-operation between Colbert, the minister, and Lebrun, the +artist. Colbert, in his wisdom of state economy, had repaired the +ravages of the previous ministry, and had the coffers full for the +government's necessities and the king's indulgences. Well for the +liberal arts, that he counted these among the matters to be fostered +in this wonderful time, which rises like a mountain ridge between +feudal savagery and modern civilisation. + +But Colbert, powerful as was his position, had yet to suffer by reason +of the despotism of the absolute monarch who ruled every one within +borders of bleeding France. Louis began, before youth had left him, +the terrible persecution of the people in the name of religion, and +established also an indulgent left-hand court. The prodigious +expenditures for these were bound to be liquidated by Colbert. +Faithful to his master, he produced the money. + +The charm of royalty surrounded Louis, he was idealised by a people +proud of his position as the most magnificent monarch of Europe; but +Colbert was denounced as a tax collector and a persecutor, yet +suffered in silence, if he might protect his king. Before he died, +Louvois had undermined his credit even with the king, and his funeral +at night, to avoid a mob, was a pathetic fact. France has now +reinstated him, say modern men--but that is the irony of fate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) + + +Colbert died most inopportunely in 1684 and was succeeded by his +enemy, and for that matter, the enemy of France, the man of jealousy +and cruelty, Louvois. He had long hated Colbert for his success, +counting as an affront to himself Colbert's marvellous establishment +of a navy which he felt rivalled in importance the army, over which +the direction was his own. + +On finding Colbert's baton in his hand, it was but human to strike +with it as much as to direct, and one of his blows fell upon the head +of the Gobelins, Lebrun. Thus history is woven into tapestry. Lebrun +was not at once deposed; first his magnificent wings were clipped, so +that his flights into artistic originality were curtailed. This petty +persecution had a benumbing effect. New models were not encouraged. +Strangely enough, the scenes that glorified the king were no longer +reproduced, nor those of antique kings like Alexander, whose greatness +Louis was supposed to rival. + +It is not possible to tell the story of tapestry without telling the +story of the times, for the lesser acts are but the result of the +greater. There are matters in the life of Louis XIV that are +inseparable from our account. These are the associating of his life +with that of the three women whom he exalted far higher than his +queen, Marie Therese, the well-known, much-vaunted mesdames, de la +Valliere, de Montespan and de Maintenon. + +Even before the death of Colbert, Louvois, with his army, had +encouraged the religious persecutions and wars of the king, and +shortly after, the widow of the poet Scarron became the royal spouse. +Relentless, indeed, were the persecutions then. It was in the same +year of the marriage that Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, through +the hand of the weak Le Tellier, an action which gave Louvois ample +excuse for depleting the state coffers. Making military expense an +excuse, he turned his blighting hand toward the Gobelins and +restricted the director, Lebrun, even to denying him the golden +threads so necessary for the production of the sumptuous tapestries. + +And so for a time the productions of the looms lacked their accustomed +elegance. Under Madame de Maintenon, the spirit of a morose religion +pervaded the court. All France was suffering under it, and in its name +unbelievable horrors were perpetrated in every province. Paris was not +too well informed of these to interfere with bourgeois life, but at +court the hypocritical soul of Madame de Maintenon made +self-righteousness a virtue. + +An almost laughable result of this pious rectitude was a certain order +given at the Gobelins. Madame de Maintenon had thrust her leading nose +between the doors of the factory and had scented outraged modesty in +the reproduction there of the tapestries woven from models of Raphael, +Giulio Romano and the classicists, cartoons in great favour after the +hampering of Lebrun's imagination. The naked gods from Olympus must +be clothed, said this pious and modest lady. + +This was very well for her role, as her influence over the king lay +deep-rooted in her pose of heavy virtue; but at the Gobelins, the +tapestry-makers must have laughed long and loud at the prudery which +they were set to further by actually weaving pictured garments and +setting them into the hangings where the lithe limbs of Apollo, and +Venus' lovely curves, had been cut away. The hanging called _The +Judgment of Paris_ is one of those altered to suit the refinement of +the times. + +Louvois' dominance lasted as long as Lebrun, so the genius of the +latter never reasserted itself in the factory. Two methods of supply +for designs came in vogue, and mark the time. One was to turn to the +old masters of Italy's high Renaissance for drawings. This brought a +quantity of drawings of fables and myths into use, so that palace +walls were decorated with Greek gods instead of modern ones. Raphael, +as a master in decoration, was carefully copied, also other men of his +school. The second source of cartoons was chosen by Louvois, who +searched among previous works for the most celebrated tapestries and +had them copied without change. + +Thus came the Gobelins to reproduce hangings that had not originated +in their ateliers. All this traces the change that came from the +clipping of Lebrun's wings of genius. Identification marks they are, +when old tapestries come our way. + +Pierre Mignard succeeded Lebrun as director of the Gobelins after the +death of the greatest genius of decoration in modern times. Lebrun +had seen such prosperity of tapestry weaving that eight hundred +workers had scarcely been enough to supply the tapestries ordered. +When Mignard came for his five years of direction, things had mightily +changed, and he did nothing to revive or encourage the work. He owed +his appointment entirely to Louvois, whose protege he had long been. +The same year, 1691, saw the death of them both. + +Until 1688 the factory was at its best time of productiveness, +reaching the perfection of modern drawing in its cartoons, and, in its +weaving, equalling the manner of Brussels in the early Sixteenth +Century. + +From then on began the decline, for the reasons so forcibly written on +pages of history. The French king's ambition to conquer, his +animosity--jealousy, if you will--toward Holland, his unceasing +conflict with England, added to his fierce attacks on religionists, +especially in the Palatinate--all these things required the most +stupendous expenditures. The Mississippi was now discovered, the +English colonists were in conflict with the French, here in America, +and the New World was becoming too desirable a possession for Louis to +be willing to cede his share without a struggle; and thus came the +expense of fighting the English in that far land which was at least +thirty days' sail away. + +Perhaps Mignard worked against odds too great for even a strong +director. Such drains on the state treasury as were made by the +self-indulgent court, and by the political necessities, demanded not +only depriving the Gobelins of proper expensive materials, but in the +department of furniture and ornaments, demanded also the establishment +of a sinister melting pot, a hungry mouth that devoured the precious +metals already made more precious by the artistic hands of the +gold-working artists. + +Mignard's futile work was finished by his demise in 1695. Such was +then the pitiable conditions at the Gobelins that it was not +considered worth while to fill his place. Thus ended the first period +of that beautiful conception, art sustained by the state, artists +relieved from all care except that of expressing beauty. + +The ateliers were closed; the weavers had to seek other means of +gaining their living. The busy Gobelins, a very Paradise of workers, +an establishment which felt itself the pride of Paris and the pet of +the king, full of merry apprentices and able masters, this happy +solidarity fell under neglect. The courtyards were lonely; the Bievre +rippled by unused; the buildings were silent and deserted. Some of the +workers were happy enough to be taken in at Beauvais, some returned to +Flanders, but many were at the miserable necessity of dropping their +loved professions and of joining the royal troops, for which the +relentless ambition of the king had such large and terrible use. + +The time when the factory remained inactive were the dolorous years +from 1694 to 1697. It was in the latter year that peace was signed in +the Holland town of Ryswick, which ended at least one of Louis' bloody +oppressions, the fierce attacks in the Palatinate. + +The place of Colbert was never filled, so far as the Gobelins was +concerned. Louvois had not its interests in his hard hands, nor had +his immediate followers in state administrations up to 1708, which +included Mansard (of the roofs) and the flippity courtesan, the Duc +d'Antin. But power was later given to Jules Robert de Cotte to raise +the fallen Gobelins by his own wise direction, assisted by his +father's political co-operation (1699-1735). Once again can we smile +in thinking of the factory where the wares of beauty were produced. Of +course, the artists flocked to the centre, eager to express +themselves. The one most interesting to us was Claude Audran. Others +there were who contributed adorable designs and helped build up the +most exquisite expressions of modern art, but, alas, their modesty was +such that their names are scarce known in connexion with the art they +vivified. + +The aged Louis was ending his forceful reign in increasing weakness, +deserted at the finish by all but the rigid de Maintenon; and +four-year-old Louis, the grandson of the Grand Dauphin, was succeeding +under the direction of the Regent of Orleans. New monarchs, new +styles, the rule was; for the newly-crowned must have his waves of +flattery curling about the foot of the throne. Louis XIV, the Grand +Monarque, lived to his pose of heavy magnificence even in the +furnishing and decorating of the apartments where he ruled as king and +where he lived as man. Sumptuous splendour, expressed in heavy design, +in deep colouring, with much red and gold, these were the order of the +day, and best expressed the reign. + +But with Philip as regent, and the young king but a baby, a gayer mood +must creep into the articles of beauty with which man self-indulgently +decorates his surroundings. Pomp of a heavy sort had no place in the +regent's heart. He saw life lightly, and liked to foster the belief +that a man might make of it a pretty play. + +Thus, given so good excuse for a new school of decoration, Claude +Audran snatched up his talented brush and put down his dainty +inspirations with unfaltering delicacy of touch. He wrote upon his +canvas poems in life, symphonies in colour, created a whole world of +tasteful fancy, a world whose entire intent was to please. He left the +heavy ways of pomp and revelled in a world where roses bloom and +ribbons flutter, where clouds are strong to support the svelte deity +upon them, and where the rudest architecture is but an airy trellis. + +The classic, the Greek, he never forgot. It was ever his inspiration, +his alphabet with which he wrote the spirit of his composition, but it +was a classic thought played upon with the most talented of +variations. Pure Greek was too cold and chaste for the temper of the +time in which he lived and worked and of which he was the creature; +and so his classic foundation was graced with curves, with colour, +with artful abandon, and all the charming fripperies of one of the +most exquisite periods of decoration. Gods and goddesses were a +necessary part of such compositions, and a continual playing among +amorini, but such deities lived not upon Olympus, nor anywhere outside +France of the Eighteenth Century. The heavy human forms made popular +by the inflation of the Seventeenth Century were banished to some dark +haven reserved for by-gone modes, and these new gods were exquisite +as fairies while voluptuous as courtesans. They were all caught young +and set, while still adolescent and slender, in suitable niches of +delicate surroundings. + +The talent of Audran, not content with figures alone, was lavishly +expended on those ingenious decorative designs which formed the frame +and setting of the figures, the airy world in which they lived and in +the borders that confined the whole. + +Only a study of tapestries or their photographs can show the radical +depth of the change from the styles prevailing under the influence of +Madame de Maintenon to those produced by Audran and his school under +the regence. The difference in character of the two dominations is the +very evident cause. It is as though the severe moral pose of de +Maintenon had suppressed a whole Pandora's box of loves and graces +who, when the lid was lifted by the Regent, flew, a happy crew, to fix +themselves in dainty decorative effect, trailing with them their +complement of accessory flowers, butterflies, clouds and tempered +grotesques. + +Philippe d'Orleans, under the influence of the corrupt cleverness of +Cardinal du Bois, celebrated the few years of his regency by +bankrupting France with John Law's financial fallacies (this was the +time of the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi scheme) and by +returning to Spain her princess as unsuited for the boy king's +mate--with war as the natural result of that insult. + +But he also let artists have their way, and the style that they +supplied him, shows a talented invention unsurpassed. Audran we will +place at the top, but only to fix a name, for there was a whole army +of men composing the tapestry designs that so delighted the people of +those days and that have gone on thrilling their beholders for two +hundred years, and which distinguish French designs from all +others--which give them that indefinable quality of grace and softness +that we denominate French. Wizards in design were the artists who +developed it and those who continue it in our own times. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) + + +Audran had in his studio Andre Watteau, whose very name spells +sophisticated pastorals of exceeding loveliness. Watteau worked with +Audran when he was producing his most inspired set of tapestry, on +which we must dwell for a bit for pure pleasure. This set is called +the _Portieres des Dieux_. + +That they were portieres, only door-hangings, is a fact too important +to be slipped by. It denotes one of the greatest changes in tapestries +when the size of a hanging comes down from twenty or thirty feet to +the dimensions of a doorway. It speaks a great change in interiors, +and sets tapestries on a new plane. Later on, they are still further +diminished. But the sadness of noting this change is routed by the +thrills of pleasure given by the exquisite design, colour and weave. + +The _Portieres of the Gods_ was, then, a series of eight small +hangings, four typifying the seasons and four the elements, with an +appropriate Olympian forming the central point of interest and the +excuse for an entourage of thrilling and graceful versatility. This +set has been copied so many times that even the most expert must fail +in trying to identify the date of reproduction. Two hundred and thirty +times this set is known to have been reproduced, and such talented +weavers were given the task as Jans and Lefebvre. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV] + +In this exquisite period, which might be called the adolescence of +the style Louis XV, Audran and his collaborators produced another +marvellous and inspired set of portieres. These were executed for the +Grand Dauphin, to decorate his room in the chateau at Meudon, and were +called the _Grotesque Months in Bands_. The most self-sufficient of +pens would falter at a description of design so exquisite, which is +arranged in three panels with a deity in each, a composition of +extraordinary grace above and below them, and a bordering band of +losenge or diaper, on which is set the royal double L and the +significant dolphin who gave his name to kings' sons. The exquisite +art of Audran and of the regence cannot be better seen than in this +set of tapestries which was woven but once at the royal factory, +although repeated many times elsewhere with the border altered, +Audran's being too personal for other chambers than that of the prince +for whom it was composed. Recently copies have been made without +border. + +The name of the artist, Charles Coypel, must not be overlooked, for it +was he who composed the celebrated suite of _Don Quixote_. +Twenty-eight pieces composed the series, and they were drawn with that +exquisite combination of romantic scenes and fields of pure decorative +design that characterised the charm of the regence. In the centre of +each piece (small pieces compared to those of Louis XIV) was a scene +like a painting representing an incident from the adventure of the +humorously pathetic Spanish wanderer; and this was surrounded with so +much of refined decoration as to make it appear but a medallion on +the whole surface. This set was so important as to be repeated many +times and occupied the factory of the Gobelins from 1718 to 1794. +Charles Coypel was but twenty when he composed the first design for +this suite. Each year thereafter he added a new design, not supplying +the last one until 1751. But, while all honour is due Coypel, Audran +and Le Maire and their collaborators must be remembered as having +composed the borders, the pure decorative work which expresses the +tender style of transition, the suggestive period of early spring that +later matured into the fulsome Rococo. America is enriched by five of +these exquisite pieces through Mr. Morgan's recent purchase. + +But while artists were producing purity in art, those in political +power were, with ever-increasing effect, plunging morals into the mud. +Philippe, the Regent, died, the corrupt Duke of Bourbon took the place +of minister, and poor Louis XV was still but thirteen years old, and +unavoidably influenced by the lives of those around him. Even the +Gobelins was under the hand of the shallow Duke d'Antin. Yet even when +the king matured and became himself a power for corruption, the +artists of the Gobelins reflected only beauty and light. It is to +their credit. + +It is an ungrateful task to pick flaws with a period so firmly +enthroned in the affections as that of the regence and the early years +of the reign of Louis XV. The beauties of its pure decoration lead us +into Elysian fields that are but reluctantly left behind. But the +designs and tapestry weavers of that time left us two distinct +classes of production, and to be learned in such matters, the amateur +contemplates both. This second style is ungrateful because it trains +us away from art, delicate and ingenious, and plants us before +enormous woven paintings. + +Now it never had been the intention of tapestry to replace painting. +Whenever it leaned that way a deterioration was evident. It was by the +lure of this fallacy that Brussels lost her pre-eminence. It was +through this that the number of tones was increased from the twenty or +more of Arras to the twenty thousand of the Gobelins. It was through +this that the true mission of tapestry was lost, which was the mission +of supplying a soft, undulating lining to the habitat of man, and +flashes of colour for his pageants. + +Under Louis XIV the pictures came thick and fast, as we have seen, but +in deep-toned, simple colour-scheme. Now, with the De Cottes as +directors at the Gobelins, and with a new reign begun, more pictures +were called for. + +The splendid _History of the King_ of Louis XIV could not be +forgotten; the history of his successor must be similarly represented, +and what could this be but a series of woven paintings. The flower of +the time was an exquisitely complicated decoration on a small scale. +The larger expression was not spontaneous. + +Louis XV, poor boy, was not old enough to have had many events outside +the nursery, so it took imagination--perhaps that of the elegant +profligate, Duke d'Antin--to suggest an occasion of appropriate +splendour and significance. The official reception of the Turkish +ambassador in 1721 was the subject chosen, and under the direction of +Charles Parrocel became a superb work, full of court magnificence of +the day and a valuable portrayal to us of the boyhood of the king. + +The same type of big picture was continued in the series of _Hunts of +Louis XV_, lovely forest scenes wherein much unsportsmanlike elegance +displays itself in the persons of noble courtiers. The Duc d'Antin +favoured these and they were reproduced until 1745. + +It is probable that the Bible fell into neglect in those days, too +heavy a volume for pointed, perfumed fingers accustomed to no books at +all. Bossuet, Voltaire, were they not obliged to set to the sonorous +music of their voices the reforming and satirical attacks on manners +and morals of the aristocrats at a time when books lay all unread? But +at the Gobelins ateliers the Bible, wiped clean of dust, was much +consulted for inspiration in cartoons. Charles Coypel dipped into the +Old Testament, and Jouvenet into the New, with the result of several +suites of tapestries of great elegance--all of which might much better +have been painted on canvas and framed. + +Charles Coypel, the talented member of a talented family of painters, +also made popular the heroine _Armide_, who seemed almost to come of +the Bible, since Tasso had set her in his Christian _Jerusalem +Delivered_. The seductive palace and entrancing gardens where Renaud +was kept a prisoner, gave opportunity for fine drawing in this set. + + [Illustration: HUNTS OF LOUIS XV + + Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry] + + [Illustration: ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES + + Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; G. Audran, weaver] + +The Iliad of Homer came in for its share of consideration at the hands +of Antoine and Charles Coypel, who made of it a set of five scenes. It +was Romanelli, the Italian, who painted a similar set, a hundred +years before, for Cardinal Barberini, which set came to America in the +Ffoulke collection. After the death, in 1730, of the Duke d'Antin, +that interesting son of Madame de Montespan, several directors had the +management of the Gobelins in hand, the Count of Vignory and the Count +of Angivillier being the most important prior to the Revolution. These +were men who held the purse-strings of the state, and could thereby +foster or crush a state institution, but the direction of the Gobelins +itself, as a factory, was in the hands of architects, beginning with +the able De Cotte. As the factory had many ateliers, these were each +directed by painters, among whom appear such interesting men of talent +as Oudry, Boucher, Halle. + +Although d'Antin was dead when it commenced, he is accredited with +having inspired and ordered the important hanging known as the +_History of Esther_. (Plate facing page 131.) The first piece, from +cartoons by Jean Francois de Troy, was sent to the weavers in 1737, +and the last piece, which was painted in Rome, was finished in 1742. +This set shows as ably as any can, the magnificent style of production +of the period. It had from the beginning an immense popularity and was +copied many times. Even now it is a favourite subject for those whose +perverted taste leads them into the dubious art of copying tapestry in +paints on cloth. + +The serious accusation against this set, which in composition seems +much like the tableaux in grand opera, is that it invades the art of +painting. And that is the fault of woven art at that period. The +decline in tapestry in Paris began when both weavers and painters +struggled for the same results, the weavers quite forgetting the +strength and beauty that were peculiar to their art alone. + +This fault cannot be laid to the weavers only, who numbered such men +as Neilson the able Scot, and Cozette, who, with wondrous touch, wove +the set of _Don Quixote_; nor were the artists at fault, for they +included such men as Audran and Boucher. No, it was the director who +blighted and subverted talent, and the vitiated public taste that +shifted restlessly and demanded novelty. The novelty that came in +large hangings was a suppressing of the delicate subjects that delight +the imagination by their playful grace, their association of human +life with all that is gaily exquisite. The mode was for leaving the +land of idealised mythology, for discarding the flowers, the scrolls, +the happy loves and charming crew that lived among them, and for +plunging into Roman history, real and ugly, enwrapped in drapings too +full, cumbered with forced accessory, or into such mythology as is +represented in _Cupid and Psyche_. (Plate facing page 132.) + +The _History of Esther_ illustrates the loss of imagination sustained +by the border which had come to be a mere woven imitation, in shades +of brown and yellow, of a carved and gilded, wooden frame. At the +close of the reign of Louis XV, borders were frankly abandoned +altogether. Compare this state of things with the days when Audran and +Coypel were producing the sets of _The Seasons_, _The Months_, and +_Don Quixote_. It is aridness compared to talented invention. + + [Illustration: CUPID AND PSYCHE + + Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel] + + [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA + + Gobelins under Louis XVI.] + +The top note of the imitation of painting was struck when the Gobelins +set the task of becoming a portrait maker. (Plate facing page 133.) +The work was done, it was bound to be, as royalty backed the demand. +Portraits were woven of Louis XV (to be seen now at Versailles), and +his queen, of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and others less well +known. A better scheme for limiting the talent of the weaver could not +have been suggested by his most ingenious enemy. He was a man of +talent or his art had not reached so high, and as such must be +untrammelled; but here was given him a work where personal discretion +was not allowed, where he must copy tone for tone, shade by shade, the +myriad indefinite blendings of the brush. + +It is this practice, pursued to its end, that has made of the tapestry +weaver a mere part of a machine, and tapestry-making a lost art, to +remain in obscurity until weavers return to the time before the French +decadence. + +The temper of those who hold in their hands the direction of the +people, these are the determining causes of the products of that age. +If d'Angivillier was responsible for displacing a transcendent art +with a false one, if he routed a dainty mythology and its accessories +with the heavy effort and paraphernalia of the Romans, on whom shall +we place the entirely supportable responsibility of diminishing +tapestries from noble draperies down to mere furniture coverings? + +The result came happily, with much fluttering of fans, dropping of +handkerchiefs, with powder, patches, intrigues, naughty sports, and a +general necessity for a gay company to divide itself into groups of +four or two--a lady and a cavalier, forsooth--the inevitable man and +maid. In the time of the preceding king, Louis XIV, the court lived in +masses. Life was a pageant, a grand one, moving in slow dignity of +gorgeous crowds, but a pageant on which beat the fierce light of a +throne jealous of its grandeur. No chance was here for sweet escape +and no chance for light communing. + +But all that saw a change. The needs of the lighter court and the +lighter people, were for reminders that life is a merry dance in which +partners change often, and sitting-out a figure with one of them is +part of the game. + +Perhaps the huge apartments were not to the taste of Regent Philippe, +and certainly they were not convenient to the life of the king when he +came to man's estate. So, down came the ceiling's height, and closer +drew the walls, until the model of the Petit Trianon was reached and +considered the ideal--if that were not indeed the miniature Swiss +Cottage. + +What place had an acre of tapestry in these little rooms? How could +yards of undulating colour hang over walls that were already overlaid +with the most exquisite low relief in wood that has ever been carved +this side of the Renaissance in Italy? No place for it whatever. So, +out with it--the fashions have changed. + +But there was the furniture. That, too, was smaller than hitherto. But +this was the day of artists skilled in small design, and they must +fill the need. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) + + +And so it came about that tapestry fell from the walls, shrunk like a +pricked balloon and landed in miniature on chairs, sofas and screens. + +How felt the artists about this domesticating of their art? We are not +told of the wry face they made when, with ideals in their souls, they +were set to compose chair-seats for the Pompadour. Her preference was +for Boucher. Perhaps his revenge showed itself by treating the +bourgeoise courtisane to a bit of coarseness now and then, slyly hid +in dainties. + +The artist, Louis Tessier, appeased himself by composing for furniture +a design of simple bouquets of flowers thrown on a damask background; +but, with such surety of hand, such elegance, are these ornaments +designed and composed, that he who but runs past them must feel the +power of their exquisite beauty. + +In this manufacture of small pieces the Gobelins factory unhappily put +itself on the same footing as Beauvais and much confusion of the +products has since resulted. The dignity of the art was lowered when +the size and purpose of tapestries were reduced to mere furniture +coverings. The age of Louis XV, looked at decoratively, was an age of +miniature, and the reign that followed was the same. When small +chambers came into vogue, furniture diminished to suit them, and not +only were walls too small for tapestries to hang on, but chairs, sofas +and screens offered less space than ever before for woven designs, now +preciously fine in quality and minutiae. + +Tapestry weaving now entered the region of fancy-work for the +drawing-room's idle hour, and we see even the king himself, lounging +idly among his favourite companions, working at a tiny loom, his +latest pretty toy. Compare this trifling with the attitude of Henri IV +and Louis XIV toward tapestry weaving, and we have the situation in a +nutshell. + +Louis XV passed from the scene, likewise the charming bits of +immorality who danced through his reign. However much we may +disapprove their manner of life, we are ever glad that their taste +sanctioned--more than that--urged, the production of a decorative +style almost unsurpassed. To the artists belong the glory, but times +were such that an artist must die of suppression if those in power +refuse to patronise his art. So we are glad that Antoinette Poisson +appreciated art, and that Jeanne Verbernier made of it a serious +consideration, for, what was liked by La Pompadour and Du Barry must +needs be favoured by the king. + +When Louis XVI came to the throne, the return to antiquity for +inspiration had already begun, but did not fully develop until later +on, when David became court painter under Napoleon. Yet the tonic note +of decoration was classic. Designs were still small and details were +from Greek inspiration. As tapestries were still but furniture +coverings, this was not to be regretted, for nothing could be +better suited to small spaces, nor could drawing be more exquisitely +pure and chaste than when copied from Greek detail. + + [Illustration: CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISEE. STYLE LOUIS XV] + +Count d'Angivillier kept the Gobelins factory from all originality, +sanctioned only the small wares for original work, and forced a +slavish copying of paintings for the larger pieces. It is not deniable +that some beautiful hangings were produced, but the sad result is that +pieces of so many tones lose in value year by year, through the +gentle, inexorable touch of time; and, more deplorable yet, the +ambition and the originality of the master-weavers was deprived of its +very life-blood, and in time was utterly atrophied. + +In the time of Louis XVI, when Marie Antoinette was in the flower of +her inconsiderate elegance, the note of the day was for art to be +small, but perfect; the worth of a work of art was determined by its +size--in inverse ratio. It was a time lively and intellectual and +frivolous, and its art was the reflection of its desire for +concentrated completeness. + +In the reign of Louis XVI ripened, not the art of Louis XIV, but the +political situation whose seeds he had planted. The idea of revolution +which started in the little-considered American colonies, took hold of +the thinkers of France, even to the king of little power. But instead +of being a theory of remedy for important men to discuss, it acted as +a fire-brand thrown among the inflammable, long-oppressed Third +Estate--with results deplorable to the art which occupies our +attention. + +The Gobelins was already suffering at the debut of the Revolution. +Its management had been relegated to men more or less incapable; its +art standards had been forced lower and lower. Added to that its +operatives were engaged at lessened rates and often had to whistle for +their pay at that. The contractors asked for nothing better than to be +engaged as masters of ateliers at fixed rates. + +Then came the full force of the Revolution with such deplorable and +tragic results for the Gobelins. In the madness of the time the +workers here were not exempt from the terrible call of Robespierre. +The almoner of the factory was arrested, and at the end of two months +not even a record existed of his execution, which took place among the +daily feasts of La Guillotine. A high-warp weaver named Mangelschot +met the same fate. Jean Audran, once contractor for high-warp, then +placed at the head of the factory, was arrested, but escaped with +imprisonment only. + +During his absence he was replaced as head by Augustin Belle, whose +respect for the Republic and for his head made him curry favour with +the mob in a manner most deplorable. He caused the destruction by fire +of many and many a superb tapestry at the Gobelins, giving as his +reason that they contained emblems of royalty, reminders of the hated +race of kings. The amateur can almost weep in thinking of this +ruthless waste of beauty. + +It was a celebrated bonfire that was built in the courtyard of the +Gobelins when, by order of the Committee on Selection, all things +offensive to an over-sensitive republican irritability were heaped for +the holocaust. As the Gobelins was instituted by a king, patronised by +kings, its works made in the main for palaces and pageants after the +taste of kings, it was only too easy to find tapestries meet for a +fire that had as object the destruction of articles displaying +monarchical power. + +During the four horrid years when terror reigned, the workers at the +Gobelins continued under a constant threat of a cessation of work. Not +only was their pay irregular, but it was often given in paper that had +sadly depreciated in value. Then the decision was made to sell certain +valuable tapestries and pay expenses from this source of revenue. But, +alas, in those troublous times, who had heart or purse to acquire +works of art. A whole skin and food to sustain it, were the serious +objects of life. + +Under the Directory, funds were scarce in bleeding France, and all +sorts of ways were used to raise them. In the past times when Louis +XIV had by relentless extravagance and wars depleted the purse, he +caused the patiently wrought precious metals to be melted into +bullion. Why not now resort to a similar method? So thought a minister +of one of the Two Chambers, and suggested the burning of certain +tapestries of the royal collection in order that the gold and silver +used in their weaving might be converted into metal. + +Sixty pieces, the most superb specimens of a king's collection, were +transported to the court of La Monnaie, and there burned to the last +thread the wondrous work of hundreds of talented artists and artisans. +The very smoke must have rolled out in pictures. The money gained was +considerable, 60,000 livres, showing how richly endowed with metal +threads were these sumptuous hangings. The commission sitting by, +judicial, dispassionate, presided with cold dignity over the +sacrifice, and pronounced it good. + +A hundred workers only remained at the Gobelins which had once been a +happy hive of more than eight times that number, and these were +constrained to follow orders most objectionable and restrictive. +Models to copy were chosen by a jury of art, and such were its +prejudices that but little of interest remained. Ancient religious +suites, and royal ones were disapproved. New orders consisted of +portraits. But if we thought it a prostitution of the art to weave +portraits of Louis XV in royal costume, or Marie Antoinette in the +loveliness of her queenly fripperies, what can be said of the low +estate of a factory which must give out a portrait of Marat or +Lepelletier, even though the great David painted the design to be +copied. The hundred men at the Gobelins must have worked but sadly and +desultorily over such scant and distasteful commissioning. + +There were works upon the looms when the Commission began inspecting +the works of art to see if they were proper stuff for the newly-made +Republic to nurse upon. In September, 1794, they found and condemned +twelve large pieces on the looms unfinished, and on which work was +immediately suspended. Of three hundred and twenty-one models +examined, which were the property of the factory, one hundred and +twenty were rejected. In fact, only twenty were designated as truly +fit for production, not falling under the epithets "anti-republican, +fanatic or insufficient." The latter description was applied to all +those exquisite fantasies of art that make the periods Louis XV and +Louis XVI a source of transcendent delight to the lover of dainty +intellectual design, and include particularly the work of Boucher. + +The mental and moral workings of the commission on art may be tested +by quoting from their own findings on the _Siege of Calais_, a hanging +by Berthelemy, depicting an event of the Fourteenth Century. This is +what the temper of the times induced the Commission--among whom were +artists too--to say: "Subject regarded as contrary to republican +ideas; the pardon accorded to the people of Calais was given by a +tyrant through the tears and supplications of the queen and child of a +despot. Rejected. In consequence the tapestry will be arrested in its +execution." + +The models allowed in this benumbing period were those of hunting +scenes, and antique groups such as the _Muses_, or scenes from the +life of Achilles. + +A vicious system of pay was added to the vicious system of art +restriction. And so fell the Gobelins, to revive in such small manner +as was accorded it in the Nineteenth Century. + +Its great work was done. It had lifted up an art which through +inflation or barrenness Brussels had let train on the ground like a +fallen flag, and it had given to France the glory of acquiring the +highest period of perfection. + +To France came the inspiration of gathering the industry under the +paternal care of the government, of relieving it from the exigencies +of private enterprise which must of necessity fluctuate, of keeping +the art in dignified prosperity, and of devoting to its uses the +highest talent of both art and industry. + +The Revolution and the Directory both hesitated to kill an institution +that had brought such glory to France, that had placed her above all +the world in tapestry producing. But what deliberate intent did not +accomplish, came near being a fact through scant rations. Operators at +the Gobelins were irregularly paid, and the public purse found onerous +the burden of support. + +But with the coming of Napoleon the personal note was struck again. A +man was at the head, a man whose ambition invaded even the field of +decoration. The Emperor would not be in the least degree inferior in +splendour to the most magnificent of the hereditary kings of France. +The Gobelins had been their glory, it should add to his. + +Louis David was the painter of the court, he whose head was ever +turned over his shoulder toward ancient Greece and Rome, who not only +preferred that source of inspiration, but who realised the flattery +implied to the Emperor by using the designs of the countries he had +conquered. It was a graceful reminder of the trophies of war. + +So David not only painted Josephine as a lady of Pompeii elongated on +a Greek lounge, but he set the classic style for the Gobelins factory +when Napoleon gave to the looms his imperial patronage. It was David +who had found favour with Revolutionary France by his untiring efforts +to produce a style differing fundamentally from the style of kings, +when kings and their ways were unpopular. Technical exactness, with +classic motives, characterises his decorative work for the Gobelins. + +The Emperor was hot for throne-room fittings that spoke only of +himself and of the empire he had built. David made the designs, +beautiful, chaste, as his invention ever was, and dotted them with the +inevitable bees and eagles. Percier, the artist, helped with the +painting, but the throne itself was David's and shows his talent in +the floating Victory of the back and the conventionalised wreaths of +the seat. The whole set, important enough to mention, embraced eight +arm chairs and six smaller ones, besides two dozen classic seats of a +kingly pattern, and screens for fire and draughts, all with a red +background on which was woven in gold the pattern of wreaths and +branches of laurel and oak. + +The Emperor made the Gobelins his especial care. He committed it to +the discretion of no one, but was himself the director, and allowed no +loom to set up its patterns unsanctioned by his order. Even his +campaigns left this order operative. Is it to his credit as a genius, +or his discredit as a tyrant, that the chiefs of the Gobelins had to +follow him almost into battle to get permission to weave a new +hanging? + +Portraits were woven--but let us not dwell on that. That portraits +were woven at the Gobelins (portraits as such, not the resemblance of +one figure out of a mass to some great personage) brings ever a sigh +of regret. It is like the evidence of senility in some grand statesman +who has outlived his vigour. It is like the portrait of your friend +done in butter, or the White House at Washington done in a paste of +destroyed banknotes. In other words, there is no excuse for it while +paint and canvas exist. + +Napoleon's own portrait was made in full length twice, and in bust ten +times. The Empress was pictured at full length and in bust, and the +young King of Rome came in for one portrait. The summit of bad art +seemed reached when it was proposed to copy in wool a painting of +portrait busts, carved in marble. This work was happily unfinished +when the empire gave place to the next form of government. + +It is unthinkable that Napoleon would not want his reign glorified in +manner like to that of hereditary kings with pictured episodes, the +conquests of his life, dramatic, superb. David the court painter, +supplied his canvas _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, and others followed. +Copying paintings was the order at the Gobelins, remember, and that +kind of work was done with infinite skill. Numbers of grand scenes +were planned, some set up on the looms, but the great part were not +done at all. Napoleon's triumph was full but brief; the years of his +reign were few. He interrupted work on large hangings by his +impatience to have the throne-room furniture ready for the reception +of Europe's kings and ambassadors. And when the time came that another +man received in that room, the big series of hangings which were to +picture his reign, even as the _Life of the King_ pictured that of +Louis XIV, were scarcely begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BEAUVAIS + + +Another name to conjure with, after Gobelins is Beauvais. In general +it means to us squares of beautiful foliage,--foliage graceful, +acceptably coloured, and of a pre-Raphaelite neatness. But it is not +limited to that class of work, nor yet to the chair-coverings for +which the factory of Beauvais is so justly celebrated. This factory +has woven even the magnificent series of Raphael, the designs without +which the Sistine Chapel was considered incomplete. But this is +anticipating, and an inquiry into how these things came about is a +pleasure too great to miss. + +The factory at Beauvais was founded by Colbert, under Louis XIV, in +1664. In that respect it resembles the Gobelins factory, but there +existed an enormous difference which had to do with the entire fate of +the enterprise. The Gobelins was founded for the king; Beauvais was +founded for commerce. The Gobelins was royally conceived as a source +of supply for palaces and chateaux of royalty and royalty's friends. +Beauvais was intended to supply with tapestry any persons who cared to +buy them, to the end that profit (if profit there were) should be to +the good of the country. + +So the factory was founded at Beauvais as being convenient to Paris, +although it was not known as a place where the industry had +flourished hitherto, notwithstanding the old tapestries still in the +cathedral which are accorded a local origin in the first half of the +Sixteenth Century. And the king granted it letters patent, and large +sums of money to start the enterprise, which had to be given a +building, and men to manage it and to work therein, and materials to +work with, in fact, the duplicate in less degree of the appropriations +for the Gobelins, except that the furniture department was omitted. + +The idea was practically the same as that in the mind of the paternal +Henri IV when he united the scattered factories with royal interest +and patronage, but with always the large end in view of benefiting his +people financially, as well as in the province of art. With our modern +republican views we can criticise the disinterestedness of a monarch +who maintains a factory at enormous public expense exclusively for the +indulgence of kings. + +And yet, it seems impossible to make both an artistic and commercial +success of a tapestry factory--at least this is the conclusion to +which one is forced in a study of the Beauvais factory. + +Louis Hinart was the man appointed to construct the buildings and to +stock them, and the royal appropriation therefor, was 60,000 livres. +He was to engage a hundred workers for the first year, more to be +added; and special prizes were temptingly offered for workmen coming +from other countries, and to the contractor for each tapestry sold for +exportation. + + [Illustration: HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS + + Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent] + + [Illustration: HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D'ESTREES + + Design by Vincent] + +Thus was trade to be encouraged, and the venture put on its feet +commercially. But alas, the factory was not a success. Tapestries were +woven, hundreds of them, and they delight us now wherever we can find +them, whether low warp or high, whether large pieces with figures or +smaller pieces almost entirely verdure of an entrancing kind. But the +orders for large hangings, the heavy patronage from outside France, +was of the imagination only, and the verdures for home consumption did +not meet the expenses of the factory. After twenty years of struggle, +Hinart was completely ruined and ceded the direction of the factory to +a Fleming of Tournai, Philip Behagle. As most of the workers were +Flemish, this was probably not disagreeable to them. + +Behagle, more energetic than Hinart, with a gift for initiative, set +the high-warp looms to work with extraordinary activity. As though he +would rival the great Gobelins itself, he reproduced the most +ambitious of pieces, the Raphael series, _Acts of the Apostles_, and a +long list of ponderous groups wherein oversized gods disport +themselves in a heavy setting of architecture and voluminous +draperies. He also produced some contemporary battle scenes which are +now in the royal collection of Sweden. + +Not content with copying, Behagle set up a school of design in the +factory, realising that the base of all decorative art was design. Le +Pape was the artist set over it. From this grew many of the lovely +smaller patterns which have made the factory famous. Its garlands have +ever been inspired, and its work on borders is of exquisite conception +and execution. + +It is considered a great fact in the history of the factory that the +king paid it a visit in 1686; that he paraded and rested his important +person under the shade of the living verdure in its garden. But it +seems more to the point that Behagle made for it a success both +artistic and commercial, and this continued as long as he had breath. + +Also was it a feather in his cap that at the time when the Gobelins +factory was sighing and dying for lack of funds, the provincial +factory of Beauvais not only remained prosperous, but opened its doors +to many of the starving operatives from the Gobelins ateliers, thus +saving them from the horrid fate of joining the Dragonades, as some of +their fellows had done. + +But the followers of the able Behagle had not his capability. After +his twenty years of prosperity the factory languished under the +direction of his widow and sons, and that of the brothers Filleul, and +Micou, up to the time when the Regent Philip was fumbling the reigns +of government, and when everything but scepticism and Les Precieuses +was sinking into feeble disintegration. The factory became a financial +failure from which the regent had not power to lift it. + +Again we see the name of the son of Madame de Montespan, the Duke +d'Antin, who was at this time director of buildings for the crown and +in this capacity had the power of choosing the directors of both the +Gobelins and Beauvais. The place of director at Beauvais was empty; +d'Antin must have the credit of filling it wisely with the painter +Jean-Baptiste Oudry. He was a man endowed with the sort of energy we +are apt to consider modern and American. He already occupied a high +place in the Gobelins, and retained it, too, while he lifted Beauvais +from the Slough of Despond, and carried it to its most brilliant +flowering. + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY + + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI + + Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York] + +It is only as the history of a factory touches us that we are +interested in its changes. The result of Oudry's direction is one that +we see so frequently in a small way that it is agreeable to recognise +its cause. Oudry was pre-eminently a painter of animals. Add to this +the tendency to draw cartoons in suites and the demand for furniture +coverings, and at once we have the _raison d'etre_ of the design seen +over and over again nowadays on old tapestried chairs, the designs +picturing the _Fables of La Fontaine_. These were the especial work of +Oudry who composed them, who put into them his best work as animal +painter, and who set them on the looms of Beauvais many times. + +They had a success immediate. They became the fashion of the day, and +the pride of the factory. If the artist had drawn with inspiration, +the weavers copied with a fidelity little short of talent. So it is +not surprising that a set of sofa and chairs on which these tapestries +are displayed brings now an average of a thousand dollars a piece, +even though the furniture frames are not excessively rich. + +Beauvais set the fashion for this suite, but as success has imitators +who hope for success, many factories both in and out of France copied +this series. How shall we know the true from the false? By that sixth +sense that has its origin in a taste at once instinctive and +cultivated. + +Oudry drew hangings for the small panelled spaces of the walls, to +accompany this set of _Fables_. He also painted scenes from Moliere's +comedies, which at least show him master of the human figure as well +as of the lines of animals. + +We are now, it must be remembered, in the time of Louis XV, the time +of beautiful gaiety and light sarcasm, of epigramme, and miniature, +and of all that declared itself _multum in parvo_. Therefore it was +that even wall-hangings were reduced in size and polished, so to +speak, to a perfection most admirable. Paintings were copied, actually +copied, on the looms, but however much the fact may be deplored that +tapestry had wandered far from its original days of grand simplicity, +it were unjust not to recognise the exquisite perfection of the manner +in vogue in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, and of the +perfection of the craftsman. + +The pieces of Beauvais that are accessible to us are indeed charming +to live with, especially the verdures of Oudry on which he left the +trace of his talent, never omitting the characteristic fox or dog, or +ducks, or pheasants that give vital interest to a peep into the +enchanted woodland. At the same time the factory of Aubusson, and +looms in Flanders, were throwing upon the market a quantity of +verdures, of which the amateur must beware. Oudry verdures or outdoor +scenes are but few in model, and beautifully woven. + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV] + +In the prosperity of Beauvais, ambition carried Oudry into a gay +rivalry with the Gobelins. Charles Coypel had gained fame by a set of +hangings in which scenes were taken from Don Quixote. Oudry asked +himself why he should not rival them at Beauvais. The result was a +similar series, but composed by Charles Natoire, the artist who had +drawn a set of _Antony and Cleopatra_ for the Gobelins. The same idea +extended to the furniture coverings which ran to this design as well +as to the _Fables_. Thus originated a set familiar to those of us +nowadays who covet and who buy the rare old bits that the niggard hand +of the past accords to the seeker after the ancient. + +Exquisite indeed are the hangings by the great interpreter of the +spirit of his time, Francois Boucher. His designs broke from the limit +of the Gobelins, and were woven at Beauvais with the care and skill +required for proper interpretation of his land of mythology. Such +flushed skies of light, such clean, soft trees waving against them and +such human elegance and beauty grouped beneath, have seldom been +reproduced in tapestry, and almost make one wonder if, after all, the +weavers of the Eighteenth Century were not right in copying a finished +painting rather than in interpreting a decorative cartoon. But such +thoughts border on heresy and schism; away with them. + +Casanova, Leprince, and a host of others are tacked onto the list of +artists who painted models. We can no longer call them cartoons, so +changed is the mode for Beauvais. But Oudry and Boucher are +pre-eminent. + +To the former, who was director as well as artist, is attributed the +fame of the factory and the resulting commercial success. The factory +had a house for selling its wares under the very nose of the Gobelins; +had another in the enemy's country, Leipzig. And kings were the +patrons of these, as we know through the royal collections in Italy, +and Stockholm, where the King of Sweden was an important collector. + +It was in 1755 that Beauvais found itself without the support of its +leaders. Both Oudry and his partner in business matters, Besnier, had +died. And we are well on toward the time when kingly support was a +feeble and uncertain quantity. The factory lacked the inspiration and +patronage to continue its importance. + +In a few years more fell the blight of the Revolution. The factory was +closed. + +It re-opened again under new conditions, but its brilliant period was +past. Will the conditions recur that can again elevate to its former +state of perfection this factory that has given such keen delight, +whose ancient works are so prized by the amateur? It has given us +thrilling examples of the highly developed taste of tapestry weaving +of the Eighteenth Century, it has left us lovable designs in +miniature. We repulse the thought that these things are all of the +past. The factory still lives. Will not the Twentieth Century see a +restoration of its former prestige? + +If it were only for the reproduction of the sets of furniture of the +style known as Louis XVI, the Beauvais loom would have sufficient +reason for existing at the present day. Scenes from Don Quixote, +however, and the pictured fables of La Fontaine which we see on old +chairs, seem to need age to ripen them. These sets, when made new, +shown in all the freshness and unsoiled colour, and unworn wool, and +unfaded silk do not give pleasure. + + [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY] + + [Illustration: CHAIR COVERING + + Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire] + +But the familiar garlands and scrolls adapted from the Greek, that +were woven for the court of Marie Antoinette, these are ever old and +ever new, like all things vital. On a background of solid colour, pale +and tawny, is curved the foliated scroll to reach the length of a +sofa, and with this is associated garlands or sprays of flowers that +any flower-lover would worship. Nothing more graceful nor more +tasteful could be conceived, and by such work is the Beauvais factory +best known, and on such lines might it well continue. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AUBUSSON + + +Perhaps because of certain old and elegant carpets lying under-foot in +the glow and shadows of old drawing-rooms that we love, the name of +Aubusson is one of interesting meaning. And yet history of tapestry +weaving at Aubusson lacks the importance that gilds the Gobelins and +Beauvais. + +It just escaped that _sine qua non_, the dower of a king's favour. But +let us be chronological, and not anticipate. + +If antiquity is the thing, Aubusson claims it. There is in the town +this interesting tradition that when the invincible Charles Martel +beat the enemies of Christianity and hammered out the word peace with +his sword-blade, a lot of the subdued Saracens from Spain remained in +the neighbourhood. It was at Poitiers in 732 that the final blow was +given to show the hordes of North Africa that while a part of Spain +might be theirs, they must stop below the Pyrenees. + +When swords are put by, the empty hand turns to its accustomed crafts +of peace. Poitiers is a weary journey from Africa if the land ways are +hostile, and all to be traversed afoot. Rather than return, the +conquered Saracens stayed, so runs the legend of Aubusson, and quite +naturally fell into their home-craft of weaving. They had a pretty +gift indeed to bestow, for at that time, as in ages before, the +world's best fabrics came from the luxurious East. And so the +Saracens, defeated at Poitiers by Charles Martel, wandered to nearby +Aubusson, wove their cloths and gave the town the chance to set its +earliest looms at a date far back in the past. + +The centuries went on, however, without much left in the way of +history-fabric or woven fabric until we approach the time when +tapestry-history begins all over France, like sparse flowers glowing +here and there in the early spring wood. + +When the Great Louis, with Colbert at his sumptuous side, was by way +of patronising magnificently those arts which contributed to his own +splendour, he set his all-seeing eye upon Aubusson, and thought to +make it a royal factory. + +He was far from establishing it--that was more than accomplished +already, not so much by the legendary Saracens as by the busy populace +who had as early as 1637 as many as two thousand workers. Going back a +little farther we find a record of four tapestries woven there for +Rheims. + +It was, perhaps, this very prosperity, this ability to stand alone +that made Louis and Colbert think it worth while to patronise the +works at Aubusson. But it must be said that at this time (1664) the +factory was deteriorating. Tapestry works are as sensitive as the +veriest exotic, and without the proper conditions fail and fade. The +wrong matter here was primarily the cartoons, which were of the +poorest. No artist controlled them, and the workers strayed far from +the copy set long before. Added to that, the wool was of coarse, +harsh quality and the dyeing was badly done. All three faults +remediable, thought the two chief forces in the kingdom. + +So Louis XIV announced to the sixteen hundred weavers of Aubusson that +he would give their works the conspicuous privilege of taking on the +name of the Royal Manufactory at Aubusson. And, moreover, he declared +his wish to send them an artist to draw worthily, and a master of the +important craft of dyeing fast and lovely colours. + +Colbert drew up a series of articles and stipulations, long papers of +rules and restrictions which were considered a necessary part of fine +tapestry weaving. These papers are tiresome to read--the constitution +of many a nation or a state is far less verbose. They give the +impression that the craft of tapestry weaving is beset with every sort +of small deceit, so protection must be the arrangement between master +and worker, and between the factory and the great outside world, lying +in wait to tear with avaricious claws any fabric, woven or written, +that this document leaves unprotected. You get, too, the impression +that weavers took themselves a little too seriously. There must have +been other arts and crafts in the world than theirs, but if so these +men of long documents ignored it. + +Aubusson, then, took heart at the encouragement of the king and his +prime minister, enjoyed their fine new title to flaunt before the +world which lacked it, pored over their new Articles of Faith, and +awaited the new artist and the new alchemist of colours. + +But Louis XIV was a busy man, and Paris presented enough activity to +consume all his hours but the scant group he allowed himself for +sleep. So Aubusson was forgot. Wars and pleasures both ravaged the +royal purse, and no money was left for indulgences to a tapestry +factory lying leagues distant from Paris and the satisfying Gobelins. + +Then came the agitation of religious conflict during which Louis XIV +was persuaded, coerced, nagged into the condition of mind which made +him put pen to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the document +that is ever playing about the fortunes of tapestry weaving. This was +in 1685. Aubusson had struggled along on hope for twenty years, under +its epithet Royal, but now it had to lose its best workers to the +number of two hundred. The Protestants had ever been among the best +workers in Louis' kingdom, and by his prejudice he lost them. Germany +received some of the fugitives, notably, Pierre Mercier. + +Near Aubusson were Felletin and Bellegarde, the three towns forming +the little group of factories of La Marche. When the king's act +brought disaster to Aubusson, her two neighbours suffered equally. + +There was also another reason for a sagging of prosperity. Beauvais +was rapidly gaining in size and importance under the patronage of the +king and the wise rule of its administrators. Beauvais with her +high- and low-warp looms, her artists from Paris and her privilege to +sell in the open market, lured from Aubusson the patronage that might +have kept her strong. + +Thus things went on to the end of the Seventeenth Century and the +first quarter of the Eighteenth. Then in 1731 came deliverers in the +persons of the painters, Jean Joseph du Mons and Pierre de Montezert, +and an able dyer who aided them. Prosperity began anew. Not the +prosperity of the first half of the Seventeenth Century, which was its +best period, but a strong, healthy productiveness which has lasted +ever since. Two articles of faith it adheres to--that the looms shall +be invariably low, and that the threads of the warp shall be of wool +and wool only. + +Large quantities of strong-colour verdures from La Marche and notably +from Aubusson are offered to the buyer throughout France. They are as +easily adapted to the wood panels of a modern dining-room as is stuff +by the yard, the pattern being merely a mass of trees divisible almost +anywhere. The colour scheme is often worked out in blues instead of +greens; a narrow border is on undisturbed pieces, and the reverse of +the tapestry is as full of loose threads as the back of a cashmere +rug. For the most part these fragments are the work of the Eighteenth +Century. Older ones, with warmer colours introduced bring much higher +prices. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SAVONNERIE + + +Those who hold by the letter, leave out the velvety product of La +Savonnerie from the aristocratic society of hangings woven in the +classic stitch of the Gobelins. They have reason. Yet, because the +weave is one we often see in galleries, also on furniture both old and +new, it is as well not to ignore its productions in lofty silence. + +Besides, it is rather interesting, this little branch of an exotic +industry that tried to run along beside the greater and more artistic. +It never has tried to be much higher than a man's feet, has been +content for the most part to soften and brighten floors that before +its coming were left in the cold bareness of tile or parquet. It crept +up to the backs and seats of chairs, and into panelled screens a +little later on, but never has it had much vogue on the walls. + +When we go back to its beginnings we come flat against the Far East, +as is usual. The history of the fabric which is woven with a pile like +that of heavy wool velvet, and which is called Savonnerie, runs +parallel to the long story of tapestry proper, but to make its scant +details one short concrete chronicle it is best to put them all +together. + +From the East, then, came the idea of weaving in that style of which +only the people of the East were masters. Oriental rugs as such were +not attempted in either colour or design, but one of the rug stitches +was copied. + +We have to run back to the time of Henri IV, a pleasing time to turn +to with its demonstration of how much a powerful king loved the +welfare of his people. When he interested himself in tapestry, one of +the three important existing factories was stationed in the Louvre. +This was primarily for the hangings properly called tapestry, but in +the same place were looms for the production of work "after the +fashion of Turkey." Sometimes it was called work of "long wool" +(_longue laine_) and sometimes also "_a la facon de Perse, ou du +Levant_," as well as "of the fashion of Turkey,"--all names giving +credit to the East from whence the stitch came by means of crusades, +invasions and other storied movements of the people of a dim past. + +How long ago this stitch came, is as uncertain as most things in the +Middle Ages. We know how persistently the cultivated venturesome East +overflowed Eastern Europe, and how religious Europe thrust itself into +the East, and on these broad bases we plant our imaginings. + +Away back in Burgundian times there are traces of the use of this +velvet stitch. Tapestries of Germany also woven in the Fifteenth +Century, use this stitch to heighten the effect of details. + +But the formation of an actual industry properly set down in history +and dignified by the name of its directors, comes in the very first +years of the Seventeenth Century when Henri IV of France was living up +to his high ideals. + +Pierre Dupont is the name to remember in this connexion. He is styled +the inventor of the velvet pile in tapestry, but it were better to +call him the adaptor. The name of Savonnerie came from the building in +which the first looms were set up, an old soap factory, and thus the +velvet pile bears the misnomer of the Savonnerie. + +Pierre Dupont (whose book "La Stromaturgie" might be consulted by the +book-lover) was one of the enthusiasts included by Henri IV along with +the best high-and low-warp masters of France at that time. Being +placed under royal patronage, the Savonnerie style of weaving acquired +a dignity which it has ever had trouble in retaining for the simple +reason that the legitimate place for its products seems to be the +floor. + +The Gobelins factory finally absorbed the Savonnerie, but that was +after it had been established in the Louvre. Pierre Dupont who was +director of tapestry works under Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt +the works of French production over those of "La Turquie." The taste +of the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French colour and +drawing than with the designs of the East. + +At any rate, this pretty wool velvet found such favour with kings that +even Louis XIV encouraged its continuance, gathering it under the roof +of the all-embracing Gobelins. + +A large royal order embraced ninety-two pieces, intended to cover the +Grand Galerie of the Louvre. Many of these pieces are preserved to-day +and are conserved by the State. + +If Savonnerie has never produced much that is noteworthy in the line +of art, at least it has given us many pretty bits of an endearing +softness, bits which cover a chair or panel a screen, to the delight +of both eye and touch. The softness of the weave makes it especially +appropriate to furniture of the age of luxurious interiors which is +represented by the styles of Louis XV and Louis XVI. + +Portraits in this style of weave were executed at a time when +portraits were considered improved by translation into wool, but +except as curiosities they are scarcely successful. An example hangs +in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Plate facing page 162.) +In the Gobelins factory of to-day are four looms for the manufacture +of Savonnerie. + + [Illustration: SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV + + Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] + + [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE + + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MORTLAKE + +1619-1703 + + +The three great epochs of tapestry weaving, with their three +localities which are roughly classed as Arras in the Fifteenth +Century, Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, and Paris in the +Seventeenth, had, as a matter of course, many tributary looms. It is +not supposable that a craft so simple, when it is limited to +unambitious productions, should not be followed by hundreds of modest +people whose highest wish was to earn a living by providing the market +with what was then considered as much a necessity as chairs and +tables. + +To take a little retrospective journey through Europe and linger among +these obscurer weavers would be delectable pastime for the leisurely, +and for the enthusiast. But we are all more or less in a hurry, and +incline toward a courier who will point out the important spots +without having to hunt for them. Artois had not only Arras; Flanders +had not only Brussels; France had not only the State ateliers of Paris +and Beauvais; but all these countries had smaller centres of +production. The tapestries from some of these we are able to identify, +even to weave a little history about them. These products are +recognisable through much study of marks and details and much digging +in learned foreign books, where careful records are kept--a congenial +business for the antiquary. + +But even though we may neglect in the main the lesser factories, there +is one great development which must have full notice. It is the +important English venture known as Mortlake. + +Sully, standing at the elbow of Henri IV of France, called James I of +England the wisest fool in Europe. A part of his wisdom was the +encouraging in his own kingdom the royal craft of tapestry-making. To +this end he followed the example set by that grand Henri of Navarre, +and gave the crown's aid to establish and maintain works for tapestry +production. + +The elegance of the Stuart came to the front, desiring gratification; +but craftiness had a hand in the matter, too. After the introduction +of Italian luxury into England by Henry VIII, and the continuance of +art's revival through the brilliant period of Elizabeth, it is not +supposable that no tapestry looms existed throughout the length and +breadth of the land at the time that James came down from Scotland. + +They were there; documents prove it. But they were not of such +condition as pleased the fastidious son of Marie Stuart, who needs +must import his weavers and his artists. And therein was shown his +craftiness, for he had coaxed secretly from Flanders fifty expert +weavers before the canny Dutch knew their talented material was thus +being filched away. Every weaver was bound to secrecy, lest the Low +Countries, knowing the value of her clever workmen, put a ban upon +their going before the English king had his full quota for the new +venture. + +Wandering about old London, one can identify now the place where the +king's factory had habitat. The buildings stood where now we find +Queen's Court Passage, and near by, at Victoria Terrace, was the house +set aside for the limners or artists who drew and painted for the +works. + +To copy Henri IV in his success was dominant in the mind of James I. +To the able Sir Francis Crane he gave the place of director of the +works, and made with him a contract similar to that made with Francois +de la Planche and Marc Comans in Paris by their king. + +If to James I is owed the initial establishment, to Crane is owed all +else at that time. It was in 1619 that the works were founded and Sir +Francis took charge. He was a gentleman born, was much seen at Court, +had ambitions of his own, too, and was cultivated in many ways of mind +and taste. Besides all this, he had a head for business and an +enthusiasm rampant, which could meet any discouragement--and needed +this faculty later, too. + +The king then gave him the management of the venture, started him with +the royal favour, which was as good as a fortune, with a building for +the looms, with imported workers who knew the tricks of the trade, and +with a pretty sum of money to boot. + +Prudence was born with the enterprise; so the men from the Low +Countries were advised to become naturalised to make them more likely +to stay, and to bring other workers over, Walloons, malcontents, +religious fugitives, or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful. +Down in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,--those +lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small leaded panes +which we are so keen to restore and live in these days. + +To swell the number of workers, and to have an eye for the future, +there must be apprentices. The king looked about among the city's +"hospitals" and saw many goodly boys living at crown expense, with no +specified occupation during their adolescence. These he put as +apprentices, for a term of seven years, to work under the fifty +Flemish leaders. They were happy if they fell under the care of Philip +de Maecht, he of Flanders, who had wandered down to Paris and served +under De la Planche and Comans, and now had been enticed to the new +Mortlake. He has left his visible mark on tapestries of his +production--his monogram, P.D.M. (Plate facing page 70.) + +A designer for the factory, one who lived there, was an inseparable +part of it. And thus it came that Francis Clein (or Cleyn) was +permanently established. He came from Denmark, but had taken an +enlightening journey to Italy, and had a fine equipment for the work, +which he carried on until 1658. His name is on several tapestries now +existing. + +Even kings tire of their fulfilled wishes. James wanted royal tapestry +works, yet, when they were an established fact, he wearied of the +drafts on his purse for their support. It was the old story of +unfulfilled obligations, of a royal purse plucked at by too many vital +interests to spend freely on art. + +And Sir Francis Crane bore the brunt of the troubles. Contracts with +the king counted but lightly in face of his enthusiasm. He continued +the work, paid his men the best he could, and let the king's debt to +him stand unsued. + +In a few years--a very few, as it was then but 1623--he was obliged to +petition the king. His private fortune was gone by the board, the +workmen were clamouring for wages past due, and the factory trembled. + +Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of his interest in +the tapestries that were demonstrating the artistic enterprise of +England. The Italian taste was the ultimate note in England as well as +elsewhere--the Italy of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had +ordered paintings and drawings. What was more to the purpose at this +hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the crown a bill of seven hundred +pounds, which covered their expense. The king, unwillingly,--for needs +pressed on all sides--paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for moneys +he had expended, but left him struggling against the hard conditions +of a ruined private purse and a thin royal one. + +At this juncture, 1625, James I died, and his son reigned in his +stead. The Prince of Wales was now become that beribboned, +picturesque, French-spirited monarch, whose figure on Whitehall +eternally protests his tragic death. + +As Charles I, he had the power to foster the elegant industry which +now grew and flowered to a degree that brought satisfaction then, and +which yields a harvest of delight in our own times. Sir Francis Crane +was at last to get the reward of enthusiasm and fidelity. Too much +reward, said the envious, who tried in all ways, fair and foul, to +drive him from what was now a lucrative and conspicuous post. The +money he had advanced the factory came back to him, and more also. +Ever a well-known figure at court, he now even aspired to closer +relations with royalty, and built a magnificent country home, which +was large enough to accommodate a visiting court. He even persuaded +the king to visit the Mortlake factory, that the royal presence might +enhance the value of art in the occult way known only to the subjects +of kings. + +Debts from the crown were not always paid in clinking coin, but often +in grants of land, and by these grants Sir Francis Crane became rich. +But the prosperity of Crane was not worth our recording were it not +that it evidenced the prosperity of Mortlake. From the death of James +I in 1625 for a period of ten years, the factory flowered and fruited. +Its productions were of the very finest that have ever been produced +in any country. + +The reasons for this superiority were evident. First of all, Mortlake +was the pet of the king; next, Crane was an able and devoted minister +of its affairs; its artistic inspiration came from the home of the +highest art--Italy--and its weavers were from that locality of sage +and able weavers--Flanders. Add to this, tapestries were the fashion. +Every man of wealth and importance felt them a necessary chattel to +his elegance. And add to this, too, that Mortlake had almost a clean +field. It was nearly without rival in fine tapestry-making at that +time. Brussels had declined, and the Gobelins was not formed in its +inspired combination. + + [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE + + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] + + [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE + + Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] + +Besides this, were not the materials for the industry found best +within the confines of the kingdom? What sheep in all the world +produced such even, lustrous wool as the muttons huddling or wandering +on the undulating _pres sales_ of Kent; and was not wool, par +excellence, the ideal material for picture-weaving, better than silk +or glittering gold? + +The hangings made then were superb. Thanks to destiny, we have some +left on which to lavish our enthusiasm. The cartoons preferred came +from Italy's great dead masters. First was Raphael. The Mortlake would +try its hand at nothing less than the great series made to finish and +soften the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. And so the _Acts of the +Apostles_ were woven, and in such manner as was worthy of them. They +can be seen now in the Garde Meuble. Van Dyck, the great Hollander, +made court painter to the king, drew borders for them, and was proud +to do it, too. Van Dyck's other work here was a portrait of Sir +Francis Crane and one of himself. + +Rubens likewise associated his great decorative genius with the +factory and gave to it his suite of six designs for the _Story of +Achilles_. Cleyn, the Mortlake art-director, furnished a _History of +Hero and Leander_, which found home among the marvellous tapestries of +the King of Sweden. + +There were other classic subjects, and the months as well, but of +especial interest to us is the _Story of Vulcan_. Several pieces of +this series have been lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New +York, by their owners, Mrs. von Zedlitz, and Philip Hiss, Esq. Thus, +without going far from home, thousands have been able to see these +delightful examples of the highest period of England's tapestry +production. The series was woven for Charles I when he was Prince of +Wales, from cartoons by Francis Cleyn, and woven by the master, Philip +de Maecht. The borders are especially interesting, and carry the +emblematic three feathers of the prince, as well as his monogram, in +Mrs. von Zedlitz's example, _The Expulsion of Vulcan_. (Coloured plate +facing page 170.) + +It was this same series of _Vulcan_ that was used as a text by Crane's +enemy to prove to the king, in 1630, that Crane was profiting unduly +and dishonestly from the land grants given him in payment for arrears. +The plaintiff speaks of this set as being "the foundation of all good +tapestries in England." We are fortunate in having pieces from it in +America. + +Only by actual contact with the tapestry itself can the beauty of the +colour and the work be known. We well believe the superior quality of +the English wool when it lies before us in smooth expanse of subtle +colour. And as for even weaving, it is there unsurpassed. Every inch +declares the talent and patience of the craftsman. As for colour, it +is on a low scale that makes blues seem like remembrance of the sea, +and reds like faint flushings planned in warm contrast, while over all +is thrown a veil of delicate mist that may be of years, or may have +been done with intent, but is there to give poetic value to the whole +of the artist's scheme. + + [Illustration: THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS] + +Sir Francis Crane died in 1636, and Captain Richard Crane succeeded +him. And then began the decline of a factory which should have lived +to save us deep regret. This second Crane could not carry on the work, +and besought the king to relieve him by taking over the factory, which +was thenceforth known as King's Works. + +But civil wars came on in 1642 and other matters were more urgent than +the production of works of art. So evil days fell upon the weavers. + +Then came the black day when Charles was beheaded. The Commonwealth, +to do it justice, tried to keep alive the industry. They put at its +head a nobleman, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and, to inspire the workers, +brought a new model for design. + +They went to Hampton Court and took from there _The Triumph of Caesar_, +by Mantegna, to serve as new models. Some hope, too, lay in the +weavers of the hour, clever Hollanders taken prisoners in the war; and +all this while Cleyn directed. + +But there were too many circumstances in the way, too many hard knocks +of fate. People were too poor to buy good tapestries, and loose-woven, +cheaper ones were heavily imported--to the amount of $500,000 +yearly--from France and the Low Countries. Anti-Catholic feeling +displayed hatred toward the able Catholic weavers, who were forced out +of the country by proclamation. + +The sad end of this story is that in 1702 a petition was placed before +the king asking permission to discontinue the Mortlake works. It was +granted in 1703, and thus ended the English royal venture in England. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IDENTIFICATIONS + + +Identifying tapestries is like playing a game, like the solving of a +piquant problem, like pursuing the elusive snark. I know of no keener +pleasure than that of standing before a tapestry for the first time +and giving its name and history from one's own knowledge, and not from +a museum catalogue or a friend's recital. The latter sources of +information may be faulty, but your own you can trust, for by +delightful association with tapestries and their literature you have +become expert. The catalogue is to be read, the friend is to be heard, +in all humility, because these supply points that one may not know; +but, who shall not say that an intensely human gratification is +experienced when the owner of a tapestry with the Brussels mark tells +you that it is a Gobelins, or one with the _History of Alexander_ +tells you it is the only set of that series ever woven, and you know +better. + +The first thing that strikes the eye and the intelligence is the +drawing, the general school to which it belongs. There is matter for +placing the piece in its right class. It might be said to place it in +its right century or quarter century, but that tapestries were so +often repeated in later times, the cartoon having no copyright and +therefore open to all countries in all centuries. Next, then, to fix +it better, comes a study of the border, for therein lies many a +secret of identity, and borders were of the epoch in which the weaving +was done, even though the cartoon for the centre came from an earlier +time. + +Last, as a finishing touch, come the marks in the galloon. This is put +last because so often they are absent, and so often unknown, the sign +of some ancient weaver lost in the mists of years, although a +well-known mark so instantly identifies, that study of other details +is secondary. + +But under these three generalising heads comes all the knowledge of +the savant, for the truth about tapestries is most elusive. Knowledge +is to be gained only by a lover of the objects, a lover willing to +spend long hours in association with his love, prowling among +collections, comparing, handling, studying designs, discerning +colours, searching for details, and indulging withal a nice feeling +for textures, a vision that feels them even without touch of the hand. + +If the study of design has not given a keen scent for the vague +quality which we call "feeling," the eye would better be trained still +further, for herein lies the secret of success in difficult places, +and not only that, but if he have not this sense he is deprived of one +of the most subtile thrills that the arts can excite. + +But this sense is not a matter of untrained intuition. It is the +flower of erudition, the flame from a full heart, or whatever dainty +thing you choose to call it. It has its origin primarily in keen +observation of the various important schools of design that have +interested the world for centuries. We unconsciously augment it even +in following the side-path of history in this modest volume. Our +studies here are but those of a summer morn or a winter eve, yet they +are in vain if they have not set up a measuring standard or two within +the mind. + + +GOTHIC DRAWING + +First, and dearest to the lover of designs, comes the Gothic, the +style practised by those conscientious romantic children-in-art, the +Primitives. Their characteristics in tapestry are much the same as in +painting, as in sculpture; for, weavers, painters, book-makers, +sculptors, were all expressing the same matter, all following the same +fashion. Therefore, to one's help comes any and every work of the +primitive artists. Making allowance for the difference in medium, the +same religious feeling is seen in the Burgundian set of _The +Sacraments_ in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York, as is found +in stone carving of the time which decorated churches and tombs. + +The figures in the Gothic tapestries show a dignified restraint, a +solemnity of pose, recalling the deadly seriousness with which +children play the game of grown-ups. The artists of that day had to +keep to their traditions; to express without over-expression, was +their difficult task (as it is ours), but they had behind them the +rigidity of the Byzantine and Early Christian, so that every free +line, every vigorous pose or energetic action, was forging ahead into +a new country, a voyage of adventure for the daring artist. Quite +another affair was this from modern restraint which consists in +pruning down the voluptuous lines following the too high Renaissance. + +Faces are serious, but not animated. Dress reveals charming matter +concerning stuffs and modes in that far time. But apart from these +characteristics is the one great feature of the arrangement of the +figures, almost without perspective. And therein lies one immense +superiority of the ancient designs of tapestries over the modern as +pure decorative fabric. Men and women are placed with their +accessories of furniture or architecture all in the foreground, and +each man has as many cubits to his stature as his neighbour, not being +dwarfed for perspective, but only for modesty, as in the case of the +Lady's companion in the _Unicorn_ series--but that series is of a +later Gothic time than the early works of Arras. + +A noticeable feature is that the centre of vision is placed high on +the tapestry. The eye must look to the top to find all the strength of +the design. The lower part is covered with the sweeping robes or +finished figures of the folk who are playing their silent parts for +the delight of the eye. This covers well the space with large and +simple motive. No recourse is had to such artifice as distant lands +seen in perspective, nor angles of rooms, but all is flat, brought +frankly into intimate association with the room that is lived in, so +that these people of other days seem really to enter into our very +presence, to thrust vitally their quaint selves into our company. This +feature of simple flatness is in so great contrast to later methods of +drawing that one becomes keenly conscious of it, and deeply satisfied +with its beauty. The purpose of decoration and of furnishing seems to +be most adequately met when the attention is retained within the +chamber and not led out of it by trick of background nor lure of +perspective, no matter how enticing are the distant landscapes or how +noble the far palace of royalty. Thus the Primitives struck a more +intimately human note than the artists of later and more sophisticated +times. + +The more archaic the tapestry, the simpler the motive, is the rule. +The early weavers of Arras and of France were telling stories as +naturally as possible, perhaps because the ways of their times were +simple, and brushed aside all filigree with a directness almost +brutal; but also, perhaps, because technique was not highly developed, +either in him who drew with a pencil or him who copied that drawing in +threads of silk and wool and gold. Whatever the cause, we can but +rejoice at the result, which, alas, is shown to us by but lamentably +few remnants outside of museums. These very archaic simple pieces are, +for the most part, work of the latter part of the Fourteenth Century +and the first part of the Fifteenth, and as the history of tapestry +shows, were almost invariably woven in France or in Flanders. At the +end of the time mentioned, designs, while retaining much the same +characteristics already described, became more ambitious, more +complicated, and introduced many scenes into one piece. This is easily +proved by a comparison of the illustration of _The Baillee des Roses_, +or _The Sacraments_, with _The Sack of Jerusalem_, all in the +Metropolitan Museum. + +The idea in the earliest Gothic cartoons--if the word may be allowed +here, was to make a single picture, a unified group. Into the later +cartoons came the fashion of multiplying these groups on one field, so +that a tapestry had many points of interest, many scenes where +tragedies or comedies were being enacted. Ingenious were the ways of +the early artist to accomplish the separation between the various +scenes, which were sometimes divided merely by their own attitudes, as +folk dispose themselves in groups in a large drawing-room; and +sometimes were divided by natural obstructions, like brooks and trees, +or by columns. + +Later yet, all the antique eccentricities passed away, and the laws of +perspective and balance were fully developed in an art which has an +unspeakable charm. All the things that modern art has decreed as crude +or childish has passed away, and the sweet flower of the Gothic +perfection unfolded its exquisite beauty. This Gothic perfection was +the Golden Age of tapestry. + + +ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL + +The use of architecture in the old Gothic designs makes a pleasing +necessity of fastening our attention upon it. In the very oldest +drawing the sole use is to separate one scene from another, in the +same hanging. For this purpose slender columns are used. It is +intensely interesting to note that these are the same variety of +column that meets us on every delightful prowl among old relics of +North Europe, relics of the days when man's highest and holiest energy +expressed itself at last in the cathedral. Those slender stems of the +northern Gothic are verily the stems of plants or of aspiring young +trees, strong when grouped, dainty when alone, and forming a refined +division for the various scenes in a picture. It must be confessed +that in the medium of aged wool they sometimes totter with the effect +of imminent fall, but that they do not fall, only inspires the +illusion that they belong to the marvellous age of fairy-tale and +fancy. + +The careful observer takes a keen look at these columns as a clue to +dates. The shape of the shaft, whether round or hectagonal, the +ornament on the capitals, are indications. It is not easy to know how +long after a design is adopted its use continues, but it is entirely a +simple matter to know that a tapestry bearing a capital designed in +1500 could not have been made prior to that time. + +The columns, later on, took on a different character. They lifted +slender shafts more ornamented. It is as though the restless men of +Europe had come up from the South and had brought with them +reminiscences of those tender models which shadowed the art of the +Saracens, the art which flavoured so much the art of Southern Europe. +The columns of many a cloister in Italy bear just such lines of +ornament, including the time when the brothers Cosmati were +illuminating the pattern with their rich mosaic. + +Then, later still, the columns burst into the exquisite bloom of the +early Renaissance, their character profoundly different, but their use +the same, that of dividing scenes from one another on the same woven +picture. But as any allusion to the Renaissance seems to thrust us far +out onto a radiant plain, let us scamper back into the mysterious wood +of the Gothic and pick up a few more of its indicative pebbles, even +as did Hans and Gretel of fairyland. + +A use of Gothic architectural detail gives a religious look to +tapestry, quite other than the later introduction of castles. These +castle strongholds of the Middle Ages wasted no daintiness of +construction, nor favoured light ornament, nor dainty hand. They were, +par excellence, places of defence against the frequent enemy; so, in +bastion and tower they were piled in curving masses around the scenes +of the later Gothic tapestries. Even more, they began to play an +important part in the _mise en scene_, and were drawn on tiny scale as +habitations of the actors in the play who thrust heads from windows no +larger than their throats, or who gathered in gigantic groups on +disproportioned tessellated roofs. + +Occasionally a lovely lady in distress is seen in fine raiment praying +high Heaven for deliverance from the top of a feudal pile not half as +high as her stately figure. Laws of proportion are quite lost in this +naive way of telling a story, and one wonders whether the wise old +artist of other times, with his rigid solemnity was heroically +overcoming difficulties of traditional technique, or whether he was +smiling at the infantile taste of his wealthy patrons. The past +fashion in history was to record only the lives and expressions of +those great in power. The artist is ever the servant of such, but may +he not have had his own private thoughts, unpurchaseable, unsold, and +therefore only for our divining. There must have been a sense of +humour then as now, and twinkling eyes with which to see it. + + +GOTHIC FLOWERS + +Always, in studying a Gothic tapestry, we find flowers. The flowers of +nature, they are, a simple nature at that, and never to be thought of +in the same day as the gorgeous, expansive, proud flowers of the +Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century decoration. Those splendid later +blossoms flaunt their richness with assured swagger and demand of man +his homage, quite forgetting it is the flower's best part to give. + +Botticelli had not outgrown the Gothic flowers when he sprinkled them +on the ambient air and floating robe of his chaste and dreamy _Venus_, +nor when he set them about the elastic tripping feet of the _Spring_. +He knew their simple power, and so do we. Scarce a Gothic tapestry is +complete without them, happily for those bent on identification, for +rarely can one discover them without the same thrill that accompanies +the discovery of the first violets and snowdrops in the awakening +woods. + +The old weavers set them low in the picture, used them as +space-fillers wherever space lay happily before them, and they never +exaggerated their size, a virtue of which the full Renaissance cannot +boast. They are the simplest sort of flowers, the corolla of petals +turning as frankly toward the observer as the sunflower turns toward +her god, and little bells hanging as regularly as a chime. These are +their characteristics, easily recognisable and expressing the +unsophisticated charm of the creations of honest childish hands. +Irrelevancy is theirs, too. They spring from stones or pavement as +well as from turf or garden, and thus express the more ardently their +love for man and for close association with him. When they are seen +after this manner, it is sure that the early men have set them, just +as Shakespeare, at the same epoch, set violets blue and daisies pied, +cowslip, rosemary "for remembrance," and other familiar dainties, in +the grim foundation stones of his tragedies. + +A comparison of the different hangings available to the amateur, or of +the pictured examples given in this book, will reveal more than can be +well set down with the pen. The use of flowers in the set of _The +Baillee des Roses_ is exceptional, in that here the flowers form a +harmonious decorative scheme and are at the same time an important +part of the story which is pictured. + +In other earliest examples they playfully peep within the limits of +the hanging. Important use is, however, made of them in that +altogether entrancing set of _The Lady and the Unicorn_, where they +indicate the beauties of a fascinating park in which the delicate lady +and her attendant led a wondrous life guarded by two beasts as +fabulous as faithful, and the whole region of leaves and petals but +serving as a paradise for delectable white rabbits and piquant +monkeys. Could any modern indicate by sophistry of brush or brain so +intoxicating a fairyland, so gracious a field of dear delights? + + +COSTUMES + +A minute study of all the details of costume and accessories is one of +the measuring sticks with which we count the years of a tapestry's +life. This applies more particularly to the work prior to the +Renaissance, to the time when all characters were dressed in the mode +of the day--another evidence of that ingenuousness that delights us +who have passed the period where it is possible. + +As we have noted before, a costume cannot be used before its time, so, +as much as anything can, the study of its details prevents us from +going too far back with its date. When one has reached the point of +identifying a Gothic tapestry to where the exact decade is questioned, +the century having been ascertained, a careful study of costumes +outside the region of tapestries is necessary. This leads one into a +department all by itself and means delightful hours in libraries +poring over illustrated books on costume. It means to learn in what +manner our gods and heroes of fact and fancy habited themselves, how +Berengaria wore her head-dress and Jehane de Bourgogne her brocades, +and how the eternally various sleeve differed in its fashioning for +both men and women. + +Head-dresses were of such size and variety that they form a study in +themselves, and dates have been fixed by these alone. The turban in +its evolution is an interesting study, and makes one wonder if that, +too, did not wander north from the Moorish occupancy of Spain and the +wave of inspiration which flowed unceasingly from the Orient in the +years when Europe created little without inspiration from outside. + +A patriarchal bearded man in sacerdotal robes of costly elegance +seriously impresses his fellows all through the Gothic tapestries, and +his rival is a swaggering, important person, clean-shaven, in full +brocaded skirt, fur-bound, whose attitude declares him royal or near +it. The first of these is the model nowadays for stage kings, and even +a woman's toilet must vaunt itself to get notice beside his gorgeous +array. He wears about his waist a jewelled girdle of great splendour, +and on his head some impressive matter of either jewels or draping. +His face is usually full-bearded, but even when smooth, youth is not +expressed upon him. Youths of the same time are more _debonnaire_, are +springing about, clean-faced, clad in short, belted pelisse, showing +sprightly legs equally ready to step quickly towards a lovely lady or +to a field of battle. + +Soldiers--let a woman hesitate to speak of their dress and arms in any +tone but that of self-depreciating humility. Suffice it to say that in +the early work they wore the armour of the time, whether the scene +depicted were an event of history cotemporaneous, or of the time of +Moses. Fashions in dress changed with deliberation then, and it is to +the arms carried by the men that we must sometimes look for exactness +of date. + + +LETTERING + +The presence of letters is often noticed in hangings of the +Fourteenth, Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Centuries. It was a fashion +eminently satisfactory, a great assistance to the observer. It helped +tell the story, and, as these old pictures had always a story to tell, +it was entirely excusable--at least, so it seems to one who has stood +confounded before a modern painting without a catalogue or other +indication as to the why of certain agitated figures. + +The lettering was, in the older Gothic, explicit and unstinted, in +double or quadruple lines, in which case it counts as decoration +banded across top or bottom. Again, it is as trifling as a word or two +affixed to the persons of the play to designate them. This lettering +may be French or Latin. + + +EARLY BACKGROUNDS + +Backgrounds of the early Fifteenth Century deal much in +conventionalised, flat patterns, but fifty or sixty years later, when +figures began to be more crowded, there was but little space left +unoccupied by the participants in the allegory, and this was filled by +the artifices of architecture or herbage that formed the divisions +into the various scenes. Later the designing artists decided to let +into the picture the light of distant fields and skies, and thus was +introduced the suggestion of space outside the limit of the canvas. + + +LATER DRAWING + +After the Gothic drawing, came the avalanche of the Renaissance. That +altered all. The Italian taste took precedence, and from that time on +the cartoons of tapestries represent modern art, trailing through its +various fashions or modes of the hour. The purest Renaissance is +direct from the Italian artist, in tapestry as well as in painting, +but it is interesting to see the maladroitness of the Flemish hand +when left to draw cartoons for himself after the new manner. + +After the Renaissance came exaggeration and lack of sincerity; then +the improvement of the Seventeenth Century, notably in France, and +after that the dainty fancies of the Eighteenth Century, and here we +are dealing with art so modern that it needs no elucidation. The +drawing in tapestries is a subject as fascinating as it is +inexhaustible, but, however much one may read on it, nothing equals +actual association with as many tapestries as are available, for the +eye must be trained by vision and not by intellectual process alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +IDENTIFICATIONS (_Continued_) + + +If the amateur can have the fortune to see in the same hour a tapestry +of the early Fifteenth Century, and one a hundred years later, and +then one about 1550, from Brussels, drawn by an Italian artist, he has +before him an exposition of tapestry weaving in its golden age when it +sweeps through its greatest periods and phases to marvellous +perfection. The earliest example gives acquaintance with that almost +fabled time of the Gothic primitives in art; the second shows the +highest development of that art under the influence of civilisation, +and the third shows the obsession of the new art of the Renaissance. +It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that after the revival of classic +art the power of producing spontaneous Gothic was lost forever. From +that time on, every drawing has had certain characteristics, certain +sophistications that the artist cannot escape except in a deliberate +copy. + +Modern art, we call it. In tapestry it began with a freedom of drawing +in figures, and an adoption of classic ornament and architecture. In +this connexion it is interesting to note the introduction of Greek or +Roman detail in the columns that divide the scenes, to see saints +gathered by temples of classic form instead of Gothic. If Renaissance +details appear in a hanging called Gothic, it is easy to see that the +piece was woven after Europe was infected with modern art, and this is +an assistance in placing dates; at least, it checks the tendency to +slip back too far in antiquity, a tendency of which we in a new +country are entirely guilty. + +Lest too long a lingering on the subject of design become wearisome, a +mention of later designs is made briefly. The simplicity of the early +Renaissance, the perfection of the high Renaissance, are both shown in +tapestry as well as in paintings, and so, too, is exemplified the +inflation that ended in tiresome exuberance. + +After the fruit was ripe it fell into decay. After Sixteenth Century +perfection, Seventeenth Century designs fell of their own overweight, +figures were too exaggerated, draperies billowed out as in a perpetual +gale, architecture and landscapes were too important, and tapestries +became frankly pictures to attract the attention. To this class of +design belong all those monstrosities which reflected and distorted +the art of Raphael, and which have been intimately associated with +Scriptural subjects down to our own times. + +After Raphael, Rubens. Familiarity with this heroic painter is the key +to placing all the magnificent designs similar to the set of _Antony +and Cleopatra_ (Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). + +Then came the easily recognisable designs of the French ateliers of +the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. These are so frequently +brought before us as to seem almost like products of our own day. The +earlier ones seem (as ever) the purer art, the less sensual, +appealing to the more impersonal side of man, dealing in battles and +in classic subjects. Later, the drawings, becoming more directly +personal, in the time of Louis XIV portrayed events in the _Life of +the King_; in the next reign, slipping into the pleasures of the +_Royal Hunts_, from which the descent was easy into depicting nothing +higher than the soft loveliness of the fantastic life of the time as +led by those of high estate. From Lebrun to Watteau one can trace the +gradual seductive decline, where heroic ideal lowers softly in +alluring decadence into a mere tickling of the senses. And at this +time the productions of great tapestries stopped. + +Before leaving the review of drawing or design, it is well to recall +that the fleeting fashions of the day usually set the models, not in +the manner of treatment which we have been considering broadly, but in +the subject of designs. For example, the tendency to religious and +morality subjects in the Gothic, the love for Greek gods and heroes in +the Renaissance, the glorification of kings and warriors at all times, +and the portrayal of royal pleasures in modern times. The months of +the year were woven in innumerable designs and formed an endless theme +for artists' ingenuity during and after the Renaissance. + + +BORDERS + +It is but natural that, with the expansion in drawing, the freedom +given the pencil, imagination leaped outside the pictured scene and +worked fantastically on the border, and it is to the border that we +turn for many a mark of identification. The subject being a full one, +it has longer consideration in a separate chapter. First there is the +simple outlying tape, then the designed border. The early Gothic was +but a narrow line of flowers and berries; the later more sophisticated +Gothic enlarged and elaborated this same motive without introducing +another. The blossoms grew larger, the fruit fuller and the modest +cluster of berries was crowded by pears, apples and larger fruit, +until a general air of full luxury was given. The design was at first +kept neatly within bordering lines of tape, but later, overleaped them +with a flaunting leaf or mutinous flower. + +Ribbons appeared early, then came fragmentary glimpses of dainty +columns which gave nice reasons for the erect upstanding of so heavy a +decoration. These all were Gothic, but what came after shows the +riotous imagination of the Renaissance. It seemed in that fruitful +time, space itself were not large enough to hold the designs within +the artist's brain. Certainly no corner of a tapestry could be left +unfilled, and not that alone, but filled with perfect pictures instead +of with a simple repeated scheme of decoration. It was in this rich +time of production that the borders of tapestries grew to exceeding +width, and were divided into squares, each square containing a scene. +These scenes were often of sufficient importance in composition to +serve as models for the centre of a tapestry, each one of them, which +thought gives a little idea of the fertility of the artists in that +untired period. + +It was the delight of the great Raphael himself to expend his talent +on the border of his cartoons. From this artist others took their cue +with varying skill, but with fine effect, and with unlimited interest +to us. Those who run have time to remark only the great central +picture in a hanging; but, to those who live with it, this added line +of exquisite panorama is an unceasing delight for the contemplative +hours of solitude. From this rich departure from Gothic simplicity the +artists grew into the same fulness of design that ended in decadence. +The border became almost obnoxious in its inflated importance and from +voluptuous elegance changed to coarse overweight; and by these signs +we know the early inspired work from its rank and monstrous +aftergrowth in the Eighteenth Century. + +A quick glance at the plates showing the work of tapestry's next +highwater mark, the hundred years of the Gobelins' best work, +illustrates the difference between that time and others, and shows +also the gradual drop into the border which is merely a woven +representation of a gilded wood frame to enclose the woven picture as +a painted one would be framed. The plate of _Esther and Ahasuerus_ +illustrates this sort of border in the unmistakable lines of Louis XV +ornament. + + +POINT OF INTEREST + +Allusion has been made to the placing of the point of interest in a +tapestry, but this is a matter to be studied by much exercise of the +eye. Perhaps the amateur knows already much about it, an unconscious +knowledge, and needs only to be directed to his own store of +observations. As much as anything this change of design depended on +the uses the varying civilisation made of the hangings. So much +interest lies in this that I find myself ever prone to recapitulate +the very human facts of the past; the lining of rude stone walls and +the forming of interior doors, which was the office of the early +tapestries, and the loose full draping of the same; then the gradual +increase of luxury in the finish of dwellings themselves, until +tapestries were a decoration only; and then the minimising of grandeur +under Louis XV when everything fell into miniature and tapestries were +demanded only in small pieces that could be applied to screens or +chairs--a prostitution of art to the royal demand for prettiness. + +Keeping these general ideas of the uses of tapestries in mind, it is +easy to reason out the course of the point of interest in the design. +The Gothic aim was to make warm and comfortable the austere apartment; +the Renaissance sought to produce big decorative pictures to hang in +place of frescoes; and the French idea--beginning with that same +ideal--fell at last into the production of something that should +accompany the other arts in making minutely ornate the home of man. +Therefore, the Gothic artist placed the point of interest high; the +artists of the Renaissance followed the rules of modern painting (even +to the point of becoming academic); and the last good period of the +Gobelins dropped into miniature and decoration. + + +COLOURS + +Colours we have not yet considered, in this chapter of review for +identification's sake. They follow the same line, have the same +history, and this makes the beauty, the logic and the consistency of +our work, the work of tracing to their source the products of other +men and other times. + +Colours in the early Gothic--of what do they remind one so strongly as +of the marvels of old stained glass, that rich, pure kaleidoscope +which has lived so long in the atmosphere of incense ascending from +censer and from heart. The same scale, rich and simple, unafraid of +unshaded colour, characterise both glass and tapestry. + +The dyeing of colours in those days was a religion, a religion that +believed in holding fast to the forefathers' tenets. Red was known to +be a goodly colour, and blue an honest one; yellow was to conjure +with, and brown to shade; but beyond twelve or perhaps twenty colours, +the dyer never ventured. To these he gave the hours of his life, with +these he subjugated the white of Kentish wool, and gave it honest and +soft into the hand of the artist-weaver who, we must add, should have +been thankful for this brief gamut. To say the least, we of to-day are +grateful, for to this we owe the effect of cathedral glass seen in old +tapestries like that of _The Sacraments_. The Renaissance having more +sophisticated tales to tell, a higher intellectual development to +portray, demanded a longer scale of colour, so more were introduced to +paint in wool the pictures of the artists. At first we see them pure +and true, then muddy, uncertain, until a dull confusion comes, and the +hanging is depressing. When, at the last, it came that a tapestry was +but a painting in wool, with as many thousand differently united +threads as would reproduce the shading of brush-blended paint, the +whole thing fell of its own weight, and we of to-day value less the +unlimited pains of the elaborate dyer and weaver than we do the +simpler work. The reason is plain. Time fades a little even the +securest dyes, and that little is just enough to reduce to flat +monotones a work in which perhaps sixty thousand tones are set in +subtle shading. + + +HAUTE LISSE + +The worker on tapestries, the modern restorer--to whom be much +honour--finds a sign of identification in the handling of old +tapestries that is scarcely within the province of the amateur, but is +worth mentioning. It is the black tracing on the warp with which +high-warp weavers assist their work of copying the artist's cartoon. +Where this is present, the work is of the prized haute lisse or +high-warp manufacture, instead of the basse lisse or low-warp. But the +latter is not to be spoken of disparagingly, for in the admirable time +of French production about the time of the formation of the Gobelins, +low-warp work was almost as well executed as high-warp, and as much +valued. Brussels made her fame by haute-lisse, but in France the +low-warp was dubbed "_a la facon de Flandres_"; and as Flanders stood +for perfection, the weavers did their best to make the low-warp +production approach in excellence the famed work of the ateliers to +the north, which had formerly so prospered. + +To find this black line is to establish the fact that the tapestry was +woven on a high-warp loom, if nothing more. But that in itself means, +as is explained in the chapter on looms and _modus operandi_, that a +superior sort of weaver, an artist-artisan, did the work, and that he +had enormous difficulties to overcome in his patient task. + +A black outline woven in the fabric is one which artists prior to the +Seventeenth Century used to give greater strength to figures. It was +the habit thus to trace the entire human form, to lift it clearly from +its background, after the "poster" manner of to-day. It is as though a +dark pencil had outlined each figure. This practice stopped in later +years, and is not seen at all in the softer methods of the Gobelins. + + +THE WEAVE + +The materials of tapestries we know to be invariably wool, silk and +metal threads, yet the weaving of these varies with the talent of the +craftsman. The manner of the oldest weavers was to produce a fabric +not too thick, flexible rather--for was it not meant to hang in +folds?--and of an engagingly even surface. It was not too fine, yet +had none of the looseness associated with the coarse, hurried work of +later and degenerate times. It was more like the even fabric we +associate with machine work, yet as unlike that as palpitating flesh +is like a graven image. It was the logical production of honest +workmen who counted time well spent if spent in taking pains. + +This ability, to take detail as a religion, has left us the precious +relics of the exquisite period immediately before the Italian artists +had their way in Brussels. Notice the weave here. See the pattern of +the fabrics worn by the personages of high estate. You could almost +pluck it from the tapestry, shake out its folds, measure it flat, by +the yard, and find its delicate, intelligent pattern neat and +unbroken. Wonderful weaver, magic hands, infinite pains, were those to +produce such an effect on our sated modern vision, all with a few +threads of silk and wool and gold. + +Then there is the human face--it takes an artist to describe the +various faces with their beauty of modelling, their infinite variety +of type, their subtlety of expression. You can almost see the flushing +of the capillaries under the translucent skin, so fine are the mediums +of silk and wool under the magic handling of the talented weavers in +brilliant epochs. Not a detail in one of these older canvases of the +highest Gothic development has been neglected. + +The modern places his point of interest, and, knowing the observer's +eye is to obediently linger there, he splashes the rest of his drawing +into careless subserviency. But these careful older drawings showed in +every inch of their execution a conscience that might put the Puritan +to shame. Note, even, the ring that is being handed to the lady in the +Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan's (if yours is the happy chance to see +it). It was not sufficient for the weaver that it be a ring, but it +must be a ring set with a jewel, and that jewel must be the one +celebrated ever for its value; so in the canvas glows a carefully +rounded spot of pigeon-blood. + +This exquisitely fine weaving of the period which trembled between the +Gothic and the Renaissance made possible the execution of the later +work--and yet, and yet, who shall say that the later is the superior +work? Vaunted as it is, one turns to it because one must, but with +entire fidelity of heart for the preceding manner. + +In the high period of Brussels production, when the Renaissance was +well established there, through the cartoons of the Italian artists, +it is interesting to note the richness given to surfaces solidly +filled in with gold by throwing the thread in groups of four. The +light is thus caught and reflected, almost as though from a heap of +cut topaz. This characterises the tapestries of the _Mercury_ series +in the Blumenthal collection. + +Naturally, the evenness of the weaving has much to do with the value +of the piece--otherwise the pains of the old weavers would have been +futile. The surface smooth, free from lumps or ridges, strong with the +even strength of well-matched threads, this is the beauty that +characterises the best work this side of the Fifteenth Century. + +It is the especial prerogative of the merchant to touch with his own +hands a great number of tapestries. It is by this handling of the +fabric that he acquires a skill in determining the make of many a +tapestry. There is an indefinable quality about certain wools, and +about the manner of their weaving that is only revealed by the touch. +Not all hands are wise to detect, but only those of the sympathetic +lover of the materials they handle--and I have found many such among +the merchant collector. But even he finds identification a task as +difficult as it is interesting, and spends hours of thought and +research before arriving at a conclusion--and even then will retract +on new evidence. + + +COPIES + +There are certain pitfalls into which one may so easily fall that they +must never be out of mind. The worst of these, the pit which has the +most engaging and innocent entrance, is that of the copy, the modern +tapestry copied from the old a few decades ago. + +It is easy to find by reference to the huge volumes of French writers +on tapestry just when certain sets of cartoons were first woven. Take, +for example, the _Acts of the Apostles_ by Raphael; Brussels, 1519, is +the authentic date. But after that the Mortlake factory in England +wove a set, and others followed. This instance is too historic to be +entirely typical, but there are others less known. It was the habit of +factories that possessed a valuable set of cartoons to repeat the +production of these in their own factory, and also to make some +arrangement whereby other factories could also produce the same set of +hangings. + +In the evil days that fell upon Brussels after her apogee, copying her +own works took the place of new matters. Also, in the French factories +in their prime, the same set was repeated on the same looms and on +different ones, _vide_ _The Months_, _The Royal Residences_, _History of +Alexander_, etc., and the gorgeous _Life of Marie de Medici_. If these +notable examples were copied it is safe to conclude that many others +were. + +The study of marks is left for another chapter, for, by this time, +even the enthusiast is wearying. There seems so much to learn in this +matter of investigating and identifying, and, after all, everything is +uncertain. One looks about at identified pieces in museums and private +collections, even among the dealers, and the discouraging thought +comes that other people can tell at a glance. But this is very far +from being true. + +Even the savant studies long and investigates much before he gives a +positive classification of a piece that is not "pedigreed." Here is a +Flemish piece, here is a French, he will declare, and for the life of +you you cannot see the ear-marks that tell the ancestry. And so in all +humility you ask, "How can you tell with a glance of the eye?" But he +does not. No one can do that in every case. He must spend days at it, +reflecting, reading, handling, if the piece is evidently one of value. +He will show you, perhaps, as an honest dealer-collector showed me, a +set of five fine pieces which he could not identify at all. "The +weave," said he, "is Mortlake, the design in part German, these are +Italian _putti_--yet when all is told, I put down the work as an +Eighteenth Century copy of decadent Renaissance. But I am far from +sure." + +If a dealer, surrounded by experienced helpers, can thus be +nonplussed, there is little cause for humiliation on the part of the +amateur who hesitates. It is not expected that one can know at a +glance whether a piece of work was executed in France, or in Flanders +at a given epoch. But the more difficult the work of identification, +the keener the zest of the hunt. It is then that one calls into +requisition all the knowledge of art that the individual has been +unconsciously accumulating all the years of his life. The applied +arts reflect the art feeling of the age to which they belong, and the +diluted influence of the great artists directs them. This is true of +drawing and of colour. + +History has ever its reflection on arts and crafts, but perhaps it has +in tapestry its most intentional record. It is a forced and deliberate +piece of egoism when a monarch or a conqueror has a huge picture drawn +exhibiting his grandeur in battle or his elegance at home. In some +hangings modesty limits to the border of an imaginary and decorative +scene the monogram of the heroine of history for whose apartments the +tapestry was woven. And so history is given a grace, a delicate +meaning, a warm interest, which is one of the side-gardens of delight +that show from the long path of identification study. + +This little book has as its aim the gentle purpose of pointing the way +to a knowledge that shall be a guide in knowing gold from--not from +dross, that is too simple, but gold from gold-plating let us say, for +the mad lover of tapestries will not admit that any hand-woven +tapestry is on the low level of dross. Any work which human hands have +touched and lingered on in execution is deserving of the respect of +the modern whose life must of necessity be lived in hasty execution. +Every chapter, then, is but a caution or a counsel, and this one but a +briefer statement of the same matter. If onto the fringe of the main +thought hangs much of history, it is history inseparable from it, for +history of nations gives the history of great men, and these regulate +the doings of all the lesser ones below them. + +Identification, pure and simple, is for the rapt lover of art who +pursues his game in museums and has his quiet delights that others +little dream of. But in general, to the practical yet cultivated +American, it is a means to expend wisely the derided dollars that we +impress upon other nations to the artistic enrichment of our own +country. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +BORDERS + + +If the artists of tapestries had never drawn nor ever woven anything +but the borders that frame them, we would have in that department +alone sufficient matter for happy investigation and acutely refined +pleasure. I even go so far as to think that in certain epochs the +border is the whole matter, and the main design is but an enlargement +of one of the many motives of which it is composed. But that is in one +particularly rich era, and in good time we shall arrive at its joys. + +First then--for the orderly mind grows stubborn and confused at any +beginning that begins in the middle--we must hark back to the earliest +tapestries. Tracing the growth of the border is a pleasant pastime, a +game of history in which amorini, grotesques and nymphs are the +personages, and garlands of flowers their perpetual accessories, but +first comes the time when there were no borders, the Middle Ages. + +There were none, according to modern parlance, but it was usual to +edge each hanging with a tape of monotone, a woven galloon of quiet +hue, which had two purposes; one, to finish neatly the work, as the +housewife hems a napkin; the other, to provide space of simple +material for hanging on rude hooks the big pictured surface. + +This latter consideration was one of no small importance, as we can +readily see by sending the thought back to the time when tapestries +led a very different life (so human they seem in their association +with men that the expression must be allowed) from that of to-day, +when they are secured to stretchers, or lined, or even framed behind +glass like an easel painting. + +In those other times of romance and chivalry a great man's tapestries +were always en route. Like their owner, they were continually going on +long marches, nor were they allowed to rest long in one place. From +the familiar castle walls they were taken down to line the next +habitat of their owner, and that might be the castle of some other +lord, or it might be the tent of an encampment. Again, it might be +that an open-air exposition for a pageant, was the temporary use. + +The tapestries thus bundled about, forever hung and unhung on hooks +well or ill-spaced, handled roughly by unknowing varlets or dull +soldiers, these tapestries suffered much, even to the point of +dilapidation, and thus arose the need for a tape border, and thus it +happens also that the relics of that time are found mainly among the +religious pieces. These last found safe asylum within convent walls or +in the sombre quiet of cathedral shades, and like all who dwell within +such precincts were protected from contact with a rude world. + +One day, sitting solitary at his wools, it occurred to the weaver of +the early Fifteenth Century to spill some of his flowers out upon the +dark galloon that edged his work. The effect was charming. He +experimented further, went into the enchanted wood of such a design as +that of _The Lady and the Unicorn_ to pluck more flowers, and of them +wove a solid garland, symmetrical, strong, with which to frame the +picture. To keep from confounding this with the airy bells and starry +corollas of the tender inspiring blossoms of the work, he made them +bolder, trained them to their service in solid symmetric mass, and +edged the whole, both sides, with the accustomed two-inch line of +solid rich maroon or blue. + +It is easy to see the process of mind. For a long time there had been +gropings, the feeling that some sort of border was needed, a division +line between the world of reality and the world of fable. Examine the +Arras work and see to what tricks the artist had recourse. The +architectural resource of columns, for example; where he could do so, +the artist decoyed one to the margin. Thus he slipped in a frame, and +broke none of the canons of his art, and no more beautiful frame could +have been devised, as we see by following up the development and use +of the column. Once out from its position in the edge of the picture +into its post in the border, it never stops in its beauty of growth +until it reaches such perfection as is seen in the twisted and +garlanded columns which flank the Rubens series, and those superb +shafts in _The Royal Residences_ of Lebrun at the Gobelins under Louis +XIV. + +The other trick of framing in his subject which was open to the Arras +weaver whom we call Gothic, was to set verses, long lines of print in +French or Latin at top or bottom. + +But his first real legitimate border was made of the same flowers and +leaves that made graceful the finials and capitals of Gothic carving. +Small clustered fruit, like grapes or berries, came naturally mixed +with these, as Nature herself gives both fruit and flowers upon the +earth in one fair month. + +Simplicity was the thing, and a continued turning to Nature, not as to +a cult like a latter-day nature-student, but as a child to its mother, +or a hart to the water brook. As even in a border, stayed between two +lines of solid-coloured galloon, flowers and fruit do not stand +forever upright without help, the weaver gave probability to his +abundant mass by tying it here and there with a knot of ribbon and +letting the ribbon flaunt itself as ribbons have ever done to the +delight of the eye that loves a truant. + +By this time--crawling over the top of the Fourteen Hundreds--the +border had grown wider, had left its meagre allowance of three or four +inches, and was fast acquiring a foot in width. This meant more +detail, a broader design, coarser flowers, bigger fruit, and these +spraying over the galloon, and all but invading the picture. It was +all in the way of development. The simplicity of former times was +lost, but design was groping for the great change, the change of the +Renaissance. + +The border tells quickly when it dawned, and when its light put out +all candles like a glorious sun--not forgetting that some of those +candles would better have been left burning. By this time Brussels was +the centre of manufacture and the cartoonist had come to influence all +weavings. Just as carpenters and masons, who were the planners and +builders of our forefathers' homes, have now to submit to the +domination of the _Ecole des Beaux Arts_ graduates, so the man at the +loom came under the direction of Italian artists. And even the border +was not left to the mind of the weaver, but was carefully and +consistently planned by the artist to accompany his greater work, if +greater it was. + +Raphael himself set that fashion. He was a born decorator, and in +laying out the borders of his tapestries unbridled his wonderful +invention and let it produce as many harmonies as could be crowded +into miniature. He set the fashion of dividing the border into as many +sections as symmetry would allow, dividing them so daintily that the +eye scarce notes the division, so purely is it of the intellect. In +the border for the _Acts of the Apostles_, this style of treatment is +the one he preferred. This set has no copy in America, but an almost +unrivalled example of this style of border is in the private +collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., the _Herse and Mercury_.[16] +Here picture follows picture in charming succession, in that purity +and perfection of design with which the early Renaissance delights us. +The classic note set by the subject of the hanging is never forgotten, +but on this key is played a varied harmony of line and colour. For +dainty invention, this sort of border reaches a very high expression +of art. + +If Raphael set the fashion, others at least were not slow in seizing +the new idea and from that time on, until a period much later--that of +the Gobelins under Louis XV--it was the fashion to introduce great and +distracting interest into the border. Even the little galloon became a +twist of two ribbons around a repeated flower, or a small reciprocal +pattern, so covetous was design of all plain spaces. + +Lesser artists than Raphael also divided the border into squares and +oblongs, and with charming effect. The sides were built up after the +same fashion, but instead of the delicate architectural divisions he +affected, partitions were made with massed fruit and flowers, vines +and trellises. The scenes were surprisingly dramatic, Flemish artists +showing a preference for such Biblical reminders as Samson with his +head being shorn in Delilah's lap, while Philistines just beyond +waited the enervating result of the barber's work; or, any of the +loves and conflicts of the Greek myths was used. + +The colouring--too much cannot be seen of the warm, delicate +blendings. There is always the look of a flowerbed at dawn, before +Chanticleer's second call has brought the sun to sharpen outlines, +before dreams and night-mist have altogether quitted the place. Plenty +of warm wood colours are there, of lake blues, of smothered reds. +Precious they are to the eye, these scenes, but hard to find now +except in bits which some dealer has preserved by framing in a screen +or in the carved enclosure of some nut-wood chair. + +For a time borders continued thus, all marked off without conscious +effort, into countless delicious scenes. Then a change begins. After +perfection, must come something less until the wave rises again. If in +Raphael's time the border claimed a two-foot strip for its imaginings, +it was slow in coming narrower again, and need required that it be +filled. But here is where the variance lay: Raphael had so much to +say that he begged space in which to portray it; his imitators had so +much space to fill that their heavy imagination bungled clumsily in +the effort. They filled it, then, with a heterogeneous mass of +foliage, fruit and flowers, trained occasionally to make a bower for a +woman, a stand for a warrior, but all out of scale, never keeping to +any standard, and lost absolutely in unintelligent confusion. + +The Flemings in their decadence did this, and the Italians in the +Seventeenth Century did more, they introduced all manner of cartouche. +The cartouche plays an important part in the boasting of great +families and the sycophancy of those who cater to men of high estate, +for it served as a field whereon to blazon the arms of the patron, who +doubtless felt as man has from all time, that he must indeed be great +whose symbols or initials are permanently affixed to art or +architecture. The cartouche came to divide the border into medallions, +to apportion space for the various motives; but with a far less subtle +art than that of the older men who traced their airy arbours and +trailed their dainty vines and set their delicate grotesques, in a +manner half playful and wholly charming. + +But when the cartouche appeared, what is the effect? It is as though a +boxful of old brooches had been at hand and these were set, +symmetrically balanced, around the frame, and the spaces between +filled with miscellaneous ornament on a scale of sumptuous size. +Confusing, this, and a far cry from harmony. Yet, such are the +seductions of tapestry in colour and texture, and so caressing is the +hand of time, that these borders of the Seventeenth Century given us +by Italy and Flanders, are full of interest and beauty. + +The very bombast of them gives joy. Who can stand before the Barberini +set, _The Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ_, bequeathed +to the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, in New York, by Mrs. Clarke, +without being more than pleased to recognise in the border the +indefatigable Barberini bee? We are human enough to glance at the +pictures of sacred scenes as on a tale that is told, but that potent +insect makes us at once acquainted with a family of renown, puts us on +a friendly footing with a great cardinal of the house, reminds us of +sundry wanderings of our own in Rome; and then, suddenly flashes from +its wings a memory of the great conqueror of Europe, who after the +Italian campaign, set this bee among his own personal symbols and +called it Napoleonic. Yes, these things interest us enormously, +personally, for they pique imagination and help memory to fit together +neatly the wandering bits of history's jigsaw puzzle. Besides this, +they help the work of identifying old tapestries, a pleasure so keen +that every sense is enlivened thereby. + +When decorative design deserts the Greek example, it strays on +dangerous ground, unless Nature is the model. The Italians of the +Seventeenth Century, tired of forever imitating and copying, lost all +their refinement in the effort to originate. Grossness, sensuality +took the place of fine purity in border designs. Inflation, so to +speak, replaced inspiration. + +Amorini--the word can hardly be used without suggesting the gay babes +who tumble deliciously among Correggio's clouds or who snatch flowers +in ways of grace, on every sort of decoration. In these later +drawings, these tapestry borders of say 1650, they are monsters of +distortion, and resemble not at all the rosy child we know in the +flesh. They are overfed, self-indulgent, steeped in the wisdom of a +corrupt and licentious experience. I cannot feel that anyone should +like them, except as curiosities of a past century. + +Heavy swags of fruit, searching for larger things, changed to +pumpkins, melons, in the gross fashion of enlarged designs for +borders. Almost they fell of their own weight. Cornucopias spilled +out, each one, the harvest of an acre. And thus paucity of imagination +was replaced by increase in the size of each object used in filling up +the border's allotted space. + +After this riot had continued long enough in its inebriety, the +corrective came through the influence of Rubens in the North and of +Lebrun in France. These two geniuses knew how to gather into their +control the art strength of their age, and to train it into +intellectual results. Mere bulk, mere space-filling, had to give way +under the mind force of these two men, who by their superb invention +gave new standards to decorative art in Flanders and in France. +Drawings were made in scale again, and designs were built in harmony, +constructed not merely to catch the eye, but to gratify the logical +mind. + +The day was for the grandiose in borders. The petite and _mignonne_ of +Raphael's grotesques was no longer suited to the people, or, to put +it otherwise, the people were not such as seek expression in +refinement, for all art is but the visible evidence of a state of mind +or soul. + +The wish to be sumptuous and superb, then, was a force, and so the art +expressed it, but in a way that holds our admiration. A stroll in the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows us better than words the +perfection of design at this grandiose era. There one sees _Antony and +Cleopatra_ of Rubens--probably. On these hangings the border has all +the evidences of genius. If there were no picture at all to enclose, +if there were but this decorative frame, a superb inspiration would be +flaunted. From substantial urns at right and left, springs the design +at the sides which mounts higher and higher, design on design, but +always with probability. That is the secret of its beauty, its +probability, yet we are cheated all the time and like it. No vase of +fruit could ever uphold a cupid's frolic, nor could an emblematic bird +support a chalice, yet the artist makes it seem so. Note how he hangs +his swags, and swings his amorini, from the horizontal borders. He +first sets a good strong architectural moulding of classic +egg-and-dart, and leaf, and into this able motive thrusts hooks and +rings. From these solid facts he hangs his happy weight of fruit and +flower and peachy flesh. Nothing could be more simple, nothing could +be more logical. The cartouche at the top, he had no choice but to put +it there, to hold the title of the picture, and at the bottom came a +tiny landscape to balance. So much for fashion well executed. + +Colours were reformed, too, at this time, for we are now at the era +when tapestry had its last run of best days, that is to say, at the +time when France began her wondrous ascendency under Louis XIV. In +Italy colours had grown garish. Too much light in that country of the +sun, flooded and over-coloured its pictured scenes. Tints were too +strong, masses of blue and yellow and red glared all in tones purely +bright. They may have suited the twilight of the church, the gloom of +a palace closed in narrow streets, but they scourge the modern eye as +does a blasting light. The Gothic days gave borders the deep soft +tones of serious mood; the Renaissance played on a daintier scale; the +Seventeenth Century rushed into too frank a palette. + +It remained for Rubens and Lebrun to find a scheme both rich and +subdued, to bring back the taste errant. Here let me note a +peculiarity of colour, noticeable in work of Seventeenth and +Eighteenth Century borders. The colour tone varies in different pieces +of the same set, and this is not the result of fading, but was done by +deliberate intent, one side border being light and another dark, or +one entire border being lighter than others of the same set. + +Lest in speaking of borders, too much reference might be made to the +history of tapestry in general, I have left out Simon Vouet and Henri +Lerambert as inspired composers of the frame which enclosed their +cartoons; but it is well to say briefly that these men at least had +not followed false gods, and were not guilty of the flagrant offence +to taste that put a smirch on Italian art. These are the men who +preceded the establishment of State ateliers under Louis XIV and who +made productive the reign of Henri IV. + +If Rubens kept to a style of large detail, that was a popular one and +had many followers in a grandiose age. Lebrun in borders harked back +to the classics of Greece and Rome, thus restoring the exquisite +quality of delicacy associated with a thousand designs of amphorae, +foliated scrolls and light grotesques. But he expressed himself more +individually and daringly in the series called _The Months_ and _The +Royal Residences_. This set is so celebrated, so delectable, so +grateful to the eye of the tapestry lover, that familiarity with it +must be assumed. You recollect it, once you have seen no more than a +photograph of one of its squares. But it cannot be pertinent here, for +it has no important border, say you. No, rather it is all border. Look +what the cunning artist has done. His problem was to picture twelve +country houses. To his mind it must have seemed like converting a room +into an architect's office, to hang it full of buildings. But genius +came to the front, his wonderful feeling for decoration, and lo, he +filled his canvas with glorious foreground, full of things man lives +with; columns, the size appropriate to the salon they are placed in; +urns, peacocks, all the ante-terrace frippery of the grand age, +arranged in the foreground. Garlands are fresh hung on the columns as +though our decorator had but just posed them, and beyond are clustered +trees--with a small opening for a vista. Way off in the light-bathed +distance stands the faithfully drawn chateau, but here, here where the +observer stands, is all elegance and grace and welcome shade, and +close friendship with luxury. + +This work of Lebrun's is then the epitome of border. Greater than this +hath no man done, to make a tapestry all border which yet so +intensified the value of the small central design, that not even the +royal patron, jealous of his own conspicuousness, discovered that art +had replaced display. + +After that a great change came. As the picture ever regulates the +border, that change was but logical. After the "Sun King" came the +regency of the effeminate Philippe, whom the Queen Mother had kept +more like a court page than a man. Artists lapped over from the +previous reign, and these were encouraged to develop the smaller, +daintier, more effeminate designs that had already begun to assert +their charm. Borders took on the new method. And as small space was +needed for the curves and shells and latticed bands, the border +narrower grew. + +Like Alice, after the potent dose, the border shrank and shrank, until +in time it became a gold frame, like the _encadrement_ of any easel +picture. And that, too, was logical, for tapestries became at this +time like painted pictures, and lost their original significance of +undulating hangings. + +The well-known motives of the Louis XV decoration rippled around the +edge of the tapestry, woven in shades of yellow silk and imitated well +the carved and gilded wood of other frames, those of chairs and +screens and paintings. There are those who deplore the mode, but at +least it seems appropriate to the style of picture it encloses. + +And here let us consider a moment this matter of appropriateness. So +far we have thought only of tapestries and their borders as +inseparable, and as composed at the same time. But, alas, this is the +ideal; the fact is that in the habit which weavers had of repeating +their sets when a model proved a favourite among patrons, led them +into providing variety by setting up a different border around the +drawing. As this reproducing, this copying of old cartoons was +sometimes done one or two hundred years after the original was drawn, +we find an anachronism most disagreeable to one who has an orderly +mind, who hates to see a telephone in a Venus' shell, for instance. +The whole thing is thrown out of key. It is as though your old family +portrait of the Colonial Governor was framed in "art nouveau." + +The big men, the almost divine Raphael, and later Rubens, felt so +keenly the necessity of harmony between picture and frame, that they +were not above drawing their own borders, and it is evident they +delighted in the work. But Raphael's cartoons went not only to +Brussels, but elsewhere, and somehow the borders got left behind; and +thus we see his celebrated suite of _Acts of the Apostles_ with a +different entourage in the Madrid set from what it bears in Rome. + +There is another matter, and this has to do with commerce more than +art. An old tapestry is of such value that mere association with it +adds to the market price of newer work. So it is that sometimes a +whole border is cut off and transferred to an inferior tapestry, and +the tapestry thus denuded is surrounded with a border woven nowadays +in some atelier of repairs, copied from an old design. + +Let such desecrators beware. The border of a tapestry must appertain, +must be an integral part of the whole design for the sake of artistic +harmony. + + +FOOTNOTE: + +[16] Frontispiece. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TAPESTRY MARKS + + +Regardless of what a man's longing for fame may have been in the +Middle Ages, he let his works pass into the world without a sign upon +them that portrayed their author. This is as true of the lesser arts +as of the greater. It was not the fashion in the days of Giotto, nor +of Raphael, to sign a painting in vermillion with a flourished +underscore. The artist was content to sink individuality in the +general good, to work for art's sake, not for personal fame. + +This was true of the lesser artists who wove or directed the weaving +of the tapestries called Gothic, not only through the time of the +simple earnest primitives, but through the brilliant high development +of that style as shown at the studio of Jean de Rome, of the Brussels +ateliers, through the years lying between the close of the Fifteenth +Century and the Raphael invasion. + +Even that important event brought no consequence of that sort. The +freemasonry among celebrities in those days showed its perfection by +this very lack of signed work. Everybody knew the man by his works, +and the works by their excellence. + +Tapestry marks were non-existent as a system until the Brussels edict +of 1528 made them compulsory in that town. Documents and history have +been less unkind to those early workers, and to those of us who like +to feel the thrill of human brotherhood as it connects the artist and +craftsman centuries dead with our own strife for the ideal. Nicolas +Bataille in 1379 cannot remain unknown since the publishing of certain +documents concerning his Christmas task of the _Apocalypse_, and there +are scores of known master weavers reaching up through the ages to the +time when marks began. + +The Brussels mark was the first. It was a simple and appropriate +composition, a shield flanked with two letters B. These were capitals +or not. One was reversed or not, with little arbitrariness, for the +mark was legible and unmistakable in any case, even though the weaver +took great liberties--as he sometimes did. The place for this mark was +the galloon, and it was usually executed in a lighter colour, but a +single tone. + + [Illustration: BRUSSELS] + +So much for the town mark, which has a score or more of variations. In +addition to this was the mark of the weaver or of the merchant who +gave the commission. A pity it was thus to confound the two, to give +such confusion between a gifted craftsman and a mere dealer. One was +giving the years of his life and the cunning of his hand to the work, +while the other did but please a rich or royal patron with his wares. +But so it was, and we can but study over the symbols and glean at +least that the tapestry was considered a worthy one, reached the high +standard of the day, or it would have had no mark at all. + +For it was thus that the marks were first adopted. They were for the +protection of every one against fraud. High perfection made Brussels +famous, but fame brought with it such a rush of patronage that only by +lessening the quality of productions could orders be filled in such +hot haste. + +Tricks of the trade grew and prospered; there were tricks of dyeing +after a tapestry was finished, in case the flesh tints or other light +shades were not pleasing. There was a trick of dividing a large square +into strips so that several looms might work upon it at once. And +there was all manner of slighting in the weave, in the use of the comb +which makes close the fabric, in the setting of the warp to make a +less than usual number of threads to the inch. In fact, men tricked +men as much in those days as in our own. + +The fame of the city's industry was in danger. It was the province of +the guild of tapestry-makers to protect it against its own evils. +Thus, in 1528, a few years after the weaving of the Raphael +tapestries, the law was made that all tapestries should bear the +Brussels mark and that of the weaver or the client. Small tapestries +were exempt, but at that time small tapestries were not frequent, or +were simple verdures, and, charming as they are, they lacked the same +intellectual effort of composition. + +The Brussels guild stipulated the size at which the tapestry should be +marked. It was given at six ells, a Flemish ell being about 271/2 +inches. Therefore, a tapestry under approximately thirteen feet might +escape the order. But that was the day of large tapestries, the day +of the Italian cartoonists, and important pieces reached that measure. + +The guild of the tapissiers in Brussels, once started on restrictions, +drew article after article, until it seemed that manacles were put on +the masters' hands. To these restrictions the decadence of Brussels is +ascribed, but that were like laying a criminal's fault to the laws of +the country. Primarily must have been the desire to shirk, the intent +to do questionable work. And behind that must have been a basic cause. +Possibly it was one of those which we are apt to consider modern, that +is, the desire to turn effort into the coin of the realm. All of the +enormous quantity of orders received by Brussels in the days of her +highest prosperity could not have been accepted had not the master of +the ateliers pressed his underlings to highest speed. + +Speed meant deterioration in quality of work, and so Brussels tried by +laws to prevent this lamentable result, and to protect the fair fame +of the symbol woven in the bordering galloon. The other sign which +accompanied the town mark, of the two letters B, should have had +excellent results, the personal mark of the weaver that his work might +be known. + +In spite of this spur to personal pride, the standard lessened in a +few years, but not until certain weavers had won a fame that thrills +even at this distance. Unfortunately, a great client was considered as +important as a weaver, and it was often his arbitrary sign that was +woven. And sometimes a dealer, wishing glory through his dealings, +ordered his sign in the galloon. And thus comes a long array of signs +which are not identifiable always. In general, one or two initials +were introduced into these symbols, which were fanciful designs that +any idle pencil might draw, but in the lapse of years it is not +possible to know which able weaver or what great purveyor to royalty +the letter A or B or C may have signified. + +Happily the light of Wilhelm de Pannemaker could not be hid even by +piling centuries upon it. His works were of such a nature that, like +those of Van Aelst, who had no mark, they would always be known for +their historic association. In illustration, there is his set of the +_Conquest of Tunis_ (plate facing page 62), woven under circumstances +of interest. Even without a mark, it would still be known that the +master weaver of Brussels (whom all acknowledged Pannemaker to be) set +up his looms, so many that it must have seemed to the folk of Granada +that a new industry had come to live among them. And it is a matter of +Spanish history that the great Emperor Charles V carried in his train +the court artist, Van Orley, that his exploits be pictured for the +gratification of himself and posterity. + +But Wilhelm de Pannemaker lived and worked in the time of marks, so +his tapestries bear his sign in addition to the Brussels mark. Of +symbols he had as many as nine or ten, but all of the same general +character, taking as their main motive the W and the P of his name. + + [Illustration: WILHELM DE PANNEMAKER] + +Incorporated into his sign, as into many others of the period, was a +mark resembling a figure 4. Tradition has it that when this four was +reversed, the tapestry was not for a private client, but for a dealer. +One set of the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ at Madrid (plates facing pages +72, 73, 74, 75) bears De Pannemaker's mark, while others have a +conglomerate pencilling. + +The sign of Jacques Geubels is, like W. de Pannemaker's, made up of +his initials combined with fantastic lines which doubtless were full +of meaning to their inventor, little as they convey to us. The example +of Jacques Geubels' weaving given in the plate is from the Chicago +Institute of Art. His time was late Sixteenth Century. + +The _Acts of the Apostles_ of Raphael, the first set, was woven by +Peter van Aelst without a mark, but the set at Madrid bears the marks +of several Brussels weavers, some attributed to Nicolas Leyniers. + +The desirability of distinguishing tapestries by marks in the galloon +appealed to other weaving centres, and the method of Brussels found +favour outside that town. Presently Bruges adopted a sign similar to +that of her neighbour, by adding to the double B and shield a small b +traversed by a crown. + + [Illustration: JACQUES GEUBELS] + + [Illustration: NICOLAS LEYNIERS] + + [Illustration: BRUGES] + +In Oudenarde, that town of wonderful verdures, the weavers, as though +by trick of modesty, often avoided such clues to identity as a woven +letter might be, and adopted signs. However significant and famous +they may have been in the Sixteenth Century, they mean little now. The +town mark with which these were combined was distinctly a striped +shield with decoration like antennae. + + [Illustration: OUDENARDE] + +Enghien is one of the tapestry towns of which we are gradually +becoming aware. Its products have not always been recognised, but of +late more interest is taken in this tributary to the great stream of +the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. + +The famous Peter or Pierre van Aelst, selected from all of Flanders' +able craftsmen to work for Raphael and the Pope, was born in this +little town, wove here and, more yet, was known as Pierre of Enghien. +Yet it is the larger town of Brussels which wore his laurels. + + [Illustration: ENGHIEN] + +The Enghien town marks are an easy adaptation of the arms of the +place, and the weavers' marks are generally monograms. + +Weavers' marks, after playing about the eccentricities of cipher, +changed in the Seventeenth Century to easily read initials, sometimes +interlaced, sometimes apart. Later on it became the mode to weave the +entire name. An example of these is the two letters C of Charles de +Comans on the galloon of _Meleager and Atalanta_ (plate facing page +68); and the name G. V. D. Strecken in the _Antony and Cleopatra_ +(plate facing page 79). + +Other countries than Flanders were wise in their generation, and +placed the marks that are so welcome to the eye of the modern who +seeks to know all the secrets of the tapestry before him. In the +Seventeenth Century, when Paris was gathering her scattered decorative +force for later demonstration at the Gobelins, the city had a pretty +mark for its own, a simple fleur-de-lis and the initial P, and the +initials of the weaver. + + [Illustration: PARIS] + + [Illustration: ALEX. DE COMANS] + + [Illustration: CHARLES DE COMANS] + +That Jean Lefevre, who with his father Pierre was imported into Italy +to set the mode of able weaving for the Florentines, had a sign +unmistakable on the Gobelins tapestries of the _History of the King_. +(Plate facing page 114.) It was a simple monogram or union of his +initials. In the Eighteenth Century the Gobelins took the fleur-de-lis +of Paris, and its own initial letter G. The modern Gobelins' marks +combined the G with an implement of the craft, a _broche_ and a +straying thread. + + [Illustration: JEAN LEFEVRE] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS, 18TH CENTURY] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS, MODERN] + +In Italy, in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, we find the able +Flemings, Nicholas Karcher and John Rost, using their personal marks +after the manner of their country. Karcher thus signed his +marvellously executed grotesques of Bacchiacca which hang in the +gallery of tapestries in Florence. (Plates facing pages 48 and 49.) +John Rost's fancy led him to pun upon his name by illustrating a fowl +roasting on the spit. Karcher had a little different mark in the +Ferrara looms, where he went at the call of the d'Este Duke. + + [Illustration: KARCHER, FLORENCE] + + [Illustration: JOHN ROST] + + [Illustration: KARCHER, FERRARA] + +The Florence factory made a mark of its own, refreshingly simple, +avoiding all of the cabalistic intricacies that are so often made +meaningless by the passing of the years, and which were affected by +the early Brussels weavers. The mark found on Florence tapestries is +the famous Florentine lily, and the initial of the town. The mark of +Pierre Lefevre, when weaving here, was a combination of letters. + + [Illustration: PIERRE LEFEVRE, FLORENCE] + + [Illustration: MORTLAKE] + +When the Mortlake factory was established in England, the date was +sufficiently late, 1619, for marking to be considered a necessity. The +factory mark was a simple shield quartered by means of a cross thrown +thereon. Sir Francis Crane contented himself with a simple F. C., one +a-top the other, as his identification. Philip de Maecht, he whose +family went from Holland to England as tapissiers, directed at +Mortlake the weaving of a part of the celebrated _Vulcan_ and _Venus_ +series, and his monogram can be seen on _The Expulsion of Vulcan from +Olympus_ (coloured plate facing page 170), owned by Mrs. A. von +Zedlitz, as well as in the other rare _Vulcan_ pieces owned by Philip +Hiss, Esq. This same Philip de Maecht worked under De Comans in Paris, +he having been decoyed thence by the wise organisers of Mortlake. + + [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS CRANE] + + [Illustration: PHILIP DE MAECHT] + +The marks on tapestries are as numerous as the marks on china or +silver, and the absence of marks confronts the hunter of signs with +baffling blankness, as is the case of many very old wares, whether +china, silver or tapestries. Also, late work of poor quality is +unmarked. Having thus disposed of the situation, it remains to +identify the marks when they exist. The exhaustive works of the French +writers must be consulted for this pleasure. There are hundreds of +known signs, but there exist also many unidentified signs, yet the +presence of a sign of any kind is a keen joy to the owner of a hanging +which displays it. + + [Illustration: TOURNAY] + + [Illustration: LILLE] + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HOW IT IS MADE + + +Wanting to see the wheels go 'round is a desire not limited to babes. +We, with our minds stocked with the history and romance of tapestry, +yet want to know just how it is made in every particular, just how the +loom works, how the threads are placed. + +It seems that there must be some obscure and occult secret hidden +within the looms that work such magic, and we want to pluck it out, +lay it in the sunlight and dissect its intricacies. Well, then, let us +enter a tapestry factory and see what is there. But it is safe to +forecast the final deduction--which must ever be that the god of +patience is here omnipotent. Talent there must be, but even that is +without avail if patience lacks. + +The factory for tapestries seems, then, little like a factory. The +belt and wheel, the throb and haste are not there. The whole place +seems like a quiet school, where tasks are done in silence broken by +an occasional voice or two. It is a place where every one seems bent +on accomplishing a brave amount of fancy-work; a kindergarten, if you +like, for grown-ups. + +Within are many departments of labour. The looms are the thing, of +course, so must be considered first, although much preparing is done +before their work can be begun. + +The looms are classic in their method, in their simplicity. They have +scarcely changed since the days when Solomon built his Temple and +draped it with such gorgeous hangings that even the inspired writers +digress to emphasise their richness with long descriptions that could +not possibly have assisted the cause of their religion. + +The stitch made by the modern loom is the same as that made by the +looms of the furthermost-back Egyptian, by the Greeks, by the Chinese, +of primitive peoples everywhere, by the people of the East in the +familiar Khelim rugs, and by the aborigines of the two Americas. There +is nothing new, nothing obscure about it, being a simple weaving of +warp and woof. Penelope's loom was the same almost as that in use +to-day at the Gobelins factory in Paris. Archeologists have discovered +pictures of the ancient Egyptian loom, and of Penelope's, and there is +but little change from the times of these ladies to our days. + +The fact is, the work is hand-work, must always be so, and the loom is +but a tool for its working, a tool which keeps in place the threads +set by hand. That is why tapestry must always be valuable and original +and no more possible to copy by machine than is a painting. + +High warp and low warp are the terms so often used as to seem a +shibboleth. _Haute lisse_ and _basse lisse_ are their French +equivalents. They describe the two kinds of looms, the former +signifying the loom which stands upright, or high; the latter +indicating the loom which is extended horizontally or low. On the high +loom, the instrument which holds the thread is called the _broche_, +and on the low loom it is called the _flute_. + +The stitch produced by the two is the same. The manner of producing +it varies in convenience to the operators, the low-warp being the +easier, or at least the more convenient and therefore the quicker +method. + +The cynic is ever ready to say that the tyrant living within a man +declares only for those things which represent great sacrifice of time +and effort on the part of other men. Perhaps it is true, and that +therein lies the preference of the connoisseur in tapestry for the +works of the high-warp loom. Even the wisest experts cannot always +tell by an examination of a fabric, on which sort of loom it was +woven, high warp or low, other evidence being excluded. + +The high loom has, then, the threads of its warp hung like a weighted +veil, from the top of the loom to the floor, with a huge wooden roller +to receive the finished fabric at the bottom and one at the top for +the yet unneeded threads. Each thread of the warp is caught by a loop, +which in turn is fastened to a movable bar, and by means of this the +worker is able to advance or withdraw the alternate threads for the +casting of the _broche_ or _flute_, which is the shuttle. Behind the +veil of the warp sits the weaver--_tissier_ or _tapissier_--with his +supply of coloured thread; back of him is the cartoon he is copying. +He can only see his work by means of a little mirror the other side of +his warp, which reflects it. The only indulgence that convenience +accords him is a tracing on the white threads of the warp, a copy of +the picture he is weaving. Thus stands the prisoner of art, sentenced +to hard labour, but with the heart-swelling joy of creating, to +lighten his task. + + [Illustration: WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO] + + [Illustration: SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS] + +High-warp looms were those that made famous the tapestries of Arras in +the Fifteenth Century, of Brussels in the Sixteenth, and of Paris in +the Seventeenth, therefore it is not strange that they are worshipped +as having a resident, mysterious power. + +To-day, the age of practicality, they scarcely exist outside the old +Gobelins in Paris. But this is not the day of tapestry weaving. + +A shuttle, thrown by machine, goes all the width of the fabric, back +and forth. The _flute_ or _broche_, which is the shuttle of the +tapestry weaver, flies only as far as it is desired to thrust it, to +finish the figure on which its especial colour is required. Thus, a +leaf, a detail of any small sort, may mount higher and higher on the +warp, to its completion, before other adjacent parts are attempted. + +The effect of this is to leave open slits, petty gashes in the fabric, +running lengthwise of the warp, and these are all united later with +the needle, in the hands of the women who thus finish the pieces. + +Unused colours wound on the hundreds of flutes are dropped at the +demand of the pattern, left in a rich confusion of shades to be +resumed by the workmen at will; but the threads are not severed, if +the colour is to be used again soon. + +Low-warp work is the same except for the weaver's position in relation +to his work. Instead of the warp like a thin wall before his face, on +which he seems to play as on one side of a harp, the warp is extended +before him as a table. It is easy to see how much more convenient is +this method. + +The wooden rollers are the same, one for the yet unused length of +warp, the other for the finished fabric, and over one of these rollers +the worker leans, protected from its hostile hardness by a pillow. + +The pattern lies below, just beneath the warp, and easily seen through +it, not the mere tracing as on the threads of the high-warp loom, but +the coloured cartoon, so that shades may be followed as well as lines. +It sometimes happens, however, in copying a valuable old tapestry, +that a black and white drawing only is placed under the warp while the +original is suspended behind the weavers, who look to it for colour +suggestion. + +In low-warp the worker has the privilege of laying his flutes on top +the work, the flutes not at the moment in use, and there they lie in +convenient mass ready to resume for the figure abandoned for another. +If the right hand thrusts the flute, it is the duty of the left to see +that the alternate and the limiting threads of the warp are properly +lifted. First comes a pressure of the foot on a long, lath-like pedal +which is attached to the bar holding in turn the loops which pass +around alternate threads. + +That pressure lifts the threads, and the fingers of the left hand, +deft and agile, limit and select those which the flute shall cover +with its coloured woof. + +After the casting of a thread, or of a group of threads, the weaver +picks up a comb of steel or of ivory, and packs hard the woof, one +line against another, to make the fabric firm and even in the weaving. + + [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY] + + [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON] + +Such then is the simple process of the looms, far simpler seen than +described and yet depending absolutely for its beauty on the talent +and patience of gifted workers. It is as simple as the alphabet, yet +as complicated as the dictionary. + +Patient years of apprenticeship must a man spend before he can become +a good weaver, and then must he give the best years of his life to +becoming perfect in the craft. But if the work is exacting, at least +it is agreeable, almost lovable, and in delightful contrast to the +labour of those who but tend machines driven by power. And if the art +of tapestry weaving is almost a lost one to-day, at least the weavers +can find in history much matter for pride. It is no mean ambition to +follow the profession of conscientious Nicolas Bataille, of the able +Pannemaker, of La Planche and Comans, of Tessier, Cozette, and a +hundred others of family and fame. + +Much preparation is necessary before the loom can be set going. First +is the design, the cartoon. There we are in the department of the +artist, and must talk in whispers. Raphael belongs there, and +Leonardo; and Rubens, Teniers, Lebrun, Boucher and David, train us +through the past centuries into our own. + +But the cartoon of to-day is not so sacred a matter, and we may speak +of it frankly--regretfully, too. Cartoons hang all over the walls of +the tapestry factory, so much property for the setting of future +scenes, and besides, they make a decoration which alone would lift the +tapestry factory into the regions of art and class it among ateliers, +instead of factories. The cartoons are painted, however, where the +artist will, in his own studio or in one provided for the purpose by +the director, as in the case of the Baumgarten works. They have the +look of special designs. They are not done in the manner of a painting +to be hung on a wall. Their brushwork is smooth and broad, dividing +lines well distinguished by marked contrasts in colour to make +possible their translation into the language of silk and wool. + +After the cartoon is ready, comes the warp. That is set with the +closeness agreed upon. Naturally, the smaller the thread of the warp, +the closer is it set, the more threads to the inch, and thus comes +fine fabric. Coarser warp means fewer threads to the inch, quicker +work for the weaver and less value to the tapestry. From ten to twenty +threads to the inch carries the limits of coarseness and fineness. In +fine weaving, a weaver will accomplish but a square foot a week. Think +of that, you who wonder at the price of tapestries ordered for the new +drawing-room. + +The warp comes to the factory all in big hanks of even thread. +Nowadays it is usually of cotton, although they contend at the +Gobelins that wool warp is preferable, for it gives the finished +fabric a lightness and flexibility that the heavier, stiffer cotton +destroys. + +Setting the warp is a matter of patience and precision, and we will +leave the workman with it, to make it the whole length of the tapestry +to be woven, and to fasten the loops of thread around each _chaine_ +and to fasten those in turn, alternating, to the bar by means of +which they may be shifted to make the in-and-out of the weaving. + +Then after choosing the colours, the weaving begins. It is like +nothing so much as a piece of fancy-work. If it were not for the +cumbersome loom, I am sure ladies would emulate the king who wove for +amusement, and would make chair-pieces on the summer veranda. + +But before the silks and wools go to the weaving they are treated to a +beauty-bath in the dye-room. Hanks of wool and skeins of silk are but +neutral matters, coming to the factory devoid of individuality, mere +pale, soft bulk. + +A room apart, somewhere away from the studio of design and the rooms +where the looms stand stolid, is a laboratory of dyes, a place which +looks like a farmhouse kitchen on preserving day. You sniff the air as +you go in, the air that is swaying long bunches of pendulous colour, +and it smells warm and moist and full of the suggestions of magic. + +Over a big cauldron two men are bending, stirring a witches' broth to +charm man's eye. One of the wooden paddles brings up a mass from the +heavy liquid. It is silk, glistening rich, of the colour of melted +rubies. Upstairs the looms are making it into a damask background onto +which are thrown the garlands Boucher drew and Tessier loved to work. + +Dainties fished up from another cauldron are strung along a line to +dry, soft wool and shining silk, all in shades of grapes, of asters, +of heliotropes, telling their manifest destiny. And beyond, are great +bunches of colour, red which mounts a quivering scale to salmon pink, +blue which sails into tempered gray, greens dancing to the note of +the forest. It is a nature's workshop, a laboratory where the rainbow +serves, apprenticed. + +Jars, stone jars, little kegs, all ugly enough, are standing against +the wall. But uncover one, touch the thick dark stuff within, and +feast your eye on the colour left on a curious finger-tip. You are +close to the cochineal, to indigo, and all the wonderful alchemy of +colour. + +Aniline? Not a bit of the treacherous stuff. It takes the eye, but it +is a fickle friend. They say a mordant has been found to stay the +flight of its lovely colours. Perhaps; it may be. But what weaver of +tapestry would be willing to confide his labour to the care of a dye +that has not known the test of ages? Aniline dye, says the director of +a tapestry factory, may last twenty years--but twenty years is nothing +in the life of a tapestry. Over in Paris, at the Gobelins, a master +rules as chemist of the dyes, with the dignity of a special laboratory +for making them. + +In America, with no government assuming the expense, the dyes are +bought in such form that only expert dyers can use them in the few +factories which exist. But no new hazards are taken. The matter is too +serious. Economy in dyes brings too great disaster to contemplate. It +is only too true that a man, several men, may labour a year to produce +a perfect work, and that all the labour may be ruined by an ephemeral +dye, by the escape of tones skilfully laid. Let commerce cheat in some +other way, if it must, but not in this. Let the dye be honest, as +enduring as the colours imprisoned in gems. + + [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON] + +It is a modern economy. The ancients knew not of it, and were +willing to spend any amount on colours. More than that a port, or a +nation, was willing to rest its fame on a single colour. Purple of +Tyre, red of Turkey, yellow of China, are terms familiar through the +ages, and think not these colours were to be had for the asking. They +brought prices which we do not pay now even in this age of money. The +brothers Gobelins--their fame originally rested on their ambition to +be "dyers of scarlet," that being an ultimate test of skill. + +It is a serious matter, that of dyeing wools and silks for tapestries, +and one which the directors conduct within the walls of the tapestry +factory. The Gobelins uses for its reds, cochineal or the roots of the +madder; for blue, indigo and Prussian blue; for yellow, the vegetable +colour extracted from gaude. + +In America there is a specialist in dyes: Miss Charlotte Pendleton, who +gives her entire attention to rediscovering the dyes of the ancients, +the dyes that made a city's fame. It is owing to her conscientious +work that the tapestry repairers of museums can find appropriate +threads. + +It is interesting to trace the differing gamut of colour through the +ages. Old dyes produced, old weavers needed, but twenty tones for the +old work. Tapestries of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries were as +simple in scale as stained glass, and as honest. Flesh tints were +neutral by contrast to the splendid reds, honest yellows and rich +greens. Colours meant something, then, too; had a sentimental language +all their own. When white predominated, purity was implied; black was +mortification of the flesh; livid yellow was tribulation; red, +charity; green, meditation. + +An examination of the colours in the series which depicts the life of +Louis XIV, reveals a use of but seventy-nine colours. So up to that +time, great honesty of dye, and fine decorative effect were preserved. +The shades were produced by two little tricks open as the day, +hatching being one, the other, winding two shades on the same broche +or shuttle. Hatching, as we know, is merely a penman's trick, of +shading with lines of light and dark. + +It was when they began to paint the lily, in the days of pretty +corruption, that the whole matter of dyeing changed. In the Eighteenth +Century when the Regent Philip, and then La Pompadour, set the mode, +things greatly altered. When big decorative effects were no more, the +stimulating effect of deep strong colour was considered vulgar, and, +only the suave sweetness of Boucher, Nattier, Fragonard, were admired. +Every one played a pretty part, all life was a theatre of gay comedy, +or a flattered miniature. + +So, as we have seen, new times and new modes caused the Gobelins to +copy paintings instead of to interpret cartoons--and there lay the +destruction of their art. Instead of four-score tones, the dyers hung +on their lines tens and tens of thousands. And the weavers wove them +all into their fabric-painting, with the result that when the light +lay on them long, the delicate shades faded and with them was lost the +meaning of the design. And that is why the Gobelins of the older time +are worth more as decoration than those of the later. + +We are doing a little better nowadays. There is a limit to the tones, +and in all new work a decided tendency to abandon the copying of +brush-shading in favour of a more restricted gamut of colour. By this +means the future worker may regain the lost charm of the simple old +pieces of work. + +Another room in the factory of tapestry interests those who like to +see the creation of things. It is one of the prettiest rooms of all, +and is more than ever like a kindergarten for grown-ups. Or, if you +like, it is a chamber in a feudal castle where the women gather when +the men are gone to war. + +Here the workers are all girls and women, each bending over a large +embroidery frame supported at a convenient level from the floor. On +one frame is a long flowered border with cartouches in the strong rich +colours of Louis XIV. On another a sofa-seat copied from Boucher. They +are both new, but like all work fresh from the loom are full of the +open slits left in the process of weaving, a necessity of the changing +colours and the requirements of the drawing. + +All these little slits, varying from half an inch to several inches in +length, must be sewed with strong, careful stitches before the +tapestry can be considered complete. + +On other frames are stretched old tapestries for repairs. At the +Gobelins as many as forty women are thus employed. The malapropos +deduction springs here that the demand for repaired old work is +greater than that for new in the famous factory, for only six or eight +weavers are there occupied. + +Repairing is almost an art in itself. The emperor established a small +school at Berlin for training girls in this trade. The studio of the +late Mr. Ffoulke in Florence kept twenty or thirty girls occupied. The +Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a repair studio under a +graduate of the Berlin school. The factories of Baumgarten and of +Herter, in New York, also conduct repairs; and the museum at Boston as +well. + +We cannot make old tapestries, but we can restore and preserve them by +skilled labour in special ateliers. Restoration by the needle is the +only perfect restoration, and this is as yet but little done here, +although the method is so well known in Europe. We deplore the quicker +way, to use the loom for weaving large sections of border or large +bits which have gone into hopeless shreds, or have disappeared +altogether by reason of the bitter years when tapestries had fallen +into neglect. But the quicker way is the poorer, with these great +claimants for time. The woven figures are relentless in this, that +they claim of the living man a lion's share of his precious days. His +reward is that they outlast him. Food for cynics lies there. + +The careful worker looks close and sees the warp exposed like fiddle +strings here and there. She matches the colour of silk and wool to the +elusive shades and covers stitch by stitch the bare threads, in +perfect imitation of the loom's way. + +Sometimes the warp is gone. Then the work tests the best skill. The +threads, the _chaine_, must be picked up, one by one, and united +invisibly to the new, and then the pattern woven over with the needle. +It happens that large holes remain to be filled entirely, the pattern +matched, the design caught or imagined from some other part of the +fabric. That takes skill indeed. But it is done, and so well, that the +repairer is called not that, but a restorer. + +The two factories in New York, the Baumgarten and Herter ateliers, +have certain employes always busy with repairs and restorations. Given +even a fragment, the rest is supplied to make a perfect whole, in +these studios where the manner of the old workers is so closely +studied. For big repairs a drawing is made, a cartoon on the same +principle as that of large cartoons, in colours, these following the +old. Then it remains for the weaver to set his loom with the +corresponding number of threads, that the new fabric may match the old +in fineness. Then, too, comes the test of matching colours, a test +that almost never discovers a worker equal to its exactions. That is +as often as not the fault of the dyer who has supplied colours too +fresh. + +It is the repairs done by the needle that give the best effect, +although such restorations are costly and slow. + +Old repairs on old tapestries have been made, in some instances, very +long ago. It often happens, in old sets, that a great piece of another +tapestry has been roughly set in, like the knee-patches of a farm boy. +The object has been merely to fill the hole, not to match colour +scheme or figure. And these patches are by the judicious restorer +taken out and their place carefully filled with the needle. + +Moths, say some, do not devour old tapestries. The reason given is +that the ancient wool is so desiccated as to be no longer nutritious. +A pretty argument, but not to be trusted, for I have seen moths +comfortably browsing on a Burgundian hanging, keeping house and +raising families on such precious stuff. + +Commerce demands that tricks shall be played in the repair room, but +not such great ones that serious corruption will result. The coarse +verdures of the Eighteenth Century that were thrown lightly off the +looms with transient interest are sought now for coverings to antique +chairs. To give the unbroken greens more charm, an occasional bird is +snipped from a worn branch where he has long and mutely reposed, and +is posed anew on the centre of a back or seat. It is the part of the +repairer to see that he looks at home in his new surroundings. + +If metal threads have not been spoken of in this chapter on _modus +operandi_, it is because metal is so little used since the time of +Louis XV as to warrant omitting it. And the little that appears seems +very different from the "gold of Cyprus" that made gorgeous and +valuable the tapestries of Arras, of Brussels and of old Paris. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY + +A. D. 1066 + + +So long as one word continues to have more than one meaning, civilised +man will continue to gain false impressions. The word tapestry suffers +as much as any other--witness the attempt made for hundreds of years +among all nations to set apart a word that shall be used only to +designate the hand-woven pictured hangings and coverings discussed in +this book; arras, gobelins, _toile peinte_, etc. In English, tapestry +may mean almost any decorative stuff, and so comes it that we speak of +the wonderful hanging which gives name to this chapter as the tapestry +of Bayeux (plates facing pages 242, 243 and 244), when it is in +reality an embroidery. But so much is it confused with true tapestry, +and so poignantly does it interest the Anglo-Saxon that we will +introduce it here, even while acknowledging its extraneous character. + +To begin with, then, we say frankly that it is not a tapestry; that it +has no place in this book. And then we will trail its length through a +short review of its history and its interest as a human document of +the first order. + +In itself it is a strip of holland--brown, heavy linen cloth, +measuring in length about two hundred and thirty-one feet, and in +width, nineteen and two-thirds inches--remarkable dimensions which are +accounted for in the neatest way. The hanging was used in the +cathedral of the little French city of Bayeux, draped entirely around +the nave of the Norman Cathedral, which space it exactly covered. This +indicates to archeologists the original purpose of the hanging. + +On the brown linen is embroidered in coloured wools a panoramic +succession of incidents, with border top and bottom. The colours are +but eight, two shades each of green and blue, with yellow, +dove-colour, red and brown. + +This, in brief, is the great Bayeux tapestry. But its threads breathe +history; its stitches sing romance; and we who love to touch +humorously the spirits of brothers who lived so long ago, find here +the matter that humanly unites the Eleventh Century with the +Twentieth. + +The subject is the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in +1066. That is fixed beyond a doubt, so that the precious cloth cannot +trail its ends any further back into antiquity than that event. +However, even the most insatiable antiquarian of European specialties +is smilingly content with such a date. + +Legend has it that Queen Matilda, the wife of the conqueror, executed +the work as an evidence of the devotion and adulation that were his +due and her pleasure: There are lovely pictures in the mind of Matilda +in the safety of the chambers of the old castle at Caen, directing +each day a corps of lovely ladies in the task of their historic +embroidery, each one sewing into the fabric her own secret thoughts of +lover or husband absent on the great Conqueror's business. In absence +of direct testimony to the contrary, why not let us believe this +which comes as near truth as any legend may, and fits the case most +pleasantly? + + [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] + + [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] + +The history it portrays in all its seventy-odd yards is easy enough to +verify. That is like working out a puzzle with the key in hand. But +the history of this keenly interesting embroidery is not so easy. + +The records are niggardly. Inventories record it in 1369 and 1476. In +an inventory of the Bishop of Bayeux it is mentioned in 1563. About +this time it was in ecclesiastical hands and used for decorating the +nave of the Bayeux Cathedral. + +Then the world forgot it. + +How the world rediscovered that which was never lost is interesting +matter. Here is the story: + +In 1724 an antiquarian found a drawing of about ten yards long, taken +from the tapestry. Here, said he and his fellow sages, is the drawing +of some wonderful, ancient work of art, most probably a frieze or +other decoration carved in wood or stone. Naturally, the desire was to +find such a monument. But no one could remember such a carving in any +church or castle. + +Father Montfaucon, of Saint Maur, with interest intelligent, wrote to +the prior of St. Vigor's at Bayeux, and received the most satisfactory +reply, that the drawing represented not a carving but a hanging in +possession of his church, and associated with many yards more of the +same cloth. + +So all this time the wonderful relic had lain safe in Bayeux, and +never was lost, but only forgotten by outsiders. The rediscovery, +so-called, aroused much comment, and England declared the cloth the +noblest monument of her history. + +It was in use at that time, and after, once a year. It was hung around +the cathedral nave on St. John's Day, and left for eight days that all +the people might see it. + +The fact that it was not religious in subject, that it could not +possibly be interpreted otherwise than as a secular history, makes +remarkable its place in the cathedral. This is explained by the +suggestion that while Bishop Odo established that precedent, all +others but followed without thought. + +Since 1724 the world outside of Bayeux has never forgotten this +panorama of a past age, and its history is known from that time on. + +The Revolution of France had its effect even on this treasure; or +would have had if the clergy had not been sufficiently capable to +defend it. It was hidden in the depositories of the cathedral until +the storm was over. + +It seems there was no treasure in Europe unknown to Napoleon. He +commanded in 1803 that the Bayeux tapestry, of which he had heard so +much, be brought to the National Museum for his inspection. The +playwrights of Paris seized on the pictured cloth as material for +their imagination, and, refusing to take seriously the crude figures, +wrote humorously of Matilda eternally at work over her ridiculous +task, surrounded with simple ladies equally blind to art and nature. +It is only too easy to let humour play about the ill-drawn figures. +They must be taken grandly serious, or ridicule will thrust tongue in +cheek. It is to these French plays of 1804 that we owe the firmness +of the tradition that Queen Matilda in 1066 worked the embroidery. + + [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] + +Napoleon returned the cloth to Bayeux, not to the church, but to the +Hotel de Ville, in which manner it became the property of the civil +authorities, instead of the ecclesiastic. It was rolled on cylinders, +that by an easy mechanism it might be seen by visitors. But the fabric +suffered much by the handling of a curious public. Even the most +enlightened and considerate hands can break threads which time has +played with for eight centuries. + +It was decided, therefore, to give the ancient _toile fatiguee_ a +quiet, permanent home. For this purpose a museum was built, and about +1835 the great Bayeux tapestry was carefully installed behind glass, +its full length extended on the walls for all to see who journey +thither and who ring the guardian's bell at the courtyard's handsome +portico. + +Once since then, once only, has the venerable fabric left its cabinet. +This was at the time of the Prussians when, in 1871, France trembled +for even her most intimate and special treasures. + +The tapestry was taken from its case, rolled with care and placed in a +zinc cylinder, hermetically sealed. Then it was placed far from harm; +but exactly where, is a secret that the guardians of the tapestry do +well to conserve. There might be another trouble, and asylum needed +for the treasure in the future. + +The pictures of the great embroidery are such as a child might draw, +for crudeness; but the archeologist knows how to read into them a +thousand vital points. History helps out, too, with the story of +Harold, moustached like the proper Englishman of to-day, taking a +commission from William, riding gaily out on a gentleman's errand, not +a warrior's. This is shown by the falcon on his wrist, that wonderful +bird of the Middle Ages that marked the gentleman by his associations, +marked the high-born man on an errand of peace or pleasure. + +In these travelling days, no sooner do we land in Normandy than Mount +St. Michael looms up as a happy pilgrimage. So to the same religious +refuge Harold went on the pictured cloth, crossed the adjacent river +in peril, and--how pleasingly does the past leap up and tap the +present--he floundered in the quicksands that surround the Mount, and +about which the driver of your carriage across the _passerelle_ will +tell you recent tales of similar flounderings. + +And when in Brittany, who does not go to tumbley-down Dinan to see its +ancient gates and walls, its palaces of Queen Anne, its lurching crowd +of houses? It is thither that Harold, made of threads of ancient wool, +sped and gave battle after the manner of his time. + +Another link to make us love this relic of the olden time: It is the +star, the star so great that the space of the picture is all too small +to place it; so the excited hands of the embroiderers set it outside +the limit, in the border. + +It flames over false Harold's head and he remembers sombrely that it +is an omen of a change of rule. He is king now, has usurped a throne, +has had himself crowned. But for how long is he monarch, with this +flaming menace burning into his courage? The year finishing saw the +prophecy fulfilled by the coming of the conqueror. + +It was this section of the tapestry that, when it came to Paris, had +power to startle Napoleon, ever superstitious, ever ready to read +signs. The star over Harold's head reminded him of the possible +brevity of his own eminence. + +The star that blazed in 1066--we have found it. It was not imaginary. +Behold how prettily the bits of history fit together, even though we +go far afield to find those bits. This one comes from China. Records +were better kept there in those times than in Christian Europe; and +the Chinese astronomers write of a star appearing April 2, 1066, which +was seen first in the early morning sky, then after a time disappeared +to reappear in the evening sky, with a flaming tail, most agreeably +sensational. It was Halley's comet, the same that we watched in 1910 +with no superstitious fear at all for princes nor for powers. But it +is interesting to know that our modern comet was recorded in China in +the Eleventh Century, and has its portrait on the Bayeux tapestry, and +that it frightened the great Harold into a fit of guilty conscience. + +The archeologist gives reason for the faith that is in him concerning +the Bayeux tapestry by reading the language of its details, such as +the style of arms used by its preposterous soldiers; by gestures; by +groupings of its figures; and we are only too glad to believe his +wondrous deductions. + +There are in all fifteen hundred and twelve figures in this celebrated +cloth, if one includes birds, beasts, boats, _et cetera_, with the +men; and amidst all this elongated crowd is but one woman. Queen +Matilda, left at home for months, immured with her ladies, probably +had quite enough of women to refrain easily from portraying them. +Needless to say, this one embroidered lady interests poignantly the +archeologist. + +Most of the animals are in the border--active little beasts who make a +running accompaniment to the tale they adorn. This excepts the very +wonderful horses ridden by knights of action. + +Scenes of the pictured history of William's conquest are divided one +from the other by trees. Possibly the archeologist sees in these +evidences of extinct varieties, for not in all this round, green world +do trees grow like unto those of the Bayeux tapestry. They are dream +trees from the gardens of the Hesperides, and set in useful decoration +to divide event from event and to give sensations to the student of +the tree in ornament. + +Such is the Bayeux tapestry, which, as was conscientiously forewarned, +is not a tapestry at all, but the most interesting embroidery of +Europe. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +TO-DAY + + +The making of inspired tapestry does not belong to to-day. The _amour +propre_ suffers a distinct pain in this acknowledgment. It were far +more agreeable to foster the feeling that this age is in advance of +any other, that we are at the front of the world's progress. + +So we are in many matters, but those matters are all bent toward one +thing--making haste. Economy of time occupies the attention of +scientist, inventor, labourer. Yet a lavish expenditure of time is the +one thing the perfect tapestry inexorably demands, and that is the +fundamental reason why it cannot now enter a brilliant period of +production like those of the past. + +It is not that one atelier cannot find enough weavers to devote their +lives to sober, leisurely production; it is that the stimulating +effect is gone, of a craft eagerly pursued in various centres, where +guilds may be formed, where healthy rivalry spurs to excellence, where +the world of the fine arts is also vitally concerned. + +The great hangings of the past were the natural expression of +decoration in those days, the natural demand of pomp, of splendour and +of comfort. As in all things great and small, the act is but the +visible expression of an inward impulse, and we of to-day have not the +spirit that expresses itself in the reverent building of cathedrals, +or in the inspired composition of tapestries. + +This is to be entirely distinguished from appreciation. That gift we +have, and it is momentarily increasing. To be entirely commercial, +which view is of course not the right one, one need only watch the +reports of sales at home and abroad to see what this latter-day +appreciation means in pelf. In England a tapestry was recently +unearthed and identified as one of the series of seven woven for +Cardinal Woolsey. It is not of extraordinary size, but was woven in +the interesting years hovering above and below the century mark of +1500. The time was when public favour spoke for the upholding of +morality with a conspicuousness which could be called Puritanism, were +the anachronism possible. Pointing a moral was the fundamental excuse +for pictorial art. This tapestry represents one of _The Seven Deadly +Sins_. Hampton Court displays the three other known pieces of the +series, and he who harbours this most recent discovery has paid +$33,000 for the privilege. + +But that is a tiny sum compared to the price that rumour accredits Mr. +Morgan with paying for _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ (called +also _The Kingdom of Heaven_). And this is topped by $750,000 paid for +a Boucher set of five pieces. One might continue to enumerate the +sales where enormous sums are laid down in appreciation of the men +whose excellence of work we cannot achieve, but these sums paid only +show with pathetic discouragement the completeness with which the +spirit of commercialism has replaced the spirit of art, at least in +the expression of art that occupies our attention. + + [Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION] + + [Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION] + +If, then, this is not an age of production, but of appreciation, +it, too, has its natural expression. First it is the acquiring at any +sacrifice of the ancient hangings wherever they are found; and after +that it is their restoration and preservation. This is the reason for +recent high prices and the reason, too, for the establishment of +ateliers of repair, which are found in all large centres in Europe as +well as wherever any important museum exists in America. + +It would not be possible nor profitable to dwell on the tapestry +repair shops of Europe. They have always been; the industry is one +that has existed since the Burgundian dukes tore holes in their +magnificent tapestries by dragging them over the face of Europe, and +since Henry the Eighth, in eager imitation of the continentals, +established in the royal household a supervisor of tapestry repairs. +Paris is full of repairers, and in the little streets on the other +side of the Seine old women sit in doorways on a sunny day, defeating +the efforts of time to destroy the loved _toiles peintes_. But this +haphazard repair, done on the knee, as a garment might be mended, is +not comparable to the careful, exact work of the restorer at her +frame. One ranks as woman's natural task of nine stitches, while the +other is the work of intelligent patience and skilled endeavour. + +Wherever looms are set up, a department of repair is the logical +accompaniment. As every tapestry taken from the loom appears punctured +with tiny slits, places left open in the weaving, and as all of these +need careful sewing before the tapestry is finished, a corps of +needlewomen is a part of a loom's equipment. This is true in all but +the ateliers of the Merton Abbey factory, of which we shall speak +later. + +Apart from repairs, what is being done in the present day? So little +that historians of the future are going to find scant pickings for +their record. + + +FRANCE + +The Gobelins factory being the last one to make a permanent +contribution to art, the impulse is to ask what it is doing now. That +is easily answered, but there is no man so optimistic that he can find +therein matter for hope. + +France is commendably determined not to let the great industry die. It +would seem a loss of ancient glory to shut down the Gobelins. Yet why +does it live? It lives because a body of men have the patriotic pride +to keep it alive. But as for its products, they are without +inspiration, without beauty to the eye trained to higher expressions +of art. + +The Gobelins to-day is almost purely a museum, not only in the +treasures it exposes in its collection of ancient "toiles," but +because here is preserved the use of the high-warp loom, and the same +method of manufacture as in other and better times. A crowd of +interested folk drift in and out between the portals, survey the +Pavilion of Louis XIV and the court, the garden and the stream, then, +turning inside, the modern surveys the work of the ancient, the +remnants of time. And no less curious and no less remote do the old +tapestries seem than the atelier where the high looms rear their +cylinders and mute men play their colour harmonies on the warp. It +all seems of other times; it all seems dead. And it is a dead art. + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY + + Luxembourg, Paris] + + [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY + + Pantheon, Paris] + +The tapestries on the looms are garish, crude, modern art in its +cheapest expression; or else they are brilliant-hued copies of +time-softened paintings that were never meant to be translated into +wool and silk. + +The looms are always busy, nevertheless. There is always preserved a +staff of officers, the director, the chemist of dyes, and all that; +and the tapissiers are careful workmen, with perfection, not haste, in +view. The State directs the work, the State pays for it, the State +consumes the products. That is the Republic's way of continuing the +craft that was the serious pleasure of kings. But there is now no +personal element to give it the vital touch. There is no Gabrielle +d'Estrees, nor Henri IV; no Medici, no Louis XIV, no Pompadour. All is +impersonal, uninspired. + +Men who have worked in the deadening influence of the Gobelins declare +that the factory cannot last much longer. But it is improbable that +France--Republican France, that holds with bourgeois tenacity to +aristocratic evidences--will abandon this, her expensive toy, her +inheritance of the time of kings. + +In the time of the Second Empire it was the fashion to copy, at the +Gobelins, the portraits of celebrated personages executed by +Winterhalter. The exquisite portrait of the beautiful Empress Eugenie +by this delectable court painter has a delicacy and grace that is all +unhurt by contrast with more modern schools of painting. But fancy the +texture of the lovely flesh copied in the medium of woven threads, no +matter how delicately dyed and skilfully wrought. Painting is one art, +tapestry-making is entirely another. + +But that is just where the fault lay and continued, the inability of +the Gobelins ateliers to understand that the two must not be confused. +The same false idea that caused Winterhalter's portraits to be copied, +gave to the modern tapissiers the paintings of the high Renaissance to +reproduce. Titian's most celebrated works were set up on the loom, as +for example the beautiful fancy known as _Sacred and Profane Love_, +which perplexes the loiterer of to-day in the Villa Borghese. Other +paintings copied were Raphael's _Transfiguration_, Guido Rene's +_Aurora_, Andrea del Sarto's _Charity_. There were many more, but this +list gives sufficiently well the condition of inspiration at the +Gobelins up to the third quarter of the Nineteenth Century. + +Paul Baudry appeared at about this time striking a clear pure note of +delicate decoration. The few panels that he drew for the Gobelins +charm the eye with happy reminiscences of Lebrun, of Claude Audran, a +potpourri of petals fallen from the roses of yesterday mixed with the +spices of to-day. + +But if the work of this talented artist illustrates anything, it is +the change in the uses of tapestries. The modern ones are made to be +framed, as flat as the wall against which they are secured. In a word, +they take the place of frescoes. The pleasure of touching a mobile +fabric is lost. A fold in such a dainty piece would break its beauty. +Almost must a woven panel of our day fit the panel it fills as +exactly as the wood-work of a room fits its dimensions. + +The Nineteenth Century at the Gobelins was finished by mistakenly +copying Ghirlandajo, Correggio, others of their time. + +In the beginning of this century, the spirit of pure decoration again +became animated. Instead of copying old painters, the Gobelins began +to copy old cartoons. The effect of this is to increase the +responsibility of the weaver, and with responsibility comes strength. + +The models of Boucher, and the _Grotesques_ of Italian Renaissance +drawing are given even now to the weavers as a training in both taste +and skill. But better than all is the present wisdom of the Gobelins, +which has directly faced the fact that it were better to copy the +tapestries of old excellence than to copy paintings of no matter what +altitude of art. + +Modern cartoons are used, as we know, commanded for various public +buildings in France, but the copying of old tapestries exercises a far +happier influence on the weavers. If this is not an age of creation in +art, at least it need not be an age of false gods, notwithstanding the +seriousness given to distortions of the Matisse and post-impressionist +school. + +A careful copying of old tapestries--and in this case old means those +of the high periods of perfection--has led to a result from which much +may be expected. This is the enormous reduction in the number of tones +used. Gothic tapestries of stained glass effect had a restricted range +of colour. By this brief gamut the weaver made his own gradations of +colour, and the passage from light to shadow, by hatching, which was +in effect but a weaving of alternating lines of two colours, much as +an artist in pen-and-ink draws parallel lines for shading. Tapestries +thus woven resist well the attacks of light and time. + +To sum up the present attitude of the Gobelins, then, is to say that +the director of to-day encourages the education of taste in the +weavers by encouraging them to copy old tapestries instead of +paintings old or new, and in a reduction of the number of the tones +employed. The talent of an artist is thus made necessary to the +tapissier, for shadings are left to him to accomplish by his own skill +instead of by recourse to the forty thousand shades that are stored on +the shelves of the store-room. + +The manufactory at Beauvais, being also under the State, is associated +with the greater factory in the glance at modern conditions. Both +factories weave primarily for the State. Both factories keep alive an +ancient industry, and both have permission to sell their precious +wares to the private client. That such sales are rarely made is due to +the indifference of the State, which stipulates that its own work +shall have first place on the looms, that only when a loom is idle may +it be used for a private patron. The length of time, therefore, that +must elapse before an order is executed--two or three years, +perhaps--is a tiresome condition that very few will accept. + + [Illustration: THE ADORATION + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones] + + [Illustration: DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE + TEMPLE + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist] + +Beauvais, with its low-warp looms, is more celebrated for its small +pieces of work than for large hangings. The tendency toward the latter +ended some time ago, and in our time Beauvais makes mainly those +exquisite coverings for seats and screens that give the beholder a +thrill of artistic joy and a determination to possess something +similar. The models of Behagle, Oudry, Charron are copied with +fidelity to their loveliness, and it is these that after a few years +of wear on furniture take on that mellowness which long association +with human hands alone can give. It is scarcely necessary to say that +antique furniture tapestry is rare; its use has been too hard to +withstand the years. Therefore, we may with joy and the complacency of +good taste acquire new coverings of the Don Quixote or AEsop's Fables +designs for our latter-day furniture or for the fine old pieces from +which the original tapestries have vanished. + + +ENGLAND + +The chapter on Mortlake looms shows what was accomplished by +deliberate importation of an art coveted but not indigenous. It is +interesting to compare this with England's entirely modern and +self-made craft of the last thirty years. I allude to the tapestry +factory established by William Morris and called Merton Abbey. Mr. +Morris preferred the word arras as attached to his weavings, tapestry +having sometimes the odious modern meaning of machine-made figured +stuffs for any sort of furniture covering. But as Arras did not invent +the high-warp hand-loom, nor did the Saracens, nor the Egyptians, it +is but quibbling to give it arbitrarily the name of any particular +locale. + +It seems that enough can never be said about the versatility of +William Morris and the strong flood of beauty in design that he sent +rippling over arid ground. It were enough had he accomplished only the +work in tapestry. It is not too strong a statement that he produced at +Merton Abbey the only modern tapestries that fill the primary +requirements of tapestries. + +How did he happen upon it in these latter days? By worshipping the old +hangings of the Gothic perfection, by finding the very soul of them, +of their designers and of their craftsmen; then, letting that soul +enter his, he set his fingers reverently to work to learn, as well, +the secret of the ancient workman. + +It was as early as 1885 that he began; was cartoonist, dyer, +tapissier, all, for the experiment, which was a small square of +verdure after the manner of the Gothic, curling big acanthus leaves +about a softened rose, a mingling of greens of ocean and shady reds. +Perhaps it was no great matter in the way of tapestry, but it was to +Morris like the discovery of a new continent to the navigator. + +His was the time of a so-called aesthetic school in England. Watts, +Rossetti and Burne-Jones were harking back to antiquity for +inspiration. Morris associated with him the latter, who drew wondrous +figures of maids and men and angels, figures filled with the devout +spirit of the time when religion was paramount, and perfect with the +art of to-day. + +The romance of _The Holy Grail_ gave happy theme for the work, and +three beautiful tapestries made the set. _The Adoration of the Magi_ +was another, made for Exeter College, Oxford. Sir Edward Burne-Jones +designed all these wondrous pictures, and the wisdom of Morris +decreed that the _Grail_ series should not be oft repeated. The +first figure tapestry woven on the looms was a fancy drawn by Walter +Crane, called _The Goose Girl_. + + [Illustration: TRUTH BLINDFOLDED + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist] + +The most enchantingly mediaeval and most modernly perfect piece is by +Burne-Jones, called _David Instructing Solomon in the Building of the +Temple_. (Plate facing page 257.) In this the time of Gothic beauty +lives again. Planes are repeated, figures are massed, detail is clear +and impressive, yet modern laws of drawing concentrate the interest on +the central action as strongly as though all else were subservient. + +_The Passing of Venus_ was Burne-Jones' last cartoon for Merton Abbey +looms. (Plate facing page 260.) Although a critique of the art of this +great painter would be out of place in a book on the applied arts, at +least it is allowable to express the conviction that more beautiful, +more fitting designs for tapestry it would be difficult to imagine. +Modern work of this sort has produced nothing that approaches them, +preserving as they do the sincerity and reverence of a simple people, +the ideality of a conscientious age, yet softening all technical +faults with modern finish. An unhappy fact is that this tapestry, +which was considered by the Merton Abbey works as its _chef d'oeuvre_, +was destroyed by fire in the Brussels Exhibition of 1910. + +Alas for tapestry weaving of to-day, the usual modern cartoon is a +staring anachronism, and a conglomerate of modes. An "art nouveau" +lady poses in a Gothic setting, a Thayer angel stands in a Boucher +entourage, and both eye and intelligence are revolted. The master +craftsman and artist, William Morris, alone has known how to produce +acceptable modern work from modern cartoons. Other examples are +_Angeli Laudantes_, and _The Adoration_. (Plates facing pages 261 and +256.) + +A false note is sometimes struck, even in this factory of wondrous +taste. In _Truth Blindfolded_ (plate facing page 258), Mr. Byram Shaw +has drawn the central figure as Cabanel might have done a decade ago, +while every other figure in the group might have been done by some +hand dead these four hundred years. + +Morris' manner of procedure differed little from that of the decorator +Lebrun, although his work was a private enterprise and in no way to be +compared with the royal factory of a rich king. Burne-Jones drew the +figures; H. Dearle, a pupil, and Philip Webb drew backgrounds and +animals, but Morris held in his own hands the arrangement of all. It +was as though a gardener brought in a sheaf of cut roses and the +master hand arranged them. Mr. Dearle directed some compositions with +skill and talent. + +With the passing of William Morris an inevitable change is visible in +the cartoons. The Gothic note is not continued, nor the atmosphere of +sanctity, which is its usual accompaniment. A tapestry of 1908 from +the design of _The Chace_ by Heyward Sumner suggests long hours with +the Flemish landscapists of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, +with a jarring note of Pan dragged in by the ears to huddle under +foliage obviously introduced for this purpose. + + [Illustration: THE PASSING OF VENUS + + Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones] + + [Illustration: ANGELI LAUDANTES + + Merton Abbey Tapestry] + +But criticism of this aberration cannot hurt the wondrous inspired +work directed by Morris, and which it were well for a beauty-loving +world to have often repeated. Unhappily, the Merton Abbey works are +bound not to repeat the superb series of the _Grail_. The entire set +has been woven twice, and three pieces of it a third time--and there +it ends. This is well for the value of the tapestries, but is it not a +providence too thrifty when the public is considered? In ages to come, +perhaps, other looms will repeat, and our times will glow with the +fame thereof. + +Before leaving the subject of the Merton Abbey tapestries, it is +interesting to note a technical change in the weaving. By +intertwisting the threads of the chain or warp at the back, a way is +found to avoid the slits in weaving that are left to be sewn together +with the needle in all old work. This method has been proved the +stronger of the two. The strain of hanging proves too great for the +strength of the stitches, and on many a tapestry appear gaping wounds +which call for yet more stitching. But in the new method the fabric +leaves the loom intact. + +The determination of William Morris to catch old secrets by fitting +his feet into old footsteps, led him to employ only the loom of the +best weavers in the ancient long ago. The high-warp loom is the only +one in use at the Merton Abbey works. + + +AMERICA + +America makes heavy demands for tapestries, but the art of producing +them is not indigenous here. We are not without looms, however. The +first piece of tapestry woven in America--to please the ethnologist +we will grant that it was woven by Zuni or Toltec or other aborigine. +But the fabric approaching that of Arras or Gobelins, was woven in New +York, in 1893, in the looms of the late William Baumgarten. It is +preserved as a curiosity, as being the first. It is a chair seat woven +after the designs popular with Louis XV and his court, a plain +background of solid colour on which is thrown a floral ornament. + +The loom was a small affair of the low-warp type, and was operated by +a Frenchman who came to this country for the purpose of starting the +craft on new soil. + +The sequence to this small beginning was the establishment of tapestry +ateliers at Williamsbridge, a suburb of New York. Like the Gobelins +factory, this was located in an old building on the banks of a little +stream, the Bronx. Workmen were imported, some from Aubusson, who knew +the craft; these took apprentices, as of old, and trained them for the +work. The looms were all of the low-warp pattern. + +It may be of interest to those who like figures, to know that the work +of the Baumgarten atelier averages in price about sixty dollars a +square yard. Perhaps this will help a little in deciding whether or +not the price is reasonable when a dealer seductively spreads his +ancient wares. Modern cartoons of the Baumgarten factory lack the +charm of the old designs, but the adaptations and copies of ancient +pieces are particularly happy. No better execution could be wished +for. The factory has increased its looms to the number of twenty-two, +and has its regular corps of tapissiers, dyers, repairers, etc. +Nowhere is the life of the weaver so nearly like that of his prototype +in the golden age of tapestry. The colony on the Bronx is like a bit +of old Europe set intact on American soil. + + [Illustration: AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC] + + [Illustration: DRYADS AND FAUNS + + From Herter Looms, New York, 1910] + +It is odd that New York should have more tapestry looms at work than +has Paris. The Baumgarten looms exceed in number the present Gobelins, +and the Herter looms add many more. The ateliers of Albert Herter are +in the busiest part of New York, and here are woven by hand many +fabrics of varying degrees of excellence. It is not Mr. Herter's +intention to produce only fine wall hangings, but to supply as well +floor coverings "a la facon de Perse," as the ancient documents had +it, and to make it possible for persons of taste, but not necessarily +fortune, to have hand-woven portieres of artistic value. + +Apart from this commendable aim, the Herter looms are also given to +making copies of the antique in the finest of weaving, and to +producing certain original pieces expressing the decorative spirit of +our day. Besides this, the work is distinguished by certain +combinations of antique and modern style that confuse the seeker after +purity of style. That the effect is pleasing must be acknowledged as +illustrated in the plate showing a tapestry for the country house of +Mrs. E. H. Harriman. (Plate facing page 263.) It is not easy in a +review of tapestry weaving of to-day to find any great encouragement. + +These are times of commerce more than of art. If art can be made +profitable commercially, well and good. If not, it starves in a garret +along with the artist. If the demand for modern tapestries was large +enough, the art would flourish--perhaps. But it is not a large demand, +for many reasons, chief among which is the incontrovertible one that +the modern work is seldom pleasing. The whole world is occupied with +science and commerce, and art does not create under their influence as +in more ideal times. What can the trained eye and the cultivated taste +do other than turn back to the products of other days? + +We have artists in our own country whose qualities would make of them +marvellous composers of cartoons. The imagination and execution of +Maxfield Parrish, for example, added to his richness of colouring, +would be translatable in wool under the hands of an artist-weaver. And +the designs which take the name of "poster" and are characterised by +strength, simplicity and few tones, why would they not give the same +crispness of detail that constitutes one of the charms of Gothic work? +Perhaps the factories existent in America will work out this line of +thought, combine it with honesty of material and labour, and give us +the honour of prominence in an ancient art's revival. + + +FINIS + + + + +BEST PERIODS AND THEIR DATES + + + EARLIEST TAPESTRY LOOMS Prehistoric + EUROPEAN EARLY ATTEMPTS Twelfth To Fourteenth Centuries + ARRAS AND BURGUNDIAN TAPESTRY Early Fifteenth Century + GOTHIC PERFECTION, FLANDERS About Fifteen Hundred + GOTHIC PERFECTION, FRANCE About Fifteen Hundred + ITALIAN FACTORIES Fifteenth Century + RAPHAEL CARTOONS IN FLANDERS 1515-1519 + RENAISSANCE PERFECTION, FLANDERS 1515 To Second Half of Century + BRUSSELS MARK 1528 + FLEMISH DECADENCE End of Sixteenth Century + FRENCH RISE End of Sixteenth Century + FRENCH ORGANISATION 1597, Reign of Henri IV + ENGLISH SUPREMACY, MORTLAKE + ESTABLISHED 1619 + ESTABLISHMENT OF GOBELINS 1662, Reign of Louis XIV + BEST HEROIC PERIOD OF GOBELINS Last Half of Seventeenth Century + BEST DECORATIVE PERIOD OF + GOBELINS Middle of Eighteenth Century + DECADENCE OF GOBELINS End of Eighteenth Century + RECENT TIMES, ENGLAND, WM. MORRIS End of Nineteenth Century + RECENT TIMES, AMERICA End of Nineteenth Century + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbot Robert, 20. + + _Achilles, Story of_, 169. + + Adelaide, Queen, 22. + + _Adoration of the Eternal Father, The_, 59, 250, 260. + + _Adoration of the Magi, The_, 258. + + _Acts of the Apostles_, 64, 86, 147, 169, 197, 205, 214, 221. + + _Alcisthenes, Mantle of_, 19. + + _Alexander, History of_, 115, 172, 197. + + Alfonso II (d'Este), 83. + + America, 261-264. + + American interest, 10. + + Amorini, 209. + + Andrea del Sarto, 73. + + _Angeli Laudantes_, 260. + + Angers, 29, 30. + + Angivillier, Count of, 131, 133, 137. + + _Annunciation, The_, 61. + + Antin, Duke d', 128, 130, 131, 148. + + _Antony and Cleopatra_, 80, 110, 151, 187, 210, 222. + + _Apocalypse_, 23, 25, 30, 45, 217. + + Apprentices, 5. + + Architectural detail, 177-179. + + _Armide_, 130. + + Arras, 28, 32, 34, 38, 47, 48, 51, 54, 66, 90, 106, 129, 163, 176, + 203, 229. + + Arazzeria Medicea, 84. + + Artemisia, 93, 94. + + Artois, 32, 34, 163. + + Aubusson, 150, 152-158. + + Audran, Claude, 122-124, 126-128, 132. + + Audran, Jean, 138. + + _Aurora_, 254. + + + Babylon, 18. + + Bacchiacca, 76, 223. + + Backgrounds, 185. + + _Baillee des Roses_, 42, 176, 181. + + Bajazet, 35. + + Barberini, 87, 88, 131, 208. + + Basse lisse, 3, 193, 227. + + Bataille, Nicolas, 29, 30, 217. + + Baudry, Paul, 254. + + Baumgarten, 232, 238, 239, 262. + + Bayeux Tapestry, 21, 241-248. + + Beauvais, 4, 121, 135, 145-153, 154, 163, 256. + + Beaux Art, Ecole des, 204. + + Behagle, Philip, 147, 148, 257. + + Belle, Augustin, 138. + + Bellegarde, 157. + + Berne, Cathedral of, 37, 53. + + Bernini, 10. + + Berthelemy, 141. + + Besnier, 152. + + Bible, influence of, 130. + + Bievre, 105, 106, 107. + + Blamard, Louis, 99, 103. + + Blumenthal collection, 74, 75, 78, 196, 205. + + Bobbin, 4. + + _Book of Hours_, 41. + + Borders, 132, 147, 158, 169, 170, 172, 173, 188-190, 201-215. + + Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 15, 46, 56, 238. + + Botticelli, 180. + + Boucher, 131, 132, 135, 141, 151. + + Boulle, 107. + + Bourg, Maurice du, 93, 94, 95, 96. + + Broche, 4, 223, 227, 228, 229. + + Bruges, 54, 55, 221. + + Brussels, 7, 9, 10, 29, 38, 48, 54, 55, 57, 64, 66, 68-72, 76, 78, + 90, 111, 129, 141, 163, 194, 197, 216, 218, 219, 221, 229. + + Brussels Mark, 217. + + Burgundian tapestry, 37, 45, 160, 174. + + Burgundy, Dukes of, 22, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 46, 47, 48, 51. + + Burne-Jones, 258, 259. + + + Caffieri, 107. + + Carron, Antoine, 94. + + Carthaginians, 19. + + Cartoons, 56, 151, 155, 173, 176, 231, 255. + + Cartouche, 207. + + Casanova, 151. + + Cellini, Benvenuto, 7. + + _Charity_, 254. + + Charles I, 167, 168, 170, 171. + + Charles V, 32. + + Charles V, Emperor, 62, 75, 82, 83, 220. + + Charles VI, 29. + + Charles VII, 42. + + Charles VIII, 48. + + Charles le Temeraire, 36, 45, 47, 51, 66. + + Chef d'atelier, 5. + + Chicago Institute of Art, 47, 78, 221. + + China, 18. + + Circe, 19. + + Clein, or Cleyn, Francis, 166, 169, 170, 171. + + Cluny Museum of Paris, 44, 54. + + Colbert, 99, 102, 103, 107, 108, 109, 116, 117, 118, 121, 145, + 155, 156. + + Colours, 191-193, 210, 211, 233-236. + + Comans, Charles de, 222. + + Comans, or Coomans, Marc, 95-97, 107, 165, 166, 231. + + _Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets, The_, 51. + + _Conquest of Tunis_, 75, 220. + + _Constantine, History of_, 112. + + Copies, 197-200. + + Coptic, 15, 16. + + Cornelisz, Lucas, 82. + + Correggio, 209. + + Cortona, Pietro di, 87. + + Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany, 84, 85. + + Cosmati brothers, 178. + + Costumes, 181-183. + + Cotte, Jules Robert de, 122, 129, 131. + + Coypel, Antoine, 130. + + Coypel, Charles, 12, 127, 128, 130, 132, 150. + + Cozette, 132. + + Crane, Richard, 171. + + Crane, Sir Francis, 165, 167, 168, 170, 171, 223. + + Crane, Walter, 259. + + Crusades, 19, 24. + + _Cupid and Psyche_, 132. + + + David, 136, 140, 142, 143, 144. + + _David Instructing Solomon, etc._, 259. + + Dearle, H., 260. + + Delacroix, Jean, 109. + + Devonshire, Duke of, 46. + + _Diana, History of_, 92. + + Directing artist, 5. + + Director, 4. + + Directory, 139, 142. + + _Don Quixote_, 127, 132, 133, 152. + + Dosso, Battista, 82. + + Dourdin, 30. + + Ducal Palace at Nancy, tapestry room of, 51, 65. + + Du Mons, Jean Joseph, 158. + + Dupont, Pierre, 161. + + Dye, scarlet, of the Gobelin brothers, 106. + + Dyes, 6, 218, 233, 234. + + Dyes at Aubusson, 156. + + + Edward the Confessor, 260. + + Egypt, 18, 27. + + Egyptian drawing, 15. + + Egyptian loom, 16. + + Egyptian weaving, 16. + + Egyptian work, 7. + + Eighteenth Century, 76, 123, 152, 158, 180, 185, 187, 190, 211, + 222, 236, 257-261. + + Eleventh Century, 23. + + Elizabeth, Queen, 164. + + _Enfants Jardiniers_, 74. + + Enghien, 103, 221, 222. + + England, 54, 223. + + Ercole II (d'Este), 82-84. + + Este, d', 82-84, 91, 223. + + _Esther and Ahasuerus_, 190. + + Europe, 18, 19. + + + _Fables of La Fontaine_, 149-152. + + Felletin, 157. + + Ferrara, 82, 83, 223. + + Ffoulke collection, 88, 89, 131. + + Fifteenth Century, 22, 27, 46, 51, 54, 58, 81, 106, 160, 163, 176, + 183, 184, 196, 202. + + Filleul, 148. + + Flanders, 6, 7, 28, 54, 68, 110, 121, 150, 163, 169, 176, 208. + + Flemish tapestry, 9, 79. + + Fleur-de-lis, use of, 38, 222. + + Florence factory, 223. + + Flowers, use of, 52, 180, 181. + + Flute, 4, 227, 228, 229. + + Fontainebleau, 91, 92. + + Foucquet, 100-105. + + Fouquet, Jean, 42. + + Fourteenth Century, 25, 27, 30, 106, 176, 183. + + France, 10, 28, 54, 90, 110, 163, 176, 252-257. + + Francis I, 90, 91. + + French terms, 4. + + Furniture, 133, 134, 135, 146, 149, 152, 159, 162. + + + Galloon, 173, 201, 204, 219, 221. + + Genoa, 89. + + Germany, 54, 160. + + Geubels, Jacques, 79, 221. + + Ghent, 66. + + Giotto, 27, 216. + + Giulio Romano, 73, 74, 84, 93, 118. + + Gobelin, Jean and Philibert, 105, 106. + + Gobelins, 10, 30, 90, 93, 99, 103-107, 109, 111, 112, 115-122, + 128-131, 133, 135, 137-145, 154, 159, 161, 162, 203, 205, 222, + 236, 252. + + Gobelins Museum (Paris), 92, 99, 252. + + Gold, use of, 6. + + Gonnor (Duchess), 21. + + Gonzaga, 61, 81. + + _Goose Girl, The_, 259. + + Gothic border, 60, 61. + + Gothic columns, use of, 39, 52, 177, 178. + + Gothic drawing, 174-177. + + Gothic flowers, 180, 181. + + Gothic period, 7, 8, 16, 52, 69, 188, 192. + + Gothic style, 5, 27, 53, 66. + + Greece, 18, 27. + + Greek drawing, 15. + + Greek influence, 186. + + _Grotesque Months_, 76, 127. + + Guildhall, 7. + + Guilds, 6, 7. + + + Halberstadt, Cathedral at, 23. + + Halle, 131. + + Hardwick Hall tapestries, 46. + + Harriman, Mrs. E. H., 263. + + Haute lisse, 3, 193, 194, 227. + + Helen, 19, 21. + + Helly, 35. + + Henri II, 92. + + Henri IV, 10, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 107, 146, 160, 161, 164, 165, + 212. + + Henry V, 31. + + Henry VIII, 164, 251. + + _Hero and Leander, History of_, 169. + + _Herse and Mercury_, 205. + + Herter, 238, 239, 263. + + High-loom, 15, 18. + + High-warp, 3, 16, 19, 27, 29, 95, 109, 157, 193, 227, 228, 229. + + Hinart, Louis, 146, 147. + + Hiss, Philip, 170, 224. + + _History of Alexander_, 115, 172, 197. + + _History of Constantine_, 112. + + _History of Esther_, 131, 132. + + _History of Gideon_, 36. + + _History of Hero and Leander_, 169. + + _History of Meleager_, 112. + + _History of the King_, 112, 113, 129, 222. + + _Holy Grail, The_, 258. + + _Horrors of the Seven Deadly Sins, The_, 51. + + _Hunt of Meleager_, 99. + + _Hunts of Louis XV_, 130, 188. + + + Identifications, 172-200. + + Iliad, influence of, 130. + + India, 18. + + Italy, 6, 10, 54, 71, 81, 86, 110, 152, 168, 208, 223. + + + James I, 164-167. + + Jans, Jean, 109, 126. + + John, Revelation of, 23. + + John without Fear, 36, 45. + + Jouvenet, 130. + + _Judgment of Paris, The_, 119. + + Jumeau, Pierre le, 28, 29. + + + Karcher, John, 82. + + Karcher, Nicholas, 76, 82, 84, 85, 223. + + _Kingdom of Heaven, The_, 59. + + King's Works, 171. + + + _Lady and the Unicorn, The_, 44, 54, 175, 181, 203. + + Lancaster, Duke of, 33. + + La Marche, 157, 158. + + La Planche, Raphael de, 96, 165, 166. + + Laurent, Henri, 95, 96, 109. + + Lebrun, 74, 99, 103, 104, 107, 109-120, 188, 203, 209, 211, 212, + 213. + + Lefevre (or Lefebvre), 98, 109, 126, 222, 223. + + Leipzig, 152. + + Leleu, 105. + + Leo X, Pope, 70, 71, 86. + + Leonardo da Vinci, 90. + + Le Pape, 147. + + Leprince, 151. + + Lerambert, Henri, 94, 211. + + Lettering, 183-184, 203. + + Leyniers, Nicolas, 221. + + Liege, tapestries of, 48. + + _Life of Marie de Medici_, 197. + + _Life of the King_, 114, 144, 188. + + Lisse, 3, 193. + + Loches, church of, 41. + + London, 165. + + "Long wool" (_longue laine_), 160. + + Looms, 3, 226-230. + + Lorenzo the Magnificent, 86. + + Louis XI, 36, 47, 48, 50, 54. + + Louis XII, 48. + + Louis XIII, 98. + + Louis XIV, 10, 97-107, 117, 118, 122, 129, 145, 155-157, 161, 188, + 203, 211, 212. + + Louis XV, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 150, 162, 191, 205, + 213. + + Louis XVI, 133, 136, 137, 152, 162. + + Louvois, 116-121. + + Louvre, 97, 108, 109, 115, 160, 161. + + _Loves of the Gods_, 132. + + Low-warp, 3, 78, 109, 114, 147, 157, 158, 193, 227, 228, 230. + + + Maecht, Philip de, 166, 170, 223, 224. + + Maincy, factory of. _See_ Vaux. + + Maintenon, Mme. de, 118, 122, 124. + + Mangelschot, 138. + + Mantegna, Andrea, 61, 73, 81, 171. + + Manufactory, Royal (Aubusson), 156. + + Marie Antoinette, 133, 137, 152. + + _Marie de Medici, Life of_, 197. + + Marie Therese, 118. + + Marks, 216-224. + + Martel, Charles, 154, 155. + + Mary's Chamber at Holyrood, 65. + + Master-weaver, 6. + + Matilda (Queen), 21, 242, 245. + + _Mausolus and Artemisia_, 93. + + Mazarin, Cardinal, 59, 100. + + Mazarin tapestry, 56, 196. + + Medici, 84, 92, 94. + + _Meleager and Atalanta_, 222. + + Memling, 55. + + Mercier, Pierre, 157. + + _Mercury_, 75, 76, 78, 196. + + Merton Abbey, 252, 257-261. + + Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15, 40, 42, 46, 52, 58, 59, 76, 80, + 162, 170, 174, 176, 187, 210, 238. + + Meulen, Francois de la, 114. + + Michael Angelo, 84. + + Micou, 148. + + Middle Ages, 5, 6, 7, 19, 21, 27, 42, 201. + + Mignard, Pierre, 119, 120, 121. + + Millefleurs, 4, 13. + + Missals, 5. + + Monasteries, influence of, 21, 22. + + Montespan, Mme. de, 118, 131, 148. + + Montezert, Pierre de, 158. + + _Months, The_, 112, 133, 197, 212. + + Morgan, J. P., 40, 56, 59, 128, 196, 250. + + Morris, William, 257-261. + + Mortlake, 163-171, 197, 223. + + Mozin, Jean Baptiste, 109. + + _Muses_, 104, 141. + + Museums, Boston Fine Arts, 15, 46, 56, 238; + Chicago Institute of Art, 47, 78, 221; + Cluny, 44, 54; + Gobelins (Paris), 92, 99, 252; + Metropolitan (New York), 15, 40, 42, 52, 58, 59, 76, 80, 162, + 170, 174, 176, 187, 210, 238; + Nancy, 37. + + _Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ, The_, 87, 208. + + + Nancy, Museum of, 37. + + Nantes, Edict of; its effect, 95, 118, 157. + + Napoleon, 136, 142, 143, 144, 208. + + _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, 144. + + Natoire, Charles, 151. + + Neilson, 132. + + Nineteenth Century, 255. + + Notre Dame, 21. + + + Otho, Count of Burgundy, 32. + + Oudenarde, 221. + + Oudry, 131, 148-152, 257. + + + Pannemaker, Wilhelm de, 62, 75, 220. + + Paris, 10, 28, 29, 30, 47, 51, 90, 98, 132, 163, 222, 229. + + Parrish, Maxfield, 264. + + Parrocel, Charles, 130. + + _Passing of Venus, The_, 259. + + Pendleton, Charlotte, 235. + + Penelope, 15, 16, 21, 227. + + Pepersack, Daniel, 99. + + Percier, 143. + + "_Perse, a la facon de, ou du Levant_," 160. + + Persia, 19. + + Personages, 4. + + Perspective, 175-177. + + Pharaohs, 18, 57. + + Philip the Good, 36. + + Philip the Hardy, 22, 29, 33, 34, 35, 45. + + Philippe (Regent), 122, 128, 134, 148, 236. + + Pickering, Sir Gilbert, 171. + + Pius X, Pope, 9. + + Planche, Francois de la, 95, 96, 97, 107. + + Poitiers, 23, 154, 155. + + Poitou, Count of, 23. + + _Portieres des Dieux_, 126. + + Portraits, 133, 140, 143, 162, 253. + + _Presentation in the Temple, The_, 30. + + + Quedlimburg Hanging, 25. + + Quentin Matsys, 58, 59. + + + Raphael, 9, 64, 67, 69, 70, 71, 79, 84, 118, 119, 145, 169, 187, + 189, 205, 207, 214, 216, 221. + + Ravaillac, 97. + + Renaissance, influence of, 9, 53, 61, 67, 68, 69, 70, 77, 78, 174, + 178, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192. + + _Renommes, Les_, 111. + + Repairs, 237-240. + + Revolution, French, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 152. + + _Reward of Virtue, The_, 51. + + Rheims, 99, 155. + + Richelieu, 99. + + Riesner, 107. + + Riviera, Giacomo della, 87. + + Rococo, 128. + + Roman influence, 186. + + Romanelli, 87, 88, 130. + + Romano, Giulio, 73, 74, 84, 93, 118. + + Rome, 18, 27. + + Rome, Jean de, or Jan von Room, 56, 58, 59, 216. + + Rost, John, 76, 84, 85, 223. + + Rouen, 21. + + Royal Collection, Madrid, 187. + + _Royal Hunts, The_, 130, 188. + + _Royal Residences, The_, 112, 197, 203, 212. + + Rubens, 79, 104, 110, 111, 112, 169, 187, 209, 210, 211, 214. + + Ryerson collection, 59, 60, 61. + + Ryswick, Peace of, 121. + + + _Sack of Jerusalem, The_, 45, 176. + + _Sacraments, The_, 38, 46, 52, 174, 176, 192. + + _Sacred and Profane Love_, 254. + + St. Denis, abbey of, 22. + + St. Florent, Abbot of, 23. + + St. Germain, 109. + + St. John the Divine, Cathedral of, 87, 88, 208. + + St. Marceau, 97. + + St. Merri, 95. + + Saracens, 28, 154, 155, 178. + + Sarrazinois, 28, 29, 47. + + Saumur, 20. + + Savonnerie, 97, 159-162. + + _Seasons, The_, 132. + + _Seven Cardinal Virtues, The_, 34. + + _Seven Cardinal Vices, The_, 34. + + _Seven Deadly Sins, The_, 6, 250. + + Seventeenth Century, 10, 76, 86, 96, 99, 123, 158, 160, 163, 180, + 185, 187, 194, 207, 208, 211. + + Sevigne, Mme. de, 101, 103. + + Sforza Castle, 90. + + Shaw, Byram, 260. + + Shuttle, 4. + + _Siege of Calais_, 141. + + Silver, use of, 6. + + Sixteenth Century, 29, 54, 56, 58, 62, 73, 74, 79, 163, 183, 187, + 221, 223. + + Sorel, Agnes, 41. + + Spain, 54. + + Spitzer, collection of Baron, 59, 60, 61. + + _Spring_, 180. + + Stockholm, 152. + + _Story of Christ, The_, 99. + + "Stromaturgie, La," 161. + + Stradano, 85. + + Sully, 94, 95, 164. + + Sumner, Howard, 260. + + + Tapissiers, 4, 5, 228. + + Tenth Century, 20, 22. + + Tessier, Louis, 135. + + Thirteenth Century, 25, 26, 27, 28. + + Titian, 73. + + Tournelles, 96, 97. + + Tours, 99. + + _Transfiguration, The_, 254. + + "Tres Riches Heures, Les," 41. + + Trinite, Hopital de la, 92, 93, 95, 97, 109. + + _Triumph of Caesar, The_, 171. + + _Triumph of Right, The_, 51. + + _Triumphs of the Gods_, 74. + + _Troy, History of_, 81. + + Troy, J. F. de, 131. + + _Truth Blindfolded_, 260. + + Tuileries, 97. + + Tuscans, 27. + + Twelfth Century, 23, 28. + + + Urban VIII, History of, 88. + + Urbino, Duke Frederick of, 81. + + + Valliere, Mme. de la, 118. + + Van Aelst, 70, 71, 86, 220, 221, 222. + + Van den Strecken, Gerard, 80, 222. + + Van der Straaten, Johan, 85. + + Van Dyck, 169. + + Van Eycks, 27, 55, 58. + + Van Orley, Bernard, 55, 220. + + Vaux, factory of, 99, 103, 105, 111, 112. + + Venice, 10, 89. + + _Venus_, 180. + + Verdure, 4, 158, 222. + + Vermeyen, Jan, 62. + + Veronese, Paolo, 73. + + Versailles, 109. + + _Vertumnus and Pomona, The Loves of_, 76, 78, 220. + + Vignory, Count of, 131. + + _Virgin and Saints_, 21. + + _Visit of Louis XIV to the Gobelins_, 113. + + Von Zedlitz, Anna, 170, 224. + + Vouet, Simon, 211. + + _Vulcan, The Expulsion of_, 170, 224. + + _Vulcan, Story of_, 169. + + + Warp, 232. + + Watteau, Andre, 126, 188. + + Wauters, 87. + + Weave, 194-196. + + Weavers, 5. + + Webb, Philip, 260. + + William the Conqueror, 242. + + Williamsbridge, 262. + + Winterhalter, 253. + + Woolsey, Cardinal, 250. + + + Zegre, Jean, 103. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +Minor typographic errors of spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have +been repaired. Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as +printed. + +The following errors in facing page number references have been repaired: + + Page 61--plate reference to page 81 amended to 82. + + Page 76--plate references for the "Vertumnus and Pomona" + series amended from 39 through 42 to 72 through 75. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Tapestry Book, by Helen Churchill Candee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TAPESTRY BOOK *** + +***** This file should be named 26151.txt or 26151.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/1/5/26151/ + +Produced by Eileen Gormly, Alicia Williams (who did the +scanning, image prep, and OCR), Sam W. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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