Helen Churchill Candee · Public domain edition · 101 cards · 27 chapters
Helen Churchill Candee’s The Tapestry Book surveys the history, technique, and production of European tapestry, from loom mechanics and workshop roles to the Gobelins factory and church patronage. The deck covers her definitions, historical evidence, illustrations, and acknowledgments.
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Chapter 1 · Question
What does the frontispiece of The Tapestry Book depict, and who wove it?
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Chapter 1 · Answer
The frontispiece is a colour plate of 'Herse and Mercury,' a Renaissance Brussels tapestry from an Italian cartoon, woven by W. de Pannemaker. It belongs to the collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., of New York. The book was published by Frederick A. Stokes Company in 1912 and contains four colour plates and ninety-nine black-and-white illustrations.
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Introduction4 cards
What does the frontispiece of The Tapestry Book depict, and who wove it?
The frontispiece is a colour plate of 'Herse and Mercury,' a Renaissance Brussels tapestry from an Italian cartoon, woven by W. de Pannemaker. It belongs to the collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., of New York. The book was published by Frederick A. Stokes Company in 1912 and contains four colour plates and ninety-nine black-and-white illustrations.
Chapter 1
How does the author acknowledge museum staff who assisted her research?
The author explains that modesty dominates museum staff so thoroughly that she is requested not to name the officers who helped her. Instead she publicly thanks the officers and assistants at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Print Department of the Library of Congress, regretting that she may not speak of individuals.
Chapter 1
Which chapters of The Tapestry Book cover the Gobelins Factory?
The table of contents devotes four consecutive chapters to the Gobelins Factory: Chapter X, Chapter XI, Chapter XII, and Chapter XIII, spanning pages 105 through 144. This is the longest single-factory treatment in the book, longer than Beauvais, Aubusson, Savonnerie, or Mortlake, each of which receives one chapter.
Chapter 1
What subjects and origins appear among the listed tapestry illustrations?
The illustration list ranges widely: Coptic tapestries around 300 A.D. in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a Peruvian tapestry from graves dated before the sixteenth century, the fifteenth-century 'Lady and the Unicorn' at the Musee de Cluny, Raphael-derived 'Death of Ananias,' Mortlake 'Vulcan and Venus' series, and Merton Abbey works by Burne-Jones.
Chapter 1
CHAPTER I4 cards
According to the chapter, what two views drive American interest in tapestries?
The author cites two shrewd men: one cultivated buyer urges purchasing good old tapestries because "there are no more," while the other sees only the commercial side, saying prices are out of sight and rising. The author argues both views are right and together underlie the keen American interest, alongside the thought that Europe's collections can never be equalled.
Chapter 2
How does this book define tapestry, and what does it exclude?
The author defines tapestry as a pictured cloth woven by an artist or talented craftsman, in which the design is an integral part of the fabric rather than an embroidery stitched onto a basic tissue. With this flat statement, the author says, the review of tapestries from antiquity to the present may be read without mistaking the term.
Chapter 2
What distinguishes high-warp from low-warp looms, and can their work be told apart?
The looms are called high-warp and low-warp, or haute lisse and basse lisse. The author notes the high loom was used in celebrated weaving periods and credited with almost mysterious power, yet the two styles are not distinguishable by weave alone; low-warp looms were used in France when the Crown established manufacture about 1600. Weavers once needed a red thread in the border to tell them apart.
Chapter 2
What roles did the director, artist, chef d'atelier, tapissiers, and apprentices hold?
The factory was guided by a director. Each tapestry had a directing artist, since design was primary, and he selected silks and wools to suit his eye for colour. A chef d'atelier, an artist weaver, directed these matters when the cartoon's artist was absent. Below were the tapissiers doing actual weaving, and apprentices who began as boys and served three years before attempting a 'prentice job.
Chapter 2
CHAPTER II4 cards
What evidence does the chapter give that ancient weaving resembled later European tapestry?
The author argues that Coptic tapestry of the Third Century was woven in the same manner as later European tapestries, with dyes and shading treatment identical to Gothic times. Penelope's pictured loom matches the modern high-warp loom in principle, and the Egyptian loom shown in ancient pictures is described as even more modern than Penelope's, though set up three thousand years earlier.
Chapter 3
Why were early medieval tapestries so closely associated with the church and monasteries?
The author explains that monasteries offered immunity from attack, were built strong and well manned, and became safe-deposit treasure-houses for valuables. The arts and crafts of the Middle Ages fell to monks and friars, the only persons with safety and leisure. Many tapestries deposited for asylum became gifts to the institutions, and the clergy also handled literacy, so even nobles like Philip the Hardy signed orders with a mark.
Chapter 3
What does the chapter record about the town of Saumur and Abbot Robert in the Tenth Century?
By the Tenth Century records improve. The third Abbot Robert of the Monastery of St. Florent at Saumur ordered a quantity of wall-hangings, carpets, curtains, and seat covers woven of wool. He also ordered two pieces of tapestry not exclusively wool but with silk introduced, whose figures were the favourite beasts of decoration, still showing Oriental drawing's influence.
Chapter 3
How does the chapter describe the condition of art and weaving in the early Middle Ages?
The author argues Europe in the Middle Ages was savage and devastated by war, so art was dead. Designs were timid and stunted, far from the field of art, and scant attention was given to refinements when looms and weavers might be destroyed. By the Tenth Century matters improved and records begin, though high-warp weaving was not universally used in Europe in the first part of the Middle Ages.
Chapter 3
CHAPTER III4 cards
Why did castle rooms in the Thirteenth Century begin to be hung with tapestry?
The political situation had improved, so men no longer slept in armour and valuables were not thrust into coffers at every alarm. Homes grew less rude in comfort, and woven draperies covered the grim asperities of stone walls. The chapter notes that tapestry was originally suspended loosely from the upper edge only, falling in folds that gave decorative value and an appearance of movement to figures and foliage.
Chapter 4
How did hanging tapestries aid eavesdroppers in the Thirteenth Century?
Hangings were suspended a foot or two away from the wall, so a man or woman could slip behind and witness conversations to which the listener had not been invited. It was therefore customary, on occasions of intimate and secret converse, lightly to thrust a sharpened blade behind the curtains. As in Hamlet, the sword might pierce a human quarry, so much the worse for the listener.
Chapter 4
Which cities were the best-known high-warp centres in the late Thirteenth and early Fourteenth Centuries?
The best-known high-warp factories were centred in northern and midland provinces of France and Flanders, with Paris and Arras most famed. They supplied the rest of Europe, so skilled technique was lost elsewhere; later Italy, Germany and England had to ask instruction of Franco-Flemish workers. The chapter says it is not possible for either Paris or Arras to claim invention of so nearly prehistoric an art.
Chapter 4
What happened to the Paris tapestry industry after 1422?
Just when design and execution were at their highest excellence and production was prolific, Henry V of England crossed the Channel and occupied Paris in 1422. 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. The chapter calls this the event that crushed the industry.
Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV4 cards
Which city advanced tapestry art more than Paris, and gave the fabric its name?
The chapter says Arras, with fewer distractions for its craftsmen and ducal and royal patronage, advanced the art more than its celebrated neighbour Paris. Arras gave the fabric its name, appearing in England as 'arras' and in Italy as 'arazzo.' The author notes the question of whether Arras began as early as Paris is better left unsettled, furnishing happy controversy between champions of the two opinions.
Chapter 5
How did Philip the Hardy's tapestries serve as diplomatic gifts and ransom?
At the 1393 peace talks with the English in a thatched chapel, Philip the Hardy covered the ruined walls with battle-subject tapestries and gave the English dukes superb Flemish tapestries. Later, tapestries of Arras, including a suite on Alexander the Great, were contributed to the ransom that persuaded Bajazet to free the French nobles captured in 1396. The author notes this as authentic evidence of Arras tapestries entering England.
Chapter 5
What happened to Charles the Bold's tapestries after his defeat by the Swiss?
Charles the Bold hung his campaign tent with magnificent tapestries, but after foolhardy onslaughts on the Swiss he lost his battles, his life, and his tapestries. The simple Swiss mountaineers, unfamiliar with tapestries' value, valued them as thick woollen cloth against the cold, so many were sold by length in shops for bed-covers or table squares. Some Burgundian tapestries thus hang in Berne's cathedral and Nancy's museums.
Chapter 5
What does the Metropolitan Museum's set 'The Sacraments' depict and how is it characterized?
The set of seven pieces, about 1430 Arras work, depicts Baptism, Marriage, Confirmation and Extreme Unction, first by ideal representations, then by everyday ceremonies of Joan of Arc's time. The author praises its simple, honest drawing, limited figures, fleur-de-lis background, Gothic columns and stained-glass-like colouring, calling it the most interesting primitive work on public view in America, given by J. Pierpont Morgan. A bungling repairer turned pieces wrong side out and inserted sections cut from another tapestry.
Chapter 5
IV. It reads:4 cards
What did Colbert establish at the Gobelins in September 1667?
In September 1667 Colbert established the manufacture of the furniture (meubles) of the Crown in the Gobelins buildings, under the direction of Charles Lebrun. The chapter notes this date differs from 1662, which it treats as the beginning of the modern French tapestry industry; 1667 marks the Gobelins as a manufactory of many luxury products, not tapestries alone.
Chapter 6
Why does the chapter say state support was the secret of Louis XIV's success?
The author argues that with the Crown's coffers Louis XIV rewarded artists above mere living, freeing each for the best expression of his own art. State-supported ateliers no longer depended on commercialism, unlike earlier masters who had to be artists and commercial men at once. This made possible men such as Boulle, Riesner and Caffieri.
Chapter 6
How did Lebrun organize the many artists working under him?
Lebrun did not leave one artist to compose an entire picture; each was chosen for a specialty. One drew figures, another animals, another trees, another architecture, while Lebrun composed and harmonized the whole. The chapter calls him the leader of an orchestra and the others the instruments he controlled.
Chapter 6
What does the chapter say about the borders of the History of the King set?
The borders were Lebrun's special care, described as the acme of perfection in decoration, classic yet French. Three pieces added late in the reign have different borders, which the chapter calls a deteriorating change after Lebrun's passing. Later repetitions were on low-warp, reduced in size, and lacked the superb decorative border Lebrun composed.
Chapter 6
CHAPTER V4 cards
What change in tapestry design occurred around the early sixteenth century?
The chapter states that cartoons at the beginning of the sixteenth century were no longer all divided into scenes by Gothic columns and arches. Much fine work had no division except a natural one, as the picture began treating a single scene in one picture. Groups could still fill it, but all formed a harmonious whole, and the practice of repeating the same individual many times in one picture fell into disuse.
Chapter 7
What happened to Arras's weavers when Louis XI attacked the town?
The chapter explains that tapestries were a heavy article of commerce, so the industry did not decline with a town's fortunes. When Arras was crushed, her able workmen flew to other centres of production, principally in Flanders, notably Bruges and Brussels, helping to bring those places into their high position. Trade also crossed the Channel for the best wool, and tapestries were bought by French monarchs and nobility and sold through Genoa and Italy.
Chapter 7
How does the chapter describe Gothic flowers in tapestries?
The author describes the little Gothic blossoms as a perennial beauty and one of the smiles of that far time. Unlike Renaissance flowers, they do not crown columns or trail in foliated scrolls but are just as Nature meant them, unaffected bits of colour and grace springing from the sod. The cathedral at Berne shows them at the feet of the sacred group, with feathery fern-like branches carrying the eye skyward.
Chapter 7
What does the Boston tapestry of the Red Sea illustrate about Brussels work?
The chapter says this hanging shows one scene of many groups with a sole interest and only probable divisions. It displays grace and freedom in the attitudes of those on shore, strenuous effort and despair among the engulfed soldiers, extreme attention to detail, and a sense of proportion in dress ornament absent from earlier exaggerated patterns. The author argues these show the immense strides in drawing and the perfection attained in Brussels' brilliant period.
Chapter 7
CHAPTER VI3 cards
What 1515 commission brought Raphael's cartoons to Brussels weavers?
Pope Leo X ordered a set of the Acts of the Apostles to hang in the Sistine Chapel. Raphael drew the scenes and elaborated the borders himself. The cartoons were sent to the Brussels ateliers, where Peter van Aelst executed them in three or four years. The Pope paid $130,000 for the weaving; Raphael received $1,000 per cartoon. The chapter calls this the decisive turning point away from the Gothic method.
Chapter 8
How did Gothic tapestry figures and perspective change over time?
In very early work, figures are few, all equally accented in size and finish. Later, as the laws of perspective were better understood, subordinates to the subject were drawn smaller. This allowed more personages and the introduction of horses, dogs, and little wild animals. The chapter treats these details as a chief means of classifying and distinguishing Gothic tapestries, alongside verdure, architectural detail, and simple colour schemes.
Chapter 8
What was the Brussels tapestry mark from 1528 and its penalty?
From 1528 Brussels tapestries bore two large B's on either side of a shield or scutcheon, woven into a plain band on the border. Before this, Brussels work was not always distinguishable from other looms. Misuse of the mark was punished by loss of the right hand, ending the culprit's career as a weaver. The mark was meant to discourage fraud and protect the city's reputation.
Chapter 8
CHAPTER VII4 cards
What liberty did weavers traditionally have when reproducing painted models before Raphael's cartoons?
Before executing the Raphael cartoons, the tapissier was allowed much liberty in translating a painted model to the loom: he might change the colour of a drapery or even the position of a figure. He also kept stock figures, such as Adam and Eve or lovely ladies, that he could slip in to fill a space.
Chapter 9
What laws did Charles V make regarding tapestry marks in 1544?
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. The Brussels workshop shield and double B had been required after 1528 on all tapestries beyond a certain small size.
Chapter 9
Why did Brussels tapestry quality decline despite its commercial success?
Brussels accepted more orders than it could fill, so directors forced weavers into hasty production. Expedients included weaving large tapestries in sections joined afterward, and painting or dyeing woven parts with ill-chosen colours. Guild and royal restrictions multiplied in response, until weavers were so hampered that work lost enthusiasm and originality.
Chapter 9
How did Rubens's cartoons change the weaver's role in tapestry making?
Rubens's great dramatic scenes required direct copying from the canvas, with no liberty of line or colour allowed the weaver. Previously the tapissier, with talent nearly equal to the cartoonist's, altered at his discretion. The author argues this shift turned tapestries from decorative fabrics into paintings in wool, and that the change was not happy for tapestry.
Chapter 9
CHAPTER VIII4 cards
Which Italian family first brought Flemish weavers to Mantua around 1450?
The Gonzaga family is the first named in the records. They called important Flemish weavers down to Mantua, where designs of Mantegna were woven about 1450, in the highest day of the factory's production. The chapter presents this as Italy's earliest entry into producing the tapestries it had previously imported from beyond its northern borders.
Chapter 10
Who founded the Arazzeria Medicea and why, according to the chapter?
The Arazzeria Medicea was the direct result of the jealousy of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1537-1574), toward the d'Este tapestry success. Established in Florence, it endured until the family's extinction in 1737 removed its patronage. The chapter says the Medici looked with envious eyes on any innovation distinguishing a family that nearly approached their own importance.
Chapter 10
What ended the Ferrara tapestry factory, and during which years did it operate?
The factory's life spanned 1534 to 1597, the years of dukes Ercole II and Alfonso II. The chapter calls it a sad commentary on man's lust for novelty that the factory was ultimately abandoned because of the introduction into the country of the brilliant metal-illuminated leathers of Cordova. Its success had earlier allowed it to sell to the public.
Chapter 10
How does the chapter describe Stradano's effect on Florentine tapestry design?
The chapter states that Stradano, or Johan van der Straaten, was appointed dominating artist around the death of Cosimo I in 1574. It describes him as a man without fine artistic feeling, delighting in the exaggerations of decadence rather than restraint, grafting Northern philistinism onto decline. His prolific brush, combined with quicker weaving methods replacing Rost and Karcher's standards, made post-1600 tapestries lamentably inferior.
Chapter 10
CHAPTER IX4 cards
Who established the royal tapestry factory at Fontainebleau, and why did it not long outlast him?
Francis I established a royal tapestry factory at Fontainebleau, inspired by tapestries he saw in Italy and Spain. The chapter says its weavings adorned the apartments of the very people who commissioned them, since state ateliers did not yet exist; therefore the factory outlasted Francis's reign only a short time. Examples of its work, including a History of Diana series, survive in the Gobelins Museum.
Chapter 11
What was the History of Mausolus and Artemisia, and whom did Artemisia symbolize?
It was a celebrated set of fifteen tapestries from the La Trinite factory, woven by Maurice du Bourg from designs by Henri Lerambert and Antoine Carron. It was an open secret that Artemisia, Queen of Halicarnassus, stood for the widowed Catherine de Medici, who enjoyed posing as the most famous of widows. French writers credit the set with inspiring a distinctively French Renaissance.
Chapter 11
How did De la Planche and Comans finance their tapestry enterprise?
The two Flemings ran their first tapestry venture as a private enterprise, supplying the money themselves. Combining artist and businessman, they took on apprentices and set up looms in the provinces, notably Tours and Amiens, where they sold cheaper work to smaller purses for a quick market. That income supported production of the finer works of art that survive today.
Chapter 11
What did Henri IV contribute to French tapestry, and what ended many of these industries?
Henri IV established high- and low-warp factories despite opposition from his minister Sully, who favored agriculture and saw tapestry as vicious luxury. He placed Du Bourg in the Louvre and Laurent in the Tuileries in 1607, and set Comans and De la Planche over looms at Les Tournelles. The assassin Ravaillac's dagger killed the king and dealt a blow to many industries he had cherished.
Chapter 11
CHAPTER X4 cards
Why did Colbert move Foucquet's looms from Vaux to Paris?
Colbert saw the wisdom of taking direction for King Louis XIV of the looms at Foucquet's chateau. Because travel was difficult enough to make concentrating points of interest desirable, he transferred the looms of Vaux to Paris. He then needed a suitable habitat, and chose the Hotel des Gobelins, a collection of buildings on the edge of Paris beside the brook Bievre, owned by Sieur Leleu and sold on June 6, 1662.
Chapter 12
Who were the Gobelin brothers and what trade did they follow?
Late in the Fifteenth Century the brothers Jean and Philibert Gobelin came to Paris to follow their trade of dyeing. Their ambition was to produce a scarlet dye like that they had seen in Venice. They settled by the Bievre, a brook whose water had the qualities dyes needed. They succeeded so well that later descendants became cultivated gentlemen, far removed from trades or bartering.
Chapter 12
What does the marble tablet at the Gobelins commemorate?
The tablet at the Gobelins, freely translated, 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." The chapter notes the tale of the conscientious dyers carries an obvious moral and smacks of the honesty of a labour to which much is owed.
Chapter 12
How did the name Gobelins come to mean fine tapestry?
The Gobelins name tells not only of the two original dyers but of their descendants' later efforts in weaving, and finally it has come to mean the finest modern product of the hand loom. Just as Arras named tapestry in the Fourteenth Century, so the Gobelins has given its name to the time of Louis XIV, even down to the present day, especially in Europe, where the word tapestry is far less used than in America.
Chapter 12
CHAPTER XI4 cards
Who succeeded Colbert in 1684, and how did this affect Lebrun and the Gobelins?
Colbert died in 1684 and was succeeded by his enemy Louvois, who had long resented Colbert's success, especially the navy. Louvois clipped Lebrun's artistic wings, discouraging new models and restricting the director, even denying him the golden threads needed for sumptuous tapestries. The author argues this petty persecution had a benumbing effect on the factory's productions.
Chapter 13
What change did Madame de Maintenon impose on Gobelins tapestries, and which hanging exemplifies it?
Madame de Maintenon scented outraged modesty in tapestries woven from Raphael, Giulio Romano and classicist models, and ordered the naked gods of Olympus to be clothed. Weavers actually wove pictured garments into the hangings where limbs and curves had been cut away. The hanging called The Judgment of Paris is one altered to suit the refinement of the times.
Chapter 13
What two sources of cartoons came into vogue after Lebrun's influence was curtailed?
Two methods of supply for designs came in vogue. One was to turn to old masters of Italy's high Renaissance for drawings, bringing fables and myths into use so palace walls showed Greek gods instead of modern ones; Raphael and his school were carefully copied. The second, chosen by Louvois, was to search among previous celebrated tapestries and have them copied without change.
Chapter 13
When did the Gobelins factory decline, close, and later revive under whose direction?
The factory was at its best until 1688, then declined as Louis XIV's wars and persecutions drained the treasury. Mignard, director from 1691, did nothing to revive it; after his death in 1695 the ateliers closed and weavers scattered, the inactive years being 1694 to 1697. Power was later given to Jules Robert de Cotte (1699-1735) to raise the fallen Gobelins, attracting artists like Claude Audran.
Chapter 13
CHAPTER XII1 cards
What was the Grotesque Months in Bands and for whom was it made?
Audran and collaborators produced this set of portieres for the Grand Dauphin to decorate his room at the chateau at Meudon. It has three panels, each with a deity, graceful compositions above and below, and a lozenge or diaper border bearing the royal double L and the dolphin. It was woven only once at the royal factory, since Audran's border was too personal for other chambers.
Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIII4 cards
How did Louis XV's reign change the scale and purpose of Gobelins tapestry?
Under Louis XV, tapestry shrank from wall hangings to furniture coverings—chair seats, sofas and screens—as small chambers came into vogue. The author argues this lowered the dignity of the art, and the Gobelins put itself on the same footing as Beauvais, causing later confusion between the two factories' products. Louis Tessier designed simple flower bouquets on damask backgrounds for furniture with great elegance.
Chapter 15
What did Augustin Belle do at the Gobelins during the Revolution, and why?
Augustin Belle, placed at the head of the factory during Jean Audran's imprisonment, curried favour with the mob by causing many superb tapestries to be destroyed by fire, on the grounds that they contained emblems of royalty and reminders of the hated race of kings. The author calls this a deplorable and ruthless waste of beauty. A celebrated bonfire was built in the Gobelins courtyard by order of the Committee on Selection.
Chapter 15
Why were sixty royal tapestries burned at La Monnaie under the Directory?
Funds were scarce in bleeding France, so a minister suggested burning tapestries from the royal collection to recover the gold and silver woven into them, echoing Louis XIV's melting of precious metals into bullion. Sixty superb pieces were transported to the court of La Monnaie and burned to the last thread, yielding 60,000 livres—showing how richly endowed with metal threads they were. A commission presided over the sacrifice and pronounced it good.
Chapter 15
How did Napoleon direct the Gobelins factory and what style did David set?
Napoleon made the Gobelins his especial care, acting as director himself and allowing no loom to set patterns without his sanction—even his campaigns left this order operative. David, court painter, set a classic style of technical exactness with Greek and Roman motives, dotted with bees and eagles. The throne-room set included eight armchairs, six smaller chairs, two dozen classic seats, and screens, with red backgrounds woven in gold wreaths and laurel and oak branches.
Chapter 15
CHAPTER XIV4 cards
How did the founding purpose of Beauvais differ from that of Gobelins?
Both were founded under Louis XIV by Colbert in 1664, but the Gobelins was founded for the king, supplying palaces and chateaux of royalty and its friends. Beauvais was founded for commerce, intended to supply any buyers so that profit would benefit the country. The king granted it letters patent and large sums, a lesser duplicate of the Gobelins appropriations, minus the furniture department.
Chapter 16
What was Louis Hinart's fate as director of Beauvais?
Hinart was appointed to construct and stock the buildings with a royal appropriation of 60,000 livres, engaging a hundred workers the first year with prizes offered for foreign workmen and for each tapestry sold for export. Despite weaving hundreds of tapestries, the expected heavy foreign patronage never materialized and verdures for home consumption did not cover expenses. After twenty years of struggle he was completely ruined and ceded direction to Philip Behagle, a Fleming of Tournai.
Chapter 16
What success did Philip Behagle bring to the Beauvais factory?
Behagle, more energetic than Hinart and gifted with initiative, set the high-warp looms working with extraordinary activity, reproducing ambitious pieces including the Raphael Acts of the Apostles and contemporary battle scenes now in Sweden's royal collection. He also set up a school of design under Le Pape, from which grew the smaller patterns that made the factory famous. The author credits him with both artistic and commercial success, which continued as long as he lived.
Chapter 16
Why did Oudry's direction produce the La Fontaine Fables designs?
Oudry was pre-eminently a painter of animals, and the era tended to draw cartoons in suites while furniture coverings were in demand. Together these explain the Fables of La Fontaine designs seen on old tapestried chairs. Oudry composed them, put his best animal-painter work into them, and set them on Beauvais looms many times. They were an immediate success and became the fashion of the day, though other factories copied the series.
Chapter 16
XIV.4 cards
What did the earliest legitimate Gothic tapestry borders depict, and how were they tied?
The first true borders used the same flowers and leaves found in Gothic carving, mixed with small clustered fruit like grapes or berries. Because flowers and fruit cannot stand upright forever, the weaver tied the mass here and there with a knot of ribbon, kept between two lines of solid-coloured galloon, letting the ribbon flaunt itself.
Chapter 17
How did Raphael change border design, and what example is cited?
The author argues Raphael set the fashion of dividing the border into many sections, so daintily the eye scarce notes the division. He preferred this treatment in the border for the Acts of the Apostles. An almost unrivalled example, Herse and Mercury, is in George Blumenthal's private collection, with picture following picture in charming succession.
Chapter 17
What did Seventeenth-Century Italian and Flemish borders introduce, and what was the effect?
They introduced the cartouche, a field for blazoning a patron's arms, which divided the border into medallions. The author argues the effect is like a boxful of old brooches set symmetrically around a frame, with spaces filled by miscellaneous ornament on a sumptuous scale — confusing and a far cry from harmony, though time and colour lend them beauty.
Chapter 17
How did Rubens and Lebrun correct the excesses of later borders?
The author argues Rubens in the North and Lebrun in France brought art strength under intellectual control, restoring scale and harmony so mere bulk and space-filling gave way. Rubens hung swags and amorini from a strong architectural moulding with hooks and rings, making the improbable seem probable. Lebrun harked back to classical amphorae, foliated scrolls and light grotesques.
Chapter 17
CHAPTER XV4 cards
What legend explains the origin of weaving at Aubusson?
The town's tradition holds that after Charles Martel defeated the Saracens at Poitiers in 732, some subdued Saracens from Spain stayed rather than return to Africa, settling near Aubusson and falling into their home-craft of weaving. The chapter presents this as legend, crediting them with giving the town its earliest looms.
Chapter 18
What three faults at Aubusson did Louis XIV and Colbert seek to remedy in 1664?
The chapter names poor cartoons uncontrolled by any artist, coarse harsh wool, and badly done dyeing. Louis XIV offered the sixteen hundred weavers the title of Royal Manufactory and promised to send an artist to draw worthily and a master of fast, lovely dyeing. Colbert drew up lengthy articles and stipulations governing the craft.
Chapter 18
What happened to Aubusson's workforce after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685?
The chapter states Aubusson lost two hundred of its best workers, since Protestants had been among the best workers in Louis' kingdom. Germany received some of the fugitives, notably Pierre Mercier. Nearby Felletin and Bellegarde, forming with Aubusson the group of factories of La Marche, suffered equally from the king's act.
Chapter 18
What two rules of faith did Aubusson adhere to after its 1731 revival?
After 1731, when painters Jean Joseph du Mons and Pierre de Montezert arrived with an able dyer, prosperity began anew. The chapter says Aubusson holds two articles of faith: the looms shall be invariably low, and the warp threads shall be wool and wool only. This productiveness has lasted ever since.
Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVI4 cards
Where did the Savonnerie style originate and how did it get its name?
The stitch came from the East, copied from an Oriental rug technique rather than imitating Oriental color or design. The industry was established in the early seventeenth century under Henri IV, with Pierre Dupont styled its inventor but better called the adaptor. The name Savonnerie came from the old soap factory where the first looms were set up, making the velvet pile's name a misnomer.
Chapter 19
What was Pierre Dupont's role in Savonnerie weaving?
Pierre Dupont is styled the inventor of the velvet pile in tapestry, though the chapter argues it is better to call him the adaptor, since the stitch came from the East. He was one of the enthusiasts Henri IV gathered with the best high- and low-warp masters of France, and served as director of tapestry works under Henri IV. He wrote 'La Stromaturgie' and vaunted French production over that of Turkey.
Chapter 19
Where were Savonnerie products mainly used, and which furniture styles suited them?
Savonnerie never had much vogue on walls; its legitimate place was the floor, softening and brightening rooms previously left to bare tile or parquet. It later crept onto chair backs and seats and into panelled screens. The softness of the weave made it especially appropriate to furniture of the luxurious interiors of the Louis XV and Louis XVI styles.
Chapter 19
How did royal patronage affect Savonnerie, and what became of the industry?
Under royal patronage Savonnerie gained a dignity it struggled to retain, since its products belonged on floors. The Gobelins factory finally absorbed Savonnerie after it had been established in the Louvre. Louis XIV encouraged its continuance, gathering it under the Gobelins roof, and a large royal order of ninety-two pieces was intended for the Grand Galerie of the Louvre, many now conserved by the State.
Chapter 19
CHAPTER XVII4 cards
Why did James I secretly recruit Flemish weavers for Mortlake?
James I secretly coaxed fifty expert weavers from Flanders before the Dutch authorities realized their skilled workers were being taken. Each weaver was bound to secrecy, lest the Low Countries ban their departure before the king had his full quota for the new venture. The weavers were also urged to become naturalized so they would be more likely to stay and to bring over other skilled workers.
Chapter 20
What role did Sir Francis Crane play at Mortlake, and what befell him?
James I appointed Sir Francis Crane director of the works when they were founded in 1619, giving him royal favour, a building, imported workers, and money. Crane's private fortune was spent supporting the factory, and he petitioned the king in 1623 when wages went unpaid. Under Charles I he recovered his advances and grew rich through land grants, dying in 1636.
Chapter 20
What conditions made Mortlake's tapestries superior in its peak decade?
The author argues Mortlake excelled because it was the king's pet project, Crane was an able and devoted director, its artistic inspiration came from Italy, and its weavers came from Flanders. Tapestries were fashionable, Mortlake had almost no rival since Brussels had declined and the Gobelins was not yet formed, and English wool, especially from Kent, was ideal for weaving.
Chapter 20
Why did the Mortlake works decline and finally close?
After Sir Francis Crane died in 1636, Richard Crane could not sustain the works and the king took them over as King's Works. Civil wars from 1642 brought harder times, and after Charles I was beheaded the Commonwealth tried to keep the industry alive. Cheaper foreign imports, anti-Catholic feeling that expelled Catholic weavers, and poverty among buyers led to a petition in 1702 and closure in 1703.
Chapter 20
CHAPTER XVIII4 cards
What three features does the author recommend studying to identify a tapestry?
The author recommends first the drawing, to place the piece in its general school; second the border, since borders reflect the epoch of weaving even when the central cartoon is older; and last the marks in the galloon, which are often absent or unknown but instantly identify when recognized.
Chapter 21
Why does the author consider flat, perspective-less Gothic design superior for tapestry?
The author argues that flat arrangement keeps attention within the chamber rather than leading it out through perspective or distant landscapes, so the figures seem to enter the viewer's presence. Figures stand in the foreground with equal stature, and the centre of vision sits high, with robes filling the lower space.
Chapter 21
How do Gothic columns in tapestries help date a piece?
Slender columns first serve to separate scenes within one hanging, resembling northern Gothic cathedral shafts. The observer can use the shaft shape, whether round or hectagonal, and the capital ornament as clues: a tapestry with a capital designed in 1500 could not have been made before that time. Later columns show Saracen and Renaissance influence.
Chapter 21
What characteristics distinguish Gothic tapestry flowers?
Gothic flowers are simple, small, and natural, never exaggerated in size like later Renaissance blossoms. Weavers placed them low in the picture and used them as space-fillers, with petals facing the observer and little bell shapes hanging regularly. The author notes their irrelevancy too, springing from stones or pavement.
Chapter 21
CHAPTER XIX4 cards
How can Renaissance details in a supposedly Gothic tapestry help date it?
The author argues that if Renaissance details such as classic columns or temples appear in a hanging called Gothic, the piece must have been woven after Europe was infected with modern art. This check helps prevent slipping dates back too far into antiquity, a tendency the author says people in a new country are entirely guilty of.
Chapter 22
How did tapestry borders evolve from early Gothic to the Renaissance?
Early Gothic borders were a narrow line of flowers and berries, later enlarged with bigger blossoms and fruit like pears and apples, kept within tape lines until leaves overleaped them. Renaissance borders grew to exceeding width, divided into squares each containing a scene, sometimes fine enough to serve as models for a tapestry center. By the Eighteenth Century borders became coarse and inflated.
Chapter 22
Why did Gothic tapestry colours differ from later Renaissance colours?
Early Gothic colours resembled stained glass: rich, simple, unshaded, with dyers limiting themselves to twelve or perhaps twenty colours. The Renaissance, needing to portray more sophisticated tales and higher intellectual development, demanded a longer colour scale. As tapestries became paintings in wool with thousands of blended threads, time fading the dyes reduced subtle shading to flat monotones, which the author says makes simpler work more valued today.
Chapter 22
What does a black tracing on the warp reveal about a tapestry's manufacture?
The black tracing on the warp is a sign that high-warp (haute lisse) weavers used it to assist copying the artist's cartoon, indicating the prized high-warp manufacture rather than low-warp (basse lisse). The author notes low-warp should not be disparaged, since in the great French period around the Gobelins' formation it was almost as well executed and valued. Artists before the Seventeenth Century also used black outlines to strengthen figures.
Chapter 22
CHAPTER XX3 cards
Why did early tapestries have a plain woven galloon edging instead of a decorative border?
The galloon served two practical purposes: it finished the work neatly, like hemming a napkin, and provided plain material for hanging the tapestry on hooks. Tapestries of that era were constantly moved, hung and unhung on poorly spaced hooks, and handled roughly, so they suffered wear. The tape border helped protect them. Surviving examples from that time are mainly religious pieces, preserved in convents and cathedrals.
Chapter 23
How did the decorative flower border develop in the early fifteenth century?
The author describes a weaver who, sitting at his wools, let some flowers spill onto the dark galloon edging his work. The effect pleased him, so he experimented further, drawing flowers from designs like The Lady and the Unicorn and weaving them into a solid, symmetrical garland frame. To distinguish these from the delicate blossoms in the main picture, he made them bolder and edged the whole with a two-inch line of solid maroon or blue.
Chapter 23
What architectural device did Arras artists use to create a frame before true borders existed?
The author explains that artists felt a border was needed as a division between the world of reality and the world of fable. At Arras, they used columns, decoying one to the margin where possible. This slipped in a frame without breaking the canons of their art. The column then moved from the edge of the picture into the border itself, growing in beauty until the twisted, garlanded columns flanking the Rubens series and Lebrun's shafts in The Royal Residences.
Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXI3 cards
When did tapestry marks become a compulsory system, and where?
Tapestry marks were not a system until the Brussels edict of 1528 made them compulsory in that town. Before that, artists and weavers generally left works unsigned, content to sink individuality in the general good. Small tapestries were exempt from the order, and at that time small tapestries were not frequent or were simple verdures lacking the intellectual effort of composition.
Chapter 24
What was the Brussels town mark and where was it placed?
The Brussels mark was a simple shield flanked by two letters B, which might be capitals or not, one reversed or not, since the mark stayed legible regardless of the weaver's liberties. It was placed on the galloon and usually executed in a lighter colour but a single tone. The chapter notes a score or more of variations on this town mark.
Chapter 24
How did weavers' marks differ from town marks, and what confusion arose?
Besides the town mark, tapestries bore the mark of the weaver or the merchant who commissioned the work, and the chapter laments confounding the two. Signs were often one or two initials in fanciful designs, so it is not always possible to know which weaver or purveyor a letter signified. Wilhelm de Pannemaker used nine or ten symbols built on W and P.
Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXII4 cards
What are high-warp and low-warp looms, and which is quicker?
High-warp (haute lisse) looms stand upright, with warp threads hanging like a weighted veil; low-warp (basse lisse) looms lie horizontal like a table. The stitch produced is the same on both, but the author states the low-warp method is easier, more convenient, and therefore quicker. The high loom's shuttle is called the broche, the low loom's the flute.
Chapter 25
Why can tapestry never be reproduced by machine?
The author argues tapestry is hand-work and must always remain so; the loom is merely a tool that holds in place threads set by hand. Because the weaver's shuttle flies only as far as needed for each colour, tapestry is therefore valuable and original, and no more possible to copy by machine than is a painting.
Chapter 25
How is the high-warp weaver positioned, and how does he see his work?
On the high-warp loom the weaver sits behind the veil of the warp, with his coloured thread supply and the cartoon behind him. He can only see his work through a little mirror on the other side of the warp, which reflects it. His one convenience is a tracing on the white warp threads copying the picture he weaves.
Chapter 25
What does the chapter say about aniline dyes in tapestry?
The author argues tapestry weavers reject aniline dyes as treacherous and fickle, even though a mordant may now fix their colours. A factory director says aniline may last twenty years, but twenty years is nothing in the life of a tapestry. At the Gobelins a master rules as chemist of the dyes with a special laboratory.
Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXIII4 cards
Why does the author say the Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry?
The author argues it is actually an embroidery, not a woven tapestry, because it consists of coloured wools embroidered onto a strip of brown holland linen. The chapter notes the word tapestry is used loosely in English for almost any decorative stuff, which causes the confusion. The author includes it despite its extraneous character because of its great interest to Anglo-Saxons.
Chapter 26
What are the dimensions and original purpose of the Bayeux hanging?
It is a strip of heavy brown holland linen about 231 feet long and 19 and two-thirds inches wide. These dimensions are explained by its use in Bayeux Cathedral, where it was draped entirely around the nave of the Norman Cathedral, which space it exactly covered. This indicates to archeologists the hanging's original purpose.
Chapter 26
How was the forgotten Bayeux hanging rediscovered in 1724?
An antiquarian found a drawing about ten yards long taken from the tapestry and assumed it depicted an ancient carving in wood or stone. No one could locate such a monument. Father Montfaucon of Saint Maur wrote to the prior of St. Vigor's at Bayeux, who replied that the drawing represented a hanging in his church's possession, along with many more yards of the same cloth.
Chapter 26
What does the chapter say about the star over Harold and Queen Matilda's role?
The star in the border flames over Harold as an omen of changed rule; the author notes Chinese astronomers recorded a star on April 2, 1066, identified as Halley's comet. The tradition that Queen Matilda worked the embroidery rests on legend, and the author says it was reinforced by French plays of 1804, not by direct testimony.
Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXIV3 cards
Why does the chapter say inspired tapestry cannot flourish today?
The author argues that the age is bent toward making haste and economy of time, while perfect tapestry demands a lavish expenditure of time. It is not merely a shortage of weavers but the loss of the stimulating effect of a craft pursued in many centres, with guilds, healthy rivalry, and vital concern from the fine arts.
Chapter 27
What does the chapter say distinguishes modern appreciation from production?
The author argues this is an age of appreciation, not production. Appreciation shows in acquiring ancient hangings at any sacrifice and then restoring and preserving them, which explains recent high prices and the establishment of repair ateliers in European centres and wherever important American museums exist.
Chapter 27
What is the Gobelins factory like in the present day?
The author argues the Gobelins is almost purely a museum, preserving the high-warp loom and old methods. The State directs, pays for, and consumes the products, but there is no personal element—no royal patron—to give vital touch. Its modern tapestries are called garish, crude, or else copies of paintings never meant for wool and silk.
Chapter 27
Source and licence
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #26151 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.
Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-10-28. Cards reviewed 2026-10-28.
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