Alan Summerly Cole

“ Tapestry-weaving as a possible cottage or home industry is practised in a few places in Ireland and England. In the Far East, China and Japan, the art, adopted presumably from western Asia, is sometimes resorted to in making silken robes and intricately figured hangings. The Japanese call their tapestry-weaving tsu-zu-re-ori. ”

“ After the execution of Charles I., Mortlake declined, and new life was infused into the industry at Paris under the influence of Colbert, to whose strong personal interest in the arts is due the organization in 1667 of the Hôtel des Gobelins under the painter Charles le Brun as the Manufacture Royale des Meubles de la Couronne, which for large hangings became the premier tapestry-weaving centre in Europe. Three years previously Colbert had initiated a similar manufactory, chiefly with low-warp frames, at Beauvais, which is noted for sofa and chair seats and backs, screens and small panels. ”

“ In the one case the worker sits up to his work, in the other he bends over it. In each he is supplied with the design according to which he weaves, and notwithstanding the varied positions the method of weaving is the Hign and low warp frames. same. The thread-supply of each separate colour required in the design is wound upon its appointed peg or bobbin, which is a simpler implement or tool than a loom weaver’s shuttle. Fig. 1 shows a Gobelins high-warp tapestry weaver of the 18th century at work. ”

“ In 1528 the Brussels tapissiers and dealers in tapestries were required to mark their weavings, and Charles V. ordered all tapestry makers in the Low Countries to do the same. [5] This practice was followed in other countries into which Tapestry makers’ marks. emigrant Flemish or French weavers had carried the industry, making their tapestries very often from copies they took with them of cartoons designed by noted Italian and Flemish painters. ”

“ Throughout the European continent, in the United States of America, and in Great Britain almost uncountable tapestries are displayed or stored in mansions, castles, châteaux and palazzi, belonging to noble and wealthy families. ”

“ Two centuries later, free, as distinct from bond, handicrafts men were forming local associations for their industries, and in this movement the weavers took the lead throughout England, Flanders and Brabant, France being a little later. [5] The gilds of weavers in London and Oxford were granted charters by Henry I. In the 11th century gilds of wool weavers existed at Cologne and Mainz, and in the following century there was a similar gild at Spires: it is quite probable that some of their weaving would be of tapestry. [6] The fragment in fig. ”

“ Thus examples from the 11th to the end of the 15th century are formal in the drawing of the forms introduced into them, and comparatively limited in range of colours, lights and shades, in accordance with the mannerisms of the earlier painters whether illuminators of MSS. or wall and panel painters. ”