International studio (35.1908)

Exhibition of Tapestries

/N EXHIBITION OF TAPESTRIES,
TEXTILES AND EMBROIDERIES
L BY LEILA MECHLIN
Under the auspices of the National
Society of the Fine Arts, an exhibition of tapestries,
textiles and embroideries was held last February in
the Corcoran Gallery of Art at Washington, D. C.,
which on account both of its novelty and success is
worthy of being held in remembrance. Tapestry
weaving is one of the oldest of the arts, and in de-
sign and color nothing exceeds the charm of certain
woven fabrics, and yet few people to-day are con-
versant with the history of tapestry weaving, and
textile exhibitions are rarely set forth.
In assembling this exhibition the comnfTttee in
charge had splendid cooperation, the Metropolitan
Museum, New York, and the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, making generous loans, as well as
numerous private collectors. The Corcoran Gal-
lery was, moreover, an ideal place for such a dis-
play, so that the exhibits were shown to the best
advantage. The tapestries, of which there were
thirty, were hung on the walls of the main staircase
and from below the balconies of the atrium in the
sculpture hall, and in conjunction with the white
walls and plaster casts presented a sumptuous ap-
pearance, while the textiles, embroideries and laces,
which required closer inspection, were set forth in
the great semicircular gallery known as the Hemi-
cycle Hall.
Within the past few years interest in tapestries
has revived and many notable pieces are now in the
possession of American collectors. In this exhibi-
tion the famous ateliers of Flanders, France and
Italy were represented, and modern work, both na-
tive and foreign, was shown. Not enough credit,
it is thought, is given to the Flemish weavers, but for
this once at least their works were accorded pre-
eminence.
From Mr. Charles M. Ffoulke’s collection came
a remarkable Triumphal Procession oj David,
which was woven in Flanders prior to 1528, most
probably from the cartoon of one of Germany’s
great masters, who had come under Italian influ-
ence; two of a Moses and Aaron series, woven
during the first half of the Sixteenth Century, when
Flemish weaving was at its height, by Peter Van
Aelst, who wove the Acts of the Apostles, from
Raphael’s cartoons for Leo X; and a Flemish
Renaissance tapestry, purely decorative in motive,
which bore the monogram of John Laurent Gue-
bels, a weaver of great distinction.
To about the same period belonged two tapestries

lent by Mr. Larz Anderson, Diana Stringing Her
Bow and Woman Nursing a Child, which were in-
teresting not only in themselves but on account of
their history. They belong to a series of seven
woven in Brussels in the ateliers of Jacques Guebles
and Jean Raes and were presented by Louis XIII
of France to Cardinal Franpois Barberini, then
legate at the French court. From the character of
the subjects it is inferred that they were intended to
represent incidents in the life of an ancestor of the
donor.
Most decorative and impressive were two tapes-
tries belonging to the Anthony and Cleopatra series,
derived from the Coles collection and lent by the
Metropolitan Museum, which are signed by Jean
van Leefdale, and were produced about the middle
of the Seventeenth Century; while exceedingly
quaint and attractive was an arras lent by Mrs.
Theodore Roosevelt, which pictured Nysa Given in
Marriage to Nopsus, and bore across the top a de-
scriptive text from Virgil’s VUIth Eclogue.
In connection with the Flemish tapestries men-
tion should also be made of a series of five repre-
senting various scenes in the life of Alexander the
Great, which are attributed to Peter van Aelst, and,
though coarse in weave and in poor condition, were
extremely interesting in composition and especially
effective.
There were but two examples of Italian tapestry
weaving—a large and beautiful arras lent by Miss
Tuckerman, representing the romantic meeting of a
cavalier and a maiden in the garden of the Villa
d’Este, which almost certainly was executed under
the patronage of the House of d’Este at Ferrara;
and a Head of Christ, woven about 1500, from
the “cut emerald image of the Saviour made by order
of Caesar Tiberius II,” which was lent by Mr. Frank
Gair Macomber, of Boston.
The Gobelins ateliers were splendidly repre-
sented by a series of four panels—the elements
Fire, Water, Earth and Air—lent by the Hon. W. A.
Clark. These tapestries were woven after cartoons
by Audrain, between the years 1662 and 1670, im-
mediately after the Gobelins had been reorganized
by Louis XV. A figure of a Greek deity occupies
the center of each of these panels, all of which have
ornamental borders and a rose du Barry ground.
While decorative rather than pictorial, they are
characteristically French in style and regal in color.
That tapestries produced in French ateliers were
typically French, though executed by Flemish
weavers, was manifested in three examples woven
during the reign of Louis XV at Beauvais, or far-
ther west, and lent by Mr. Ffoulke.

LXXXVIII