International studio (60.1916/1917)

Gobelin and Beauvais Tapestries op the Morgan Collection
thirty-five years of the reign of Louis XV, and The surface of the picture in “Don Quixote Guid-

four of the Don Quixote tapestries were woven
in 1773, the fifth in 1783, as is shown by the sig-
natures of the weavers, Audran 1773, Cozette
1773, and Neilson 1783.
High Wasp and Low Warp
One is often asked the difference between high-
warp and low-warp tapestries '(haute lisse and
basse lisse), and how they can be told apart.
It can only be done by unravelling the tapestry
and exposing the warps. If the warps are marked
in India ink with the outlines of the design, then
the tapestry came from a high-warp loom, other-
wise not. It is amusing to recall the dictum of
the critic who searched the precious webs of the
Renaissance for human hair which he said meant
low-warp loom, because in the sixteenth century
weavers wore long beards, that in low-warp weav-
ing were constantly getting caught as the operator
bent down to his work. There are even dealers
who seriously assure customers that tapestries
with vertical ribs are the product of the high-warp
loom, and those with horizontal ribs the product
of the low-warp loom; but when jacquard-woven
pictures, prominently exposed in show windows
on Fifth Avenue, are labelled and sold as “genuine
Gobelins” and also as “genuine antique Flemish
tapestries,” no error seems too ridiculous to re-
quire refutation.
A splendid opportunity to compare the work of
the high-warp loom with that of the low-warp
loom is afforded by the five Don Quixote tapes-
tries of the Morgan collection. The first of the
five in the chronological sequence of the story,
“Don Quixote Guided by Folly, ” was executed on
a low-warp loom by Neilson in 1783; the other
four on high-warp looms by Audran and Cozette
in 1773. However, the low-warp loom of Neilson
was not the low-warp loom that had been used
in Flanders for centuries, and at the Gobelins
since the foundation of the Gobelin Works in
1601, and is still in use at Aubusson and other
centres of tapestry production, but an improved
low-warp loom, suggested by Neilson himself in
1750, constructed in 1757 by the great engineer,
Vaucanson, and now used exclusively at Beauvais.
A comparison of the work of Neilson on his im-
proved low-warp loom with that of Cozette and
Audran on the high-warp loom, shows that Neil-
son’s work on the picture part of the tapestry
was inferior, but on the decorative frame superior.

ed by Folly” is flat and uninteresting and paint-
like as compared with the Don Quixote pictures
woven by Cozette and Audran. In the high-warp
pictures there is a delightful individuality and
vivacity of texture, due principally to the use of
the pointed bobbin (broche) used in pressing the
weft home. The bobbins used on the low-warp
loom are not pointed and the effect of pressing
home the weft with the grattoir is comparatively
machine-like and monotonous.
Don Quixote Gobelins by Coypel
Of all the tapestries woven at the Gobelins in
the eighteenth century, the series of twenty-eight
designed by Charles Coypel to illustrate Cervan-
tes’ story of Don Quixote, is the most famous,
and is so highly prized in Europe that the five of
the Morgan collection were the first to be allowed
to cross the Atlantic. Among European collec-
tions that contain tapestries from the series, are
those of:
Marquis de Vennevelle. n
Royal Italian Collection. 21
Comte d’Argenson. 5
Empress Eugenie. 7
Duke of Richmond. 4
Duke of Portland. 8
Anitchkoff Palace at Petrograd. 4
Marquis de Vogue. 6
Royal Swedish Collection. 8
Royal Castle at Berlin. 6
Palace of the Archduke Ferdinand at
Vienna. 4
with most of all, of course, in the French national
collection.
The Morgan Don Quixote Tapestries
It was peculiarly appropriate that the five
Don Quixote tapestries in Mr. Morgan’s collec-
tion, should have been acquired from the King
of Spain. These five tapestries were part of the
estate of the King of Spain’s grandfather, Don
Francisco de Assisi and, until his recent death,
hung in his residence near Paris, the Chateau
d’Epinay, having been removed there from the
Royal Palace in Madrid, when he changed his
residence from Spain to France.
Of these five tapestries, four originally belonged
to Cardinal Charles-Antoine de la Roche-Aymon,
Archbishop of Rheims and Grand Almoner of
France, presented to him in 1774 by Louis XVI,

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