International studio (82.1925)

mceRnACionAL

"A Gosmopolitan Tapestry Gentve

£77~-'ournai moves drowsily Tournai, governed by many impress on the Tournai tap-

y today below the five nations, produced great estry sch°o1' il has seemed

towers of her cathedral numbers 0f tapestries in six S"arcdy p0SSlbJTe that f °f

but tour hundred years ago J -i' U i I tne tyPes reai'y made in

she was the centre of activ- aiSlMCt Styles t^at district actually could

ity and excitement and PHYLLIS ACSKERMAlSf ^rom tne same place,

thrice four hundred before There are by exact count a

that she was already a busy centre of production, half dozen distinctively different styles of designs

a clothing factory for the Roman troops. She has, produced in the shops of these two cities Tournai

moreover, in these hundreds of years of her history and Audenarde which were, as far as tapestry is

seen many vicissitudes and in the few decades concerned, practically one. With some of these

before and after the turn of the sixteenth century Tournai has been credited by the students of the

when her wealth and creative energy were at their history of tapestry but of others it has been as-

height, she was bandied back and forth from sumed that they must have been woven scores of

political hand to hand like a bouncing ball. An miles away in other countries in obedience to

important city for those great connoisseurs the quite dissimilar traditions.

Dukes of Burgundy, she passed with their fall into The Dukes of Burgundy were the first to

the power of the French, only to be lost again to determine the character of the work done there.

Henry VIII. For about five years she bore the In 1446 Philip the Good bought from Jehanne

English banner, then by barter and trade became a Pottequin, the widow of Jehan Baubree a piece of

second time French. The Spanish next left their verdure with numerous personages including

imprint and today she is what she has always children going to school. Three years later he

fundamentally been, typically Flemish. Mean- ordered from Robert Dary and Jehan de I'Ortie a

while for the better part of her scant century of series illustrating the History of Gideon to deco-

supremacy she was a readily accessible source of rate the chapter room of the Order of the Golden

certain products for Germany and thus one more Fleece. Ten years later Pasquier Grenier sold him

influence made itself felt in her life and work. the History of Alexander and shortly after that a

During this period of the second half of the series of the Passion and six pieces representing

fifteenth and opening decades of the sixteenth the history of Ahasuerus and Esther. That same

centuries one of the most important of her in- year he bought also from the same dealer the

dustries was the weaving of tapestries. Indeed the Knight of the Swan set and, to present to his

importance of Tournai as a tapestry centre in sister Agnes the widow of Charles I, Duke of

sheer bulk of production if nothing else can, at Bourbon, a set decorated with orange trees. After

this period, hardly be exaggerated. We know the the death of Philip, his son, Charles the Bold,

names of four hundred and fifty weavers there continued this patronage of the Tournai looms,

between, approximately, 1460 and 1535, and her buying in 1472 the Destruction of Troy,

energy overflowed so that Tournai weavers went Of this Burgundian style we have a number of

forth and established the industry at Audenarde examples left and it has been generally recognized

and others are found weaving at Middlebourg, that they are of Tournai origin. Two designers

down in Avignon and even in far off Ferrara. stand out head and shoulders above the others,

Moreover, dozens of documents concerning Tour- the lesser designers following, as a rule, one or the

nai tapestries which have been unearthed and other of these dominant figures. Both have been so

published* indicate how active she was in this obliging as to sign their work, the one in full in

trade. several instances, the other with initials only.

But just how important Tournai and her neigh- They are Piat Van Roome and Master P. M. who

boring city Audenarde were, just how many of is probably Philippe MazaroIIes.

the tapestries of this period left us today were The designs of Piat Van Roome are usually

woven on these looms, has not yet been appre- almost violently energetic, brutally direct and

ciated; for the styles produced there were so dif- ugly and massive rather than rich. But these are

ferent and so little related to each other, her all qualities that would appeal to the Dukes of

cosmopolitanism, in short, made such a deep Burgundy, hard fighters avid of power, capable of

*Most of them by Eugene Soil. Les Tapisseries de regal graciousness but never of tenderness and

Tournai. Tournai, 1891. even more capable of relentless cruelty. Piat's

thirty-six

October 1925