48 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
: 
A ‘‘double-cloth” tapestry chair back. ‘The tex- 
ture is most interesting and pleasing 
private galleries, without affording the 
public an opportunity to see them, is mani- 
fested to a much less extent by those 
Americans whose good fortune it is to 
possess fine tapestries. Perhaps they are 
influenced by the example of Leo X, who 
left with the weaver, Pieter van Aelst, in 
Brussels, the cartoons of the tapestries designed for him by 
Raphael, with the result that duplicate sets were woven for 
all who had the taste to select and the money to pay. It is 
important for the revival of the art of tapestry weaving that 
every opportunity should be afforded by owners of Gothic 
tapestries to those who wish to copy them on the loom, and 
the writer is glad to note the tendency of American collectors 
who’ possess historic ex-. ao oS te Eas 
An old Flemish verdure tapestry. About 
four by six feet in size 
This shows the back of a tapestry seat that is not 
a real tapestry in weave, but a broché 
lord and a lady half hidden in the foliage. 
Other figures on the left. In the fore- 
ground there are dogs. A tapestry like 
this is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, 
and deserves reproduction not only for 
the training in technique it would give the 
weaver of to-day, but also, and especially, 
for its intrinsic merit. It is worth a multitude of ‘‘counter- 
feit arrases,” which is what they called painted imitations of 
tapestry in the Fifteenth Century, real arras being, of course, 
real tapestries, called arras from the now French, but then 
Flemish, city of Arras, that was long the center of produc- 
tion of high-warp picture tapestries. ; 
The oldest, and on the whole the most interesting, tap- 
amples to be very substan- 
tially generous in this respect. 
Among the Gothic tap- 
estries at the Metropolitan 
Museum especially suited for 
reproduction to-day are two, 
for instance, from the famous 
Hoentschel collection, lent to 
the museum by Mr. J. Pier- 
pont Morgan. One of these, 
that pictures “Jesus Among 
the Doctors” and the ‘‘Mar- 
flascwatscana, is § beet 3 
inches high and 12 feet 6 
inches long. It is the ‘“‘Mar- 
riage at Cana”’ that I suggest 
as affording the best oppor- 
tunity for the modern weaver 
to attempt to emulate his 
Fifteenth Century forbears. 
The composition of this scene 
is most interesting. ‘The col- 
oring of the tapestry is extremely simple, and the weave is 
masterful without being intricate. In copying a tapestry like 
this a weaver would learn more than most weavers now 
know. ‘This dates from the age when tapestries were still 
line drawings, with long slender vertical hatchings (spires 
of color) that combined with the cross-ribbed weave to pro- 
duce the most interesting and unique texture that the world 
has even known. 
Also interesting for the purpose of modern reproduction 
would be the Gothic “‘Departure for the Hunt,” likewise lent 
to the museum from the Hoentschel collection. It is ro feet 
high by 3 feet 11 inches wide, and pictures a forset of oaks 
with floriated ground. A page and three valets lead the 
way. Two of the valets carry hooded falcons. On the 
right a white horse, above whose head appear the busts of a 
ow 
One of the scenes, 
“The Marriage at Can 
in the Hoentschel collection, belonging to Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, and 
exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 
estries at the Metropolitan 
Museum are the five frag- 
ments containing seven scenes 
from an early Fifteenth Cen- 
tury tapestry, originally con- 
taining fourteen scenes, illus- 
trating the Seven Sacraments 
in their origin and also as 
celebrated contemporaneous- 
ly. These tapestries, also 
from the Morgan collection, 
were correctly named and de- 
scribed for the first time in my 
article in the Burlington Mag- 
azine of December, 1907. 
Though much repaired, they 
are splendid examples of 
technical perfection in tap- 
estry weaving, and point out 
the path that weavers should 
follow in attempting to re- 
vive the glories of the past. 
A large proportion of the 
real tapestries that one finds in the shops are from Aubus- 
son looms, and whether antique or modern, they are usually 
in the style of the Eighteenth Century—rustic and pastoral 
scenes with verdure or landscape backgrounds, and with 
narrow verdure or woven-frame borders. One reason 
for their popularity is their size, which is comparatively 
small and adapted for display on the walls of houses 
as they are built to-day. Another reason is that the 
styles of Louis XV and of Louis XVI, as ex- 
pressed in tapestry, harmonize with most modern English 
as well as French interiors—Louis XV being preferable with 
Chippendale chairs and Baroque or Rococo backgrounds; 
Louis XVI with Hepplewhite and Sheraton and Adam de- 
signs. A third reason is the price, which is less, because 
(Continued on page 67) 
oe 
a,’ from a Gothic tapestry 
