284 ON THE MANUFACTURE OF GOBELINS TAPESTRY 
de Cotte, an architect, superintendent of buildings to the King, directed 
in his turn the Gobelins manufacture. After him, Jules Robert de 
Cotte, his son, who was also architect and governor of the buildings to 
the King in the department of Paris. 
The twenty-five last years of the reign of Louis XIV., less produc- 
tive, perhaps, in great compositions in tapestry than the first period of 
the reign of this sovereign, furnish, notwithstanding some tine suites of 
hangings, amongst which we may name the Triomphe des Dieux, from 
Noel Coypel, in eight pieees ; the suite of hangings called de L' Ancien 
Testament, in eight pieces from Jouvenet.(a) The hangings called des 
Judes, in eight pieces, in imitation of the models originally painted in 
India ; and a great many portieres, the greater number of them repre- 
senting gods and goddesses, the elements, the seasons, &c. 
It is much less by the number of the hangings that we must estimate 
the importance of the works of which we have given a rapid notice, 
than by the real progress accomplished in the composition and construc- 
tion of tapestry. In our opinion no epoch surpassed that of Louis XIV. 
in the choice and composition of models ; but this branch of the art is 
solely the office of the governors and of the painters who superintend 
the execution of the work. Simple copyists or translators, the master 
tapissiers and their workmen, do not appear even in this period to have 
raised themselves above their predecessors. The traditions and methods 
then in use being only at that time permitted to them in a very limited 
measure. "We find even long and sharp disputes relative to this latter 
question occupying a part of the following reign, disputes upon which 
it will be necessary for us to say a few words. 
The ancient tapestry makers only reproduced the models placed 
before them in a manner purely conventional, that is to say, by contract ; 
they were neither colourists in the modern sense, nor designers. The 
school of design founded at Gobelins under Louis XIV., and directed 
by four professors of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, was not 
precisely instituted for them, but for the painters, sculptors, engravers, 
and other artists assembled in this house. The workmen who com- 
menced work at break of day and did not leave off until nightfall, had not 
certainly time to give to the study of drawing, or to anything but the 
broche (b) in their hand and the working of the tapestry. 
The pallet placed by the dyer in the hand of the tapestry maker was 
at that time composed of but a few plain colours, having little to do with 
transitions, without which all harmony in colouring is impossible. But 
as soon as an influence more or less marked was attributed to painters 
in the fabrication, convention (from which could only result tapestries 
(a) In the reign of Louis XV. these hangings were augmented by four pieces, 
in imitation of Jouxenet and Restout. 
(b) Broch e, the instrument on which is rolled the coloured wool destined to 
form the woof of the tapestry, and which to the artist in tapestry supplies the 
place of the weaver's shuttle. 
