294 
ON THE MANUFACTURE OF GOBELINS TAPESTRY 
is replaced by the work of haclmres called, of two tones, or of two 
shades crossing each other continually and giving as result a lightness 
of tone, transparency, and solidity, to which it is impossible to arrive 
by any other combination. 
The tapestry-maker, for the design of 
the objects to be represented by the 
passage from one shade to another, is 
guided by a pattern traced in black on 
the warp, by the intervention of tracing 
paper on which he has previously 
chalked the drawing of the pattern. 
This sketch appears equally before 
and behind the warp, and consequently 
the worker can always see it whether he 
occupies his habitual place, or whether 
he goes round to the back to judge of the general effect. 
The Savonnerie carpets differ essentially, both in the process of 
weaving, and in the result, from the Gobelin tapestries ; they belong 
to the class of velvets. The threads of wool, at their juxtaposition 
from the surface are each stopped by a double knot on two threads of 
the warp, this latter is in wool and double , the warp combines itself 
both with the threads of the velvet surface, and with a woof and a duite (a) 
of which no part appears outside ; the carpet maker sees the right side 
of the carpet and not the wrong, as in Gobelin tapestry. The warp is 
held vertically, as in the high warp looms for tapestry, and the loom is 
of the same form, but much larger. The carpet is begun by a selvage, 
the web of which is the same as that of tapestry. 
To commence the velvet groundwork, or otherwise to make a stitch, 
the worker having chosen a broche filled with wool of the shade re- 
quired by the pattern, takes with the fingers of the left hand the thread 
of the warp on which he is to begin ; he draws it a little towards him 
and with his right hand passes the broche of woollen thread behind it. 
He then draws to his side the thread of the next warp placed a little 
behind the first, and makes a sliding or running knot on this thread 
which he fastens. Between these two passages (this is the technical 
term) the wool forms, in front of the warp, a ring, the amplitude of 
which answers to the height of the velvet pile. An iron instrument 
called tianche-Jil, and formed of a round bar, four to five inches in 
diameter, terminating in a knife blade, is passed through the ring of 
wool of which we have been speaking ; it occupies a horizontal position 
on the web or groundwork, and is filled successively by woollen rings 
produced by the repetition of the stitches. 
When the whole of the cylindrical part of the tranclie-Jil is covered 
with rings of wool, it is drawn from left to right to cut the rings ; they 
(a) This denomination "duite" common to the two fabrics, carpet and 
apestry, is applied, however, in each to an object of a totally different nature. 
