House 
Vol. XII 
and Garden 
OCTOBER, 1907 No. 4 
What Are Tapestries? 
By GEORGE LELAND HUNTER 
O wonder there is general uncertainty as to investigation of British sources he has rendered in- 
what tapestries really are. If you ask for valuable service to tapestry literature. He does not 
tapestry in an ordinary upholstery depart- even mention the famous tapestry works at Wil 
ment, the clerk will bring 
you a machine-woven 
fabric from Philadelphia. 
If you use the phrase 
tapestry panel, the 
offering will be a more 
complicated machine 
weave from France, that 
shows one of the rustic or 
gallant scenes developed 
in real tapestry in the 
eighteenth century. In a 
carpet store, a tapestry 
brussels is a fabric with 
uncut pile on which the 
pattern has been printed 
before weaving. In a 
wall-paper shop, a tapes¬ 
try paper is one with 
printed cross lines to sim¬ 
ulate the ribbed effect of 
real tapestry. There are 
also imitations made in 
ribbed embroidery, and 
by painting on rep or 
canvas. 
The definitions of tap¬ 
estry in dictionaries are 
wrong where they are not 
misleading, and the en¬ 
cyclopedias are little 
better, with two excep¬ 
tions. The compilers do 
not give evidence of ever 
having examined any 
kind of tapestry. 
Even Mr. Thomson in 
his recently published 
“History of Tapestry” 
displays little familiarity 
with the texture of tapes¬ 
try, although by his 
One of the Baumgarten Tapestries that received the Grand 
Prize at the St. Louis Exposition. Five feet by eight feet ten 
inches, and on account of the remarkable fine weave priced at 
$2,250. Verdures sell as low as $100 a square yard. 
li a ms bridge, nor does 
he call attention to the 
differences in technique 
between Merton and the 
Gobelins. Peruvian tap¬ 
estries he barely men¬ 
tions; Oriental kelims 
and Cashmere shawls he 
has apparently never 
heard of; Mexican sera- 
pes and Navajo blankets, 
and similar fabrics from 
Tunis and Egypt, he ap¬ 
parently disdains to 
notice; even the wonder¬ 
ful Chinese silk tapes¬ 
tries fail to have the 
honor of his attention. 
So that when Mr. 
Wylde in the June num¬ 
ber of the Burlington 
Magazine says that “Mr. 
Thomson has produced 
a work which will prob¬ 
ably for many years hold 
the position of being the 
standard work in the 
English language on one 
of the oldest and most 
important of the handi¬ 
crafts practised by civ¬ 
ilized man from the 
earliest ages” he is a bit 
over-hopeful. 
In spite of the splendid 
work that has been done 
by M. Guiffrey and 
other writers in French, 
a comprehensive history 
of tapestry remains to be 
written. In this and suc¬ 
ceed ing numbers of 
Copyright, 1907, by The John C. Winston Co. 
129 
