Mr. Prime’s Alexander Tapestries 
the first, and one on the third 
page of this article. In only 
one of the large illustrations, 
“Alexander kneeling before 
the High Priest of the Jews,” 
can the mark be discerned. 
The mark before us is com¬ 
paratively simple. The only 
obscurity comes from the 
changes that have been in¬ 
flicted by age and ignorant 
repairers, whose treatment of 
monograms can be judged by 
the weird things they do to 
woven inscriptions and titles, 
transposing letters and even 
words. 
Let us study the mono¬ 
grams. In all of them the 
letters ST are clear. In one 
the A at the bottom is clear, 
in another obscure, in another 
without crossbar. In all tbe 
letter I or L is found at the 
left of the S. The variation 
of the marks from a clear 
spelling of ALST is less 
than from one another. And 
among all the Flemish tapestry 
merchants and weavers, lists 
of whose names have been 
‘published in the great “His- 
toire Generale de la Tapis- 
serie, ” a copy of which is in the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
Alst is the only name for which this monogram could 
stand. That it is his monogram I am convinced. 
As to the date of Mr. Prime’s Alexander tapestries 
there can be no doubt. The taste of a century or 
even half a century later would have revolted at panels 
so crowded with figures. It would have hesitated to 
introduce into the foreground floriation inherited 
from the Gothic fifteenth century, and into the 
border such a luxurious wealth of human and animal 
figures, fruits and flowers. I regard the border, 
which is the same on all the tapestries except as en¬ 
larged for the wider ones, as one of the finest creations 
of Renaissance inspiration interpreted by a crafts¬ 
manship full of Gothic feeling. 
The coloring of both panels and borders is superb. 
The accentuation of light and shade in the stripes 
that frame the panel, showing that the light comes 
from above on the left, is characteristic of the Renais¬ 
sance, and most interesting to compare with Gothic 
handling of the same situation as illustrated in my 
article on the “Burgundian Tapestries at the Metro¬ 
politan Museum” in the December number of tbe 
English “ Burlington Magazine.” 
THE FUNERAL OF CLITUS 
The salamander in the upper border on the left is 
so characteristic of Francis I. of France that one can 
hardly help associating the tapestries with him, 
especially as he was a great amateur of the art, and 
not only bought and ordered tapestries in Flanders 
but even set up looms of his own at Fontainebleau. 
The Alexander series would be one natural for him 
to select after his victory at Marignano in 1515’ 
before bis defeat at Pavia in 1525, where he was 
captured by the Emperor Charles V. 
Regarding the designer of the tapestries we have 
no evidence. The borders are strangely like some 
of Primaticcio’s ornament at Fontainebleau. But 
they also resemble borders designed by Bernard von 
Orley, mentioned above as superintending Alst’s 
work on the Raphael tapestries. Moreover the 
character of the faces and figures is so typically 
Flemish as to imply a Flemish designer as well as 
Flemish weavers. 
Alexander was a favorite subject for tapestry 
designers. The inventories of the fifteenth and six¬ 
teenth centuries are full of Alexander suites. The 
set particularly associated with the Gobelins was 
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