TAPESTRY, a term that came to be applied, in English, to stout woven materials of various kinds for hangings, curtains, coverings and upholstery. The word is also heir of the term "arras," so called from the city in Flanders, but has gained a technical meaning of its own. It is in this latter sense that the word is to be used in this article. Much that used to be called tapestry is not included, while everything that was formerly called arras comes within its scope. The differentiation between tapes try and arras continued into the I7th century. George Her bert, in The Temple (1633), writes of "the cloth of State . . . not of rich arras, but mean tapestrie." The elimination of the word "arras" and the assumption of its meaning by "tapestry" was accomplished gradually during the r8th century.
is a fabric woven by a primi tive and very simple method. Whether the invention took place in one locality, thence becoming known throughout the world, cannot be decided from existing evidence. It is found in early times in places so far apart as Peru, Egypt and China and this is a good reason for the assumption that so obvious a method of weaving threads into a texture came naturally, wherever primitive mankind took to weaving at all. There is no simpler way of pass ing threads across one another, over and under, so as to form a coherent texture. It is really on account of this essential simplic ity that it came to be used for the large and elaborate pictorial hangings which come first to the mind when the word "tapestry" is mentioned. The method is pliable in the hands of the worker, who is freed from the limitations of the power-loom. In the latter, the exact repetition of the design follows as naturally as the multiplication of copies of a printed book, while there is no more reason why tapestries should be alike than why paintings should be.
Like other woven fabrics, tapestry consists of warp and weft threads. The warp is the series of parallel threads set out on the loom to the width of the fabric. In some forms of primitive weav ing, not yet entirely out of use in remote districts, these warps were hung from a beam, with a weight attached to the lower end of each separate thread to keep it relatively taut during the weav ing process. A well-known representation of this form of loom is on a Greek vase from Chiusi, painted with a scene from the Odyssey in which Penelope delays her suitors by working at the loom, during the absence of Ulysses. The first step forward in method was that of securing both ends of the warp by stretching them across a rectangular frame. With the subsequent addition of a simple contrivance for pulling forward the threads in suc cession in order to pass the weft through behind, the tapestry loom was perfected for its work. This frame or loom, with its parallel row of warp threads, is placed for weaving either upright, when it is known as "high-warp," or horizontally (low-warp) with the threads running directly away from the weaver. The former is the better method though the results in each case are approximately the same. Low-warp weaving is about one-third
quicker, and the cost is usually about one-half that of high-warp tapestry.
The weft threads, which form the pattern, are inserted by hand, alternately over and under the warps, generally with the aid of a wooden bobbin, a pointed peg-like implement round which the thread is wound. This is the special feature of tapestry-weaving; there is no shuttle passing backwards and forwards right across the fabric, but the threads are only inserted to cover the par ticular space for each colour as required by the design. Thus a tapestry may be compared to a mosaic. In the large tapestry hangings of Europe the warps may be as few as ten to the inch, or as many as 3o; in the majority of cases there are less than 20. The higher figure is often exceeded in the fine work such as the Chinese and the Egyptian.
high-warp weaver sits at the back of his loom, with the cartoon to be copied placed conveniently near him. A mirror hung before the warp on the other side en ables him to gauge the effect as the work goes forward. The loose ends of the warp at the start and finish of each patch of colour are pulled through to the side at which he works, and are thus left to hang at the back of the finished fabric; otherwise back and front are approximately alike. The wefts are inserted loosely and afterwards pressed down by an instrument like a comb, the teeth of which are thrust between the warps and beaten down until those threads are entirely covered by the wefts. The bobbins on which the threads for the weft are wound are usually pointed at one end, to serve on occasion the same purpose as the comb. The warp is a strong thread, generally of wool, linen or cotton. The weft is mostly of wool, silk or metal threads, and in elaborate work it is often of all three. The weaver does much, almost every thing, to make or mar the beauty of a tapestry, but the cartoon he copies is seldom his own work. At Brussels a regulation in the 15th century debarred the weaver from designing anything more than accessory details. The cartoon is usually prepared by an artist specially qualified by training and experience. He may, and often does, base his work on a design by another artist. Quite frequently paintings, illuminations, drawings or engravings not originally intended for reproduction in tapestry are used as the basis of the cartoon. Whatever may be the size of these models the cartoon is approximately of the size the tapestry is to be ; it is generally painted on paper, though linen appears to have been more usual in the middle ages. The main outlines of the design are traced upon the warps, but the weaver must constantly refer to the cartoon for guidance as he proceeds. It was not at all un usual for weavers to duplicate their work, or to copy existing sets of tapestries made by others. Among the weavers of Brussels in the i6th century copying each other's work was forbidden, but any restriction of this kind was local and exceptional.