Tapestry

The colours used for a simple pictorial subject may be as few as 12, and mediaeval tapestries seldom have more than 4o. In early tapestries, gradation of tints was rendered by running one into another in projections like the teeth of a comb, or in cruder fash ion by rings of colour comparable to the colouring of a contour map. The method, introduced at a later time, of imitating the fusion of tones in a picture has led to the use of a large number of intermediary tints. The employment of a large or small num ber of tints, or of a fine or coarse texture does not necessarily affect the beauty, but only the character, of the finished fabric. When the painter Oudry, as inspector of the Gobelins factory in the 18th century, insisted on the imitation of the oil-colours of the painter's palette, in place of the coloris de tapisserie proper to the method, the number of tints had to be multiplied enormously, until the weaver had more than io,000 different tints at his disposal. The increase in the number of tints employed has not been the only change brought about with the lapse of time. At first each colour was shaded with deeper tones of its own colour, and high lights were white. This simple method, resembling that of book illumination, is productive of the most beautiful effects. At a later time yellow becomes the dominant colour, giving a unity recalling that often provided by the varnish on a picture. When gold and silver thread are freely used for salient points the limit of splendour is reached, but not without some sacrifice of true tapestry-effect.

Almost incredible pains were sometimes taken to see that ma terials and workmanship were of the best. Regulations were framed to this end, and the penalties for infringement were severe. Dis tinguished artists were engaged to watch the progress of the work. In the case of a set of tapestries woven at Brussels to commem orate the conquest of Tunis by the emperor Charles V. there were stipulations controlling the kind of thread to be used, and the proportion of metal thread to wool and silk. The emperor pro vided the gold and silk threads, and his agent spent more than two years at Granada supervising the preparation and dyeing of the silk. Eighty-four weavers were to be continually employed on the 12 panels, and a commission was appointed to superintend the work.

Early Examples.

The earliest specimens of tapestry-work which can be accurately dated were found in the year 1903 in the tomb of Thutmosis IV. (142o-1411 B.c.) at Thebes. They are now in the Cairo museum. There are three small examples, woven in coloured linen threads. One has the cartouche of Amenhotep II. (c. 1450 B.c.), and another that of Thutmosis III. (c. isoo B.c.) inwoven in colours.

The skill shown in these very remarkable weavings points to a far older tradition, and though at present no other examples are known for i,000 years after, there can be no reasonable doubt of continuity in the process of tapestry-weaving. The next ex amples about which we have certain knowledge are some f rag ments of garments found about 1872 in some Greek graves near Kertch in the Crimea, and now in the Hermitage museum at Leningrad. They are woven in coloured wools. One has a pattern of stags' heads and ducks, and another has rows of blossoms ; the rest are mostly striped or plain. Two of the graves in which these specimens were found are of the 4th or 3rd centuries B.C.

Reverting to Egypt, after a gap of fifteen or sixteen hundred years from the date of the examples already mentioned, tapestry weavings became abundant. Indeed there is much to confirm the

theory that in the Graeco-Roman period, during the first few centuries of the Christian era, this was the principal method employed to produce a pattern in woven stuffs. Some examples are woven entirely by the tapestry-process, and among these a few are of a size and scale which warrant comparison with the tapestry-hangings of later days. One hanging found in a burying ground at Akhmim on the Nile, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, has a pattern of birds and foliage on a red ground. The majority of the specimens from Egypt are panels and bands of ornament forming a continuous texture with the linen stuffs which provide the warps for the woollen tapestry-weaving. Ex amples preserved in the museums of Europe and America show a wide range of patterns of classical and early Christian origin. The method of weaving was continued in the Mohammedan period, from the 7th century onwards, when silk came into common use for the tapestry patterns, which are often of great fineness and elaboration.

It is beyond doubt that tapestry-work was done by the Romans, though no specimens have been found on Italian soil. In fact, but for those from Egypt, practically nothing of ancient Roman textile art has come down to our times. The Byzantines, too, were acquainted with it. A fine silk tapestry-hanging with an equestrian portrait of an emperor of the East was found in the tomb of Bishop Gunther, who died in the year 1064 on his way home from an embassy to Constantinople and was buried, en wrapped in this hanging, in Bamberg cathedral.

The Low Countries.

Tapestry weaving enters on a new phase, and one which reduces all others to relative insignificance, in the work of the Low Countries. How this great industry first arose there we do not precisely know, but it has been conjectured that the election of Baldwin of Flanders as emperor of the East in the year I 204, may have familiarized the Flemings with Byzan tine work like that brought home by Bishop Gunther. However this may be, little more than the bare idea can have been derived from any outside source. The industry as it developed was char acteristically Flemish, and in its turn it exerted a very wide in fluence upon the rest of Europe. The distinction between high warp and low-warp tapestry-work, which now becomes significant, is first met with in the Low Countries at the beginning of the i4th century. To that time, or perhaps a little earlier, may be traced the origin of those large pictorial tapestries which soon brought the weaver into successful rivalry with the painter in the decoration of churches, halls, palaces and dwelling-houses. In the dukes of Burgundy, who acquired the Flemish provinces by marriage in the 14th century, the weavers found patrons of almost unlimited wealth and luxury. Arras was the first place to rise to fame. Its high-warp tapestry is mentioned in the early years of the i4th century, and the city gave its name to tapestry-work in England, as we have seen, as well as in other countries whither the tapestries of Arras were sent. By about the middle of the isth century the pre-eminence of Arras was disputed by Tournai, but it is significant that the series of tapestries with scenes in the lives of SS. Piat and Eleutherius were woven at Arras for the cathedral of Tournai in the year 1402. During the course of the century the dukes of Burgundy gave large commissions to the weavers of Tournai, and near its close Pasquier and John Grenier obtained permission to import tapestries into England.