In the year 1477 Arras was captured by Louis XI. of France, and the industry which had brought the city so much fame suf fered a check from which it never recovered. Among other centres of tapestry-weaving were Audenarde, Bruges, Douai, Enghien, Ghent, Lille and Valenciennes, but Brussels began to take the place that Arras had lost, and from the early years of the i6th century until the end of the i8th it was the leading tapestry weaving centre in the Low Countries. In the year 1528 an enact ment required that all tapestries above a very moderate size woven at Brussels should bear the distinctive mark of the town as well as that of the maker. The former was a shield with a B on either side. The maker's mark was generally a monogrammatic device not easy to decipher and often impossible to identify, as the local records have perished. In later times the separate initials or the full name are often given. In the absence of definite rec ords it is not easy, and often impossible, to distinguish the work of one factory from another, but as the example of Brussels in the use of a distinctive mark was shortly followed by all other factories of the Low Countries, clues to a classification were pro vided. Difficulties do not end entirely at this stage, since the selvedges, where the marks were placed invariably at first, and usually at a later time, are not often intact in tapestries of the i6th century.
The best known and the most frequently repeated of the tapes tries woven at Brussels was the famous set of the "Acts of the Apostles," designed by Raphael for Pope Leo X., and woven at Brussels by Peter van Aelst during the second decade of the i6th century. When hung in their destined position round the walls of the Sistine chapel of the Vatican, they evoked the greatest enthu siasm. Another set woven shortly afterwards and now in the Berlin museum is believed to be the set given by the pope to Henry VIII. of England, and sold with the effects of Charles I. Numerous other repetitions were woven at Brussels, and after wards they were copied at Paris and Beauvais. There were origi nally ten subjects. In the year 1630 seven of the cartoons (presumably three had perished) were bought by Charles I. of England, on the advice of Rubens, to be reproduced in tapestry at the factory at Mortlake established not long before, and many sets were woven there in subsequent years.
Bernard van Orley, the follower and imitator of Raphael, also designed subjects for the weavers of Brussels. He was succeeded by a number of lesser-known artists of the Netherlands. In the 17th century, Rubens was engaged to make numerous cartoons, and his example was followed by Jacob Jordaens and other con temporaries. A little later the works of Teniers were very fre quently copied. During the 17th century the factories of Brussels were busily occupied, but towards the end of that period the rise of the Gobelins factory at Paris, and in the i8th century the growing use of wall papers, exerted a pressure which was severely felt. It is said that early in the i8th century the number of
weavers was hardly more than one-tenth of those employed a century before, and during the course of the century there was a further decrease until at the last one atelier alone remained, that of Jan van der Borght. In the year 1794 this too was closed, and the industry which had given distinction to Brussels for three centuries came to an end. During the greater part of this time its prestige in the Netherlands was hardly disputed, yet other factories had a career of fluctuating prosperity. An edict of the Emperor Charles V. in the year 1544 shows that tapestries were then being woven at Brussels, Louvain, Bruges, Audenarde, Alost, Enghien, Binche, Ath, Lille, Tournai and a few other places. Ant werp is also mentioned, but the extent to which tapestries were actually made there is uncertain. The city had then taken the place of Bruges as the chief entrepot of commerce in the Nether lands, and a gallery was provided for the display of tapestries on sale. Henry VIII. of England had his agents there, ostensibly for the purchase of tapestries, but actually in search of political intel ligence. English agents were again there at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Large numbers of tapestries were sent from Antwerp to Spain, where Flemish tapestries were much in demand. In the collections of the Spanish Crown at the present time there are 422 of them.
The range of subjects covered by the tapestries of the Low Countries can only be indicated here in the briefest outline— legends of antiquity (e.g., the Trojan war; the adventures of Ulysses; Romulus and Remus) ; scenes from ancient history (the life of Alexander ; Julius Caesar) ; stories of the gods (Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Venus, Hercules) ; the Old and New Testament (from Genesis to Revelation) ; the lives of saints (innumerable) ; the legends of chivalry (Charlemagne) ; mediaeval histories and allegories (the story of Herkinbald; Petrarch's Triumphs; the months; the seasons) ; contemporary history (Charles V.'s con quest of Tunis; adventures of Joao de Castro, viceroy of the Por tuguese Indies) ; scenes of peasant life (Gombaut and Macee; subjects after Teniers) ; sport (hunting, archery) ; heraldry, land scapes, verdures and decorative panels. Some of these were newly designed from time to time (for example, the life of Alexander is found in the 54th, 15th, i6th, 17th and i8th centuries), but many were reproduced again and again from old cartoons or tapestries. In instances of the latter kind, the borders are more characteristic of the period of production.