TAPESTRY, an ornamental textile used for the covering of walls and furni ture, and for curtains and hangings. In its method of manufacture it is inti mately related to Oriental carpets, which are made in precisely the same way as certain kinds of tapestry, the only dis tinction being that carpets are meant for floor-covering alone. Fine storied tapestries are, however, much more elab orate and costly than any carpets, and they have altogether different artistic pretensions. Tapestries are divided into two classes, according as they are made in high warp or low warp looms. The former in manufacture have their warp threads stretched in a vertical manner with a roller at the top around which the warps are wound, and another at the bottom for receiving the finished tapes try. On the low warp looms the warp is extended horizontally, there being an arrangement in both for shedding or separating the warp into two leaves, front and back, as in ordinary weaving. It is in high warp looms that the most elaborate storied or pictorial tapestries are made, low warp looms being more largely devoted to the production of still life and non-pictorial decorative compo sitions. Notwithstanding these differ ences, it is difficult to distinguish between tapestries which have been made on high and low warp looms respectively, though the latter are more rapidly and conse quently less expensively woven.
The art of tapestry-working is of high antiquity, and it may be that the curtains of the tabernacle "of blue and purple and scarlet, with cherubim of cunning work" (Exod. xxvi: 1), were a kind of tapestry, though more probably they were of nee dle work. The so-called Bayeaux Tapes try is really embroidered work of the pe riod of William the Conqueror. The art of tapestry working, and indeed all fine weaving, came to Europe from the East, and so well was this recognized that dur ing the Middle Ages the fabric was gen erally known as Sarra,zinois. So far as is known the art of high warp tapestry weaving was first practiced in Flanders toward the end of the 12th century, and it flourished in the rich and prosperous towns of Arras, Valenciennes, Lille, Brussels, etc., and from the predominant
importance of the first of these towns storied tapestries came to be generally known as "Arras." The disasters which overwhelmed the land during the contest with the Spanish power led many of the most skillful of the tapestry weavers to seek an asylum in foreign lands, and thus the art spread to various European centers. Repeated attempts had been made in France from the middle of the 16th century onward to establish the industry, but it was not till two Flemish workers, Comans and De la Planche, were engaged for an establishment for merly occupied by a family of wool dyers called Gobelin, that the industry was suc cessfully founded and the famous Gobel ins factory begun.
The manufactures of the Savonnerie, an establishment founded by Henri IV. for velvet-pile carpets and hangings, was in 1826 combined with the Gobelins, and the two industries are now carried on to gether by the state. There is also a state factory for low warp tapestries at Beauvais; and at Aubusson and Felletin commercial tapestries are very largely made for furniture covering, etc., in es tablishments which in earlier times were celebrated for their tapestries de luxe. Tapestries were also made at an early period in England. In 1619 an es tablishment was founded at Mortlake by Sir Francis Crane, and under his guid ance works of the very highest merit were produced.
Tapestries—especially the high warp storied varieties—are the textiles of kings. In earlier times the monarchs of Europe resorted to the Netherlands for pieces for the decoration of their palaces; and when the manufacture came to be more disseminated it was almost entirely under state supervision and control that the work was carried on.
It was for tapestry that Raphael pro duced the immortal series of cartoons il lustrating the acts of Christ and the Apostles which were executed in Brussels for the Sistine Chapel. Seven of these cartoons, purchased by Charles I. under the advice of Rubens, are now in South Kensington Museum.