The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages Part 12

[65] Amadis of Gaul.

[66] Ibid.

[67] _Rath_--speedily.

[68] _Sethin_--afterward.

[69] _Perry_--jewels.

[70] _Bayne_--ready.

[71] Orl. Fur., canto 23.

[72] Froissart, by Lord Berners, vol. i. p. 270.

[73] The Fair Lady of f.a.guell.

[74] Hist. Chivalry.

CHAPTER XI.

TAPESTRY.

The term _tapestry_ or _tapistry_ (from _tap.i.s.ser_, to line, from the Latin word _tapes_, a cover of a wall or bed), is now appropriated solely to woven hangings of wool and silk; but it has been applied to all sorts of hangings, whether wrought entirely with the needle (as originally indeed all were) or in the loom, whether composed of canva.s.s and wool, or of painted cloth, leather, or even paper. This wide application of the term seems to be justified by the derivation quoted above, but its present use is much more limited.

In the thirteenth century the decorative arts had attained a high perfection in England. The palace of Westminster received, under the fostering patronage of Henry III., a series of decorations, the remains of which, though long hidden, have recently excited the wonder and admiration of the curious.[75] "Near this monastery (says an ancient Itinerary) stands the most famous royal palace of England; in which is that celebrated chamber, on whose walls all the warlike histories of the whole Bible are painted with inexpressible skill, and explained by a regular and complete series of texts, beautifully written in French over each battle, to the no small admiration of the beholder, and the increase of royal magnificence."

Round the walls of St. Stephen's chapel effigies of the Apostles were painted in oil; (which was thus used with perfectness and skill two centuries before its presumed discovery by John ab Eyck in 1410,) on the western side was a grand composition of the day of Judgment: St.

Edward's or the "Painted Chamber," derived the latter name from the quality and profuseness of its embellishments, and the walls of the whole palace were decorated with portraits or ideal representations, and historical subjects. Nor was this the earliest period in which connected pa.s.sages of history were painted on the wainscot of apartments, for the following order, still extant, refers to the _renovation_ of what must previously--and at some considerable interval of time probably, have been done.

"Anno, 1233, 17 Hen. 3. Mandatum est Vicecomiti South'ton quod Cameram regis lambruscatam de castro Winton depingi faciat eisdem historiis quibus fuerat pri'us depicta."

About 1312, Langton, Bishop of Litchfield, commanded the coronation, marriages, wars, and funeral of his patron King Edward I., to be painted in the great hall of his episcopal palace, which he had newly built.

Chaucer frequently refers to this custom of painting the walls with historical or fanciful designs.

"And soth to faine my chambre was Ful wel depainted---- And all the wals with colours fine Were painted bothe texte and glose, And all the Romaunt of the Rose."

And again:--

"But when I woke all was ypast, For ther nas lady ne creture, Save on the wals old portraiture Of hors.e.m.e.n, hawkis, and houndis, And hurt dere all ful of woundis."

Often emblematical devices were painted, which gave the artist opportunity to display his fancy and exercise his wit. Dr. Cullum, in his History of Hawsted, gives an account of an old mansion, having a closet, the panels of which were painted with various sentences, emblems, and mottos. One of these, intended doubtless as a hint to female vanity, is a painter, who having begun to sketch out a female portrait, writes "Dic mihi qualis eris."

But comfort, or at least a degree of comfort, had progressed hand in hand with decoration. Tapestry, that is to say needlework tapestry, which, like the Bayeux tapestry of Matilda, had been used solely for the decoration of altars, or the embellishment of other parts of sacred edifices on occasions of festival, or the performance of solemn rites, had been of much more general application amongst the luxurious inhabitants of the South, and was introduced into England as furniture hanging by Eleanor of Castile. In Chaucer's time it was common. Among his pilgrims to Canterbury is a tapestry worker who is mentioned in the Prologue, in common with other "professors."

"An haberdasher and a carpenter, A webbe, a dyer, and a tapiser."

And, again:--

"I wol give him all that falles To his chambre and to his halles, I will do painte him with pure golde, And _tapite_ hem ful many a folde."

These modes of decorating the walls and chambers with paintings, and with tapestry, were indeed contemporaneous; though the greater difficulty of obtaining the latter--for as it was not made at Arras until the fourteenth century, all that we here refer to is the painful product of the needle alone--many have made it less usual and common than the former. Pithy sentences, and metrical stanzas were often wrought in tapestry: in Wresil Castle and other mansions, some of the apartments were adorned in the Oriental manner with metrical descriptions called Proverbs. And Warton mentions an ancient suit of tapestry, containing Ariosto's Orlando, and Angelica, where, at every group, the story was all along ill.u.s.trated with short lines in Provencal or old French.

It could only be from its superior comfort that an article so tedious in manufacture as needlework tapestry could be preferred to the more quickly-produced decorations of the pencil; it was also rude in design; and the following description of some tapestry in an old Manor House in King John's time, though taken from a work of fiction, probably presents a correct picture of the style of most of the pieces exhibited in the mansions of the middle ranks at that period.

"In a corner of the apartment stood a bed, the tapestry of which was enwrought with gaudy colours representing Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Adam was presenting our first mother with a large yellow apple, gathered from a tree that scarcely reached his knee. Beneath the tree was an angel milking, and although the winged milkman sat on a stool, yet his head overtopped both cow and tree, and nearly covered a horse, which seemed standing on the highest branches. To the left of Eve appeared a church; and a dark robed gentleman holding something in his hand which looked like a pincushion, but doubtless was intended for a book: he seemed pointing to the holy edifice, as if reminding them that they were not yet married. On the ground lay the rib, out of which Eve (who stood the head higher than Adam) had been formed; both of them were very respectably clothed in the ancient Saxon costume; even the angel wore breeches, which, being blue, contrasted well with his flaming red wings."

No one who has read the real blunders of artists and existing anachronisms in pictures detailed in "Percy Anecdotes," will think the above sketch at all too highly coloured; though doubtless the tapestry hangings introduced by Queen Eleanor which would be imitated and caricatured in ten thousand different forms, were in much superior style. The Moors had attained to the highest perfection in the decorative arts, and from them did the Spaniards borrow this fashion of hangings,[76] and "the coldness of our climate (says her accomplished biographer, Miss Agnes Strickland, speaking of Eleanor,) must have made it indispensable to the fair daughter of the South, chilled with the damp stone walls of English Gothic halls and chambers." Of the chillness of these walls we may form some idea, from a feeling description of a residence which was thought sufficient for a queen some centuries later. In the year 1586, Mary, the unhappy Queen of Scots, writes thus:--

"In regard to my lodging, my residence is a place inclosed with walls, situated on an eminence, and consequently exposed to all the winds and storms of heaven. Within this inclosure there is, like as at Vincennes, a very old hunting seat, built of wood and plaister, with c.h.i.n.ks on all sides, with the uprights; the intervals between which are not properly filled up, and the plaister dilapidated in the various places. The house is about six yards distant from the walls, and so low that the terrace on the other side is as high as the house itself, so that neither the sun nor the fresh air can penetrate it at that side. The damp, however, is so great there, that every article of furniture is covered with mouldiness in the s.p.a.ce of four days.--In a word, the rooms for the most part are fit rather for a dungeon for the lowest and most abject criminals, than for a residence of a person of my rank, or even of a much inferior condition. I have for my own accommodation only wretched little rooms, and so cold, that were it not for the protection of the curtains and tapestries which I have had put up, I could not endure it by day, and still less by night."[77]

The tapestries, whether wrought or woven, did not remain on the walls as do the hangings of modern days: it was the primitive office of the grooms of the chamber to hang up the tapestry which in a royal progress was sent forward with the purveyor and grooms of the chamber. And if these functionaries had not, to use a proverbial expression, "heads on their shoulders," ridiculous or perplexing blunders were not unlikely to arise. Of the latter we have an instance recorded by the Duc de Sully.

"The King (Henry IV.) had not yet quitted Monceaux, when the Cardinal of Florence, who had so great a hand in the treaty of the Vervins, pa.s.sed through Paris, as he came back from Picardy, and to return from thence to Rome, after he had taken leave of his Majesty. The king sent me to Paris to receive him, commanding me to pay him all imaginable honours. He had need of a person near the Pope, so powerful as this Cardinal, who afterwards obtained the Pontificate himself: I therefore omitted nothing that could answer His Majesty's intentions; and the legate, having an inclination to see St. Germain-en-Laye, I sent orders to Momier, the keeper of the castle, to hang the halls and chambers with the finest tapestry of the Crown. Momier executed my orders with great punctuality, but with so little judgment, that for the legate's chamber he chose a suit of hangings made by the Queen of Navarre; very rich, indeed, but which represented nothing but emblems and mottos against the Pope and the Roman Court, as satirical as they were ingenious. The prelate endeavoured to prevail upon me to accept a place in the coach that was to carry him to St. Germain, which I refused, being desirous of getting there before him, that I might see whether everything was in order; with which I was very well pleased. I saw the blunder of the keeper, and reformed it immediately. The legate would not have failed to look upon such a mistake as a formed design to insult him, and to have represented it as such to the Pope.

Reflecting afterwards, that no difference in religion could authorise such sarcasms, I caused all those mottos to be effaced."[78]

In the sixteenth century[79] a sort of hanging was introduced, which, partaking of the nature both of tapestry and painting on the walls, was a formidable rival to the former. Shakspeare frequently alludes to these "painted cloths." For instance, when Falstaff persuades Hostess Quickly, not only to withdraw her arrest, but also to make him a further loan: she says--

"By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to p.a.w.n both my plate and the _tapestry_ of my dining chambers!"

Falstaff answers--

"Gla.s.ses, gla.s.ses is the only drinking, and for thy walls a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or a German Hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pounds if thou canst. If it were not for thy humours, there is not a better wench in England! Go wash thy face and draw thy action."

In another pa.s.sage of the play he says that his troops are "as ragged as Lazarus in the _painted cloth_."

There are now at Hampton Court eight large pieces or hangings of this description; being "The Triumphs of Julius Caesar," in water-colours, on cloth, and in good preservation. They are by Andrea Mantegna, and were valued at 1000_l._ at the time, when, by some strange circ.u.mstance, the Cartoons of Raphael were estimated only at 300_l._

Tapestry was common in the East at a very remote era, when the most grotesque compositions and fantastic combinations were usually displayed on it. Some authors suppose that the Greeks took their ideas of griffins, centaurs, &c., from these Tapestries, which, together with the art of making them, they derived from the East, and at first they closely imitated both the beauties and deformities of their patterns. At length their refined taste improved upon these originals; and the old grotesque combinations were confined to the borders of the hanging, the centre of which displayed a more regular and systematic representation.

It has been supposed by some writers that the invention of Tapestry, pa.s.sed from the East into Europe; but Guicciardini ascribes it to the Netherlanders; and a.s.suredly the Bayeux Tapestry, the work of the Conqueror's Queen, shows that this art must have acquired much perfection in Europe before the time of the Crusades, which is the time a.s.signed by many for its introduction there. Probably Guicciardini refers to woven Tapestry, which was not practised until the article itself had become, from custom, a thing of necessity.

Unintermitting and arduous had been the st.i.tchery practised in the creation of these coveted luxuries long, very long before the loom was taught to give relief to the busy finger.

The first manufactories of Tapestry of any note were those of Flanders, established there long before they were attempted in France or England. The chief of these were at Brussels, Antwerp, Oudenarde, Lisle, Tournay, Bruges, and Valenciennes. At Brussels and Antwerp they succeeded well both in the design and the execution of human figures and animals, and also in landscapes. At Oudenarde the landscape was more imitated, and they did not succeed so well in the figure. The other manufactories, always excepting those of Arras, were inferior to these.

The grand era of general manufactories in France must be fixed in the reign of Henry the IV. Amongst others he especially devoted his attention to the manufacture of Tapestry, and that of the Gobelins, since so celebrated, was begun, though futilely, in his reign. His celebrated minister, Sully, was entangled in these matters somewhat more than he himself approved.

1605. "I laid, by his order, the foundations of the new edifices for his Tapestry weavers, in the horse-market. His Majesty sent for Comans and La Planche, from other countries, and gave them the care and superintendence of these manufactures: the new directors were not long before they made complaints, and disliked their situation, either because they did not find profits equal to their hopes and expectations, or, that having advanced considerable sums themselves, they saw no great probability of getting them in again. The king got rid of their importunity by referring them to me."[80]

1607. "It was a difficult matter to agree upon a price with these celebrated Flemish tapestry workers, which we had brought into France at so great an expense. At length it was resolved in the presence of Sillery and me, that a 100,000_l._ should be given them for their establishment. Henry was very solicitous about the payment of this sum; 'Having,' said he, 'a great desire to keep them, and not to lose the advances we have made.' He would have been better pleased if these people could have been paid out of some other funds than those which he had reserved for himself: however, there was a necessity for satisfying them at any price whatever. His Majesty made use of his authority to oblige De Vienne to sign an acquittal to the undertakers for linen cloth in imitation of Dutch Holland. This prince ordered a complete set of furniture to be made for him, which he sent for me to examine separately, to know if they had not imposed upon him. _These things were not at all in my taste_, and I was but a very indifferent judge of them: the price seemed to me to be excessive, as well as the quant.i.ty. Henry was of another opinion: after examining the work, and reading my paper, he wrote to me that there was not too much, and that they had not exceeded his orders; and that he had never seen so beautiful a piece of work before, and that the workman must be paid his demands immediately."[81]

The manufactory languished however, even if it did not become entirely extinct. But it was revived in the reign of Louis XIV., and has since dispersed productions of unequalled delicacy over the civilised world.

It was called "Gobelins," because the house in the suburbs of Paris, where the manufacture is carried on, was built by brothers whose names were Giles and John Gobelins, both excellent dyers, and who brought to Paris in the reign of Francis I. the secret of dying a beautiful scarlet colour, still known by their name.