The Tapestry Book Part 14

From the East, then, came the idea of weaving in that style of which only the people of the East were masters. Oriental rugs as such were not attempted in either colour or design, but one of the rug st.i.tches was copied.

We have to run back to the time of Henri IV, a pleasing time to turn to with its demonstration of how much a powerful king loved the welfare of his people. When he interested himself in tapestry, one of the three important existing factories was stationed in the Louvre.

This was primarily for the hangings properly called tapestry, but in the same place were looms for the production of work "after the fashion of Turkey." Sometimes it was called work of "long wool"

(_longue laine_) and sometimes also "_a la facon de Perse, ou du Levant_," as well as "of the fashion of Turkey,"--all names giving credit to the East from whence the st.i.tch came by means of crusades, invasions and other storied movements of the people of a dim past.

How long ago this st.i.tch came, is as uncertain as most things in the Middle Ages. We know how persistently the cultivated venturesome East overflowed Eastern Europe, and how religious Europe thrust itself into the East, and on these broad bases we plant our imaginings.

Away back in Burgundian times there are traces of the use of this velvet st.i.tch. Tapestries of Germany also woven in the Fifteenth Century, use this st.i.tch to heighten the effect of details.

But the formation of an actual industry properly set down in history and dignified by the name of its directors, comes in the very first years of the Seventeenth Century when Henri IV of France was living up to his high ideals.

Pierre Dupont is the name to remember in this connexion. He is styled the inventor of the velvet pile in tapestry, but it were better to call him the adaptor. The name of Savonnerie came from the building in which the first looms were set up, an old soap factory, and thus the velvet pile bears the misnomer of the Savonnerie.

Pierre Dupont (whose book "La Stromaturgie" might be consulted by the book-lover) was one of the enthusiasts included by Henri IV along with the best high-and low-warp masters of France at that time. Being placed under royal patronage, the Savonnerie style of weaving acquired a dignity which it has ever had trouble in retaining for the simple reason that the legitimate place for its products seems to be the floor.

The Gobelins factory finally absorbed the Savonnerie, but that was after it had been established in the Louvre. Pierre Dupont who was director of tapestry works under Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt the works of French production over those of "La Turquie." The taste of the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French colour and drawing than with the designs of the East.

At any rate, this pretty wool velvet found such favour with kings that even Louis XIV encouraged its continuance, gathering it under the roof of the all-embracing Gobelins.

A large royal order embraced ninety-two pieces, intended to cover the Grand Galerie of the Louvre. Many of these pieces are preserved to-day and are conserved by the State.

If Savonnerie has never produced much that is noteworthy in the line of art, at least it has given us many pretty bits of an endearing softness, bits which cover a chair or panel a screen, to the delight of both eye and touch. The softness of the weave makes it especially appropriate to furniture of the age of luxurious interiors which is represented by the styles of Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Portraits in this style of weave were executed at a time when portraits were considered improved by translation into wool, but except as curiosities they are scarcely successful. An example hangs in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Plate facing page 162.) In the Gobelins factory of to-day are four looms for the manufacture of Savonnerie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE

Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York]

CHAPTER XVII

MORTLAKE

1619-1703

The three great epochs of tapestry weaving, with their three localities which are roughly cla.s.sed as Arras in the Fifteenth Century, Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, and Paris in the Seventeenth, had, as a matter of course, many tributary looms. It is not supposable that a craft so simple, when it is limited to unambitious productions, should not be followed by hundreds of modest people whose highest wish was to earn a living by providing the market with what was then considered as much a necessity as chairs and tables.

To take a little retrospective journey through Europe and linger among these obscurer weavers would be delectable pastime for the leisurely, and for the enthusiast. But we are all more or less in a hurry, and incline toward a courier who will point out the important spots without having to hunt for them. Artois had not only Arras; Flanders had not only Brussels; France had not only the State ateliers of Paris and Beauvais; but all these countries had smaller centres of production. The tapestries from some of these we are able to identify, even to weave a little history about them. These products are recognisable through much study of marks and details and much digging in learned foreign books, where careful records are kept--a congenial business for the antiquary.

But even though we may neglect in the main the lesser factories, there is one great development which must have full notice. It is the important English venture known as Mortlake.

Sully, standing at the elbow of Henri IV of France, called James I of England the wisest fool in Europe. A part of his wisdom was the encouraging in his own kingdom the royal craft of tapestry-making. To this end he followed the example set by that grand Henri of Navarre, and gave the crown's aid to establish and maintain works for tapestry production.

The elegance of the Stuart came to the front, desiring gratification; but craftiness had a hand in the matter, too. After the introduction of Italian luxury into England by Henry VIII, and the continuance of art's revival through the brilliant period of Elizabeth, it is not supposable that no tapestry looms existed throughout the length and breadth of the land at the time that James came down from Scotland.

They were there; doc.u.ments prove it. But they were not of such condition as pleased the fastidious son of Marie Stuart, who needs must import his weavers and his artists. And therein was shown his craftiness, for he had coaxed secretly from Flanders fifty expert weavers before the canny Dutch knew their talented material was thus being filched away. Every weaver was bound to secrecy, lest the Low Countries, knowing the value of her clever workmen, put a ban upon their going before the English king had his full quota for the new venture.

Wandering about old London, one can identify now the place where the king's factory had habitat. The buildings stood where now we find Queen's Court Pa.s.sage, and near by, at Victoria Terrace, was the house set aside for the limners or artists who drew and painted for the works.

To copy Henri IV in his success was dominant in the mind of James I.

To the able Sir Francis Crane he gave the place of director of the works, and made with him a contract similar to that made with Francois de la Planche and Marc Comans in Paris by their king.

If to James I is owed the initial establishment, to Crane is owed all else at that time. It was in 1619 that the works were founded and Sir Francis took charge. He was a gentleman born, was much seen at Court, had ambitions of his own, too, and was cultivated in many ways of mind and taste. Besides all this, he had a head for business and an enthusiasm rampant, which could meet any discouragement--and needed this faculty later, too.

The king then gave him the management of the venture, started him with the royal favour, which was as good as a fortune, with a building for the looms, with imported workers who knew the tricks of the trade, and with a pretty sum of money to boot.

Prudence was born with the enterprise; so the men from the Low Countries were advised to become naturalised to make them more likely to stay, and to bring other workers over, Walloons, malcontents, religious fugitives, or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful.

Down in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,--those lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small leaded panes which we are so keen to restore and live in these days.

To swell the number of workers, and to have an eye for the future, there must be apprentices. The king looked about among the city's "hospitals" and saw many goodly boys living at crown expense, with no specified occupation during their adolescence. These he put as apprentices, for a term of seven years, to work under the fifty Flemish leaders. They were happy if they fell under the care of Philip de Maecht, he of Flanders, who had wandered down to Paris and served under De la Planche and Comans, and now had been enticed to the new Mortlake. He has left his visible mark on tapestries of his production--his monogram, P.D.M. (Plate facing page 70.)

A designer for the factory, one who lived there, was an inseparable part of it. And thus it came that Francis Clein (or Cleyn) was permanently established. He came from Denmark, but had taken an enlightening journey to Italy, and had a fine equipment for the work, which he carried on until 1658. His name is on several tapestries now existing.

Even kings tire of their fulfilled wishes. James wanted royal tapestry works, yet, when they were an established fact, he wearied of the drafts on his purse for their support. It was the old story of unfulfilled obligations, of a royal purse plucked at by too many vital interests to spend freely on art.

And Sir Francis Crane bore the brunt of the troubles. Contracts with the king counted but lightly in face of his enthusiasm. He continued the work, paid his men the best he could, and let the king's debt to him stand unsued.

In a few years--a very few, as it was then but 1623--he was obliged to pet.i.tion the king. His private fortune was gone by the board, the workmen were clamouring for wages past due, and the factory trembled.

Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of his interest in the tapestries that were demonstrating the artistic enterprise of England. The Italian taste was the ultimate note in England as well as elsewhere--the Italy of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had ordered paintings and drawings. What was more to the purpose at this hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the crown a bill of seven hundred pounds, which covered their expense. The king, unwillingly,--for needs pressed on all sides--paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for moneys he had expended, but left him struggling against the hard conditions of a ruined private purse and a thin royal one.

At this juncture, 1625, James I died, and his son reigned in his stead. The Prince of Wales was now become that beribboned, picturesque, French-spirited monarch, whose figure on Whitehall eternally protests his tragic death.

As Charles I, he had the power to foster the elegant industry which now grew and flowered to a degree that brought satisfaction then, and which yields a harvest of delight in our own times. Sir Francis Crane was at last to get the reward of enthusiasm and fidelity. Too much reward, said the envious, who tried in all ways, fair and foul, to drive him from what was now a lucrative and conspicuous post. The money he had advanced the factory came back to him, and more also.

Ever a well-known figure at court, he now even aspired to closer relations with royalty, and built a magnificent country home, which was large enough to accommodate a visiting court. He even persuaded the king to visit the Mortlake factory, that the royal presence might enhance the value of art in the occult way known only to the subjects of kings.

Debts from the crown were not always paid in clinking coin, but often in grants of land, and by these grants Sir Francis Crane became rich.

But the prosperity of Crane was not worth our recording were it not that it evidenced the prosperity of Mortlake. From the death of James I in 1625 for a period of ten years, the factory flowered and fruited.

Its productions were of the very finest that have ever been produced in any country.

The reasons for this superiority were evident. First of all, Mortlake was the pet of the king; next, Crane was an able and devoted minister of its affairs; its artistic inspiration came from the home of the highest art--Italy--and its weavers were from that locality of sage and able weavers--Flanders. Add to this, tapestries were the fashion.

Every man of wealth and importance felt them a necessary chattel to his elegance. And add to this, too, that Mortlake had almost a clean field. It was nearly without rival in fine tapestry-making at that time. Brussels had declined, and the Gobelins was not formed in its inspired combination.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE

Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE

Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York]