The origin of tapestry weaving

In old Russian - and not only Russian - texts we find the term 'arazzo', an Italian variation of the name of the city of Arras in northern France, which was a major centre of production and trade in wall carpets in the Middle Ages. In many European languages, the terms for tapestries, i.e. napless wall carpets, are synonymous with wallpaper or wall panels. Balancing its utilitarian function as wall decoration material with its high value as a work of art, tapestry weaving techniques have accompanied humanity since at least the earliest civilisations.

A tapestry is a wall rug woven from wool with the addition of silk and, depending on the region and period, linen, cotton and silver and gilded threads, decorated with patterns and narrative images, evolved from a thick wool cloth that served to separate internal spaces and insulate walls. They were known already in early antiquity; the description of the loom weaving technique is repeatedly found in Homer:

There lived fifty handicraft slave women in a spacious palace:
The golden rye was threshed by some with millstones, the threads were woven by others who weaved, sitting at the looms next to each other, like the leaves of a trembling poplar; the fabrics were so dense that even thin oil did not sink into them. As the Theacian men were great at steering their swift ships on the seas, so great were their wives at weaving: the goddess Athena herself taught them...

The technique of tapestry weaving was known and actively used in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome. Coptic fabrics, woven from very fine wool and silk threads, are widely known. The earliest examples of tapestry weaving are preserved in the State Hermitage Museum, such as a fragment of a woollen cloth dated 9th-8th centuries BC from excavations in Tuva or a cloth from Pazyryk in Altai, made from purple fabric woven in tapestry technique in the 5th century BC. Through the Roman Empire and then Byzantium, antique tapestry weaving came to medieval European culture. A separate centre of tapestry weaving became northern European countries where wool production was developed. Today we know examples of medieval wall carpets woven in Germany and Scandinavia in the 12th-13th centuries. In the East tapestry weaving is widely known and still used for floor carpets, but there the technique is called 'kilim weaving'.

Tapestry weaving technique

Tapestries woven on manual looms, which can be horizontal or vertical. On horizontal looms, which were more common in Flanders, the tapestry faces the weaver with its backside, causing the finished carpet to be mirrored against the original drawing. The artist had to take this peculiarity into account as early as the sketching stage.

The vertical loom allowed the tapestry to be woven from the front side, which offered greater opportunities for nuance, but slowed down the work considerably. Such looms were readily used at the Gobelin manufactory in Paris and the Imperial tapestry manufactory in St. Petersburg.

In Flanders the quality of materials, wool and silk threads and dyes was very strictly regulated and this explains the fine state of the tapestries that have survived to this day. Along with Brussels during the 16th century, major Flemish tapestry centres were located in Antwerp, Bruges, Audenarde and Anguene. From the first half of the 16th century, a number of major masters, workshop owners such as the Goebel family, Pieter van Alst, Pannemaker, van den Heecke, and others worked in Flanders.

At the beginning of the 16th century a vast market for tapestries developed in Europe and the workshops needed to protect their copyrights. In Brussels in 1528 a special decree introduced the rule to mark tapestries with the city's mark - "BB" (Brussels - Brabant). From 1544 the requirement to weave the mark was extended to all the Netherlands.

In 1515, Raphael and his pupils were commissioned by Pope Leo X to paint a series of cartoons for the Acts of the Apostles. Eight of the tapestries were intended to adorn the Sistine Chapel and were executed in Brussels in the studio of Pieter van Alst under the supervision of Bernard van Orlej. Raphael's paintings were very different from the Flemish tapestries of the time. The three-dimensional figures no longer filled the entire surface of the rug, but were set against a background of landscapes with well-defined space. Only the broad borders gave them a resemblance to a wall rug. These tapestries had a huge impact on all the tapestry weaving of the 16th century.

The transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance in tapestry weaving was gradual. Flemish artists came to Italy to study and then returned home with new skills. One of the best Renaissance masters in trellis weaving was Bernard van Orleij (between 1487 and 1491-1541). His talent, interest in monumental compositions and familiarity with the work of Italian artists, especially Raphael, helped him to find new ways for the development of Flemish tapestries without abandoning established traditions. The tapestries of the middle and second half of the 16th century gradually came closer to painting, although the medieval canons were still in place until the end of the century, which gave the wall carpets their decorative quality which distinguished them from frescoes.

One of the largest orders for Flemish tapestries in the 16th century was for King Sigismund II August of Poland. Several series of tapestries with Old Testament themes were commissioned for the Wawel castle and were used during the king's wedding in 1553. The cartoons in the series have been attributed to Michiel Coxie, a Flemish painter who worked at the courts of Margaret of Parma and Philip II. Coxie's acquaintance with Italian Renaissance art, and particularly with the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Sebastiano del Piombo, during his stay in Italy from 1529 to 1539, influenced the composition and treatment of the characters portrayed.

An enormous influence on Flemish and European tapestry weaving in general was Peter Paul Rubens, who, with his workshop, made cartoons for tapestries. In addition to Rubens, cartoons were made by Jacob Jordaens, as well as artists of their circle. It was not uncommon for different studios to make the same cartoons at different times, as the cartoons were resold over the course of several decades. Rubens created his recognizable style in tapestry weaving, characterized by large figures occupying almost the entire surface of the rug, as if barely fitting into the tight confines of the borders, the expression and movement, the vividness of the colours. In the Baroque period the borders became wide, with large images of fruit and allegorical motifs combined with the main subject.

The largest Brussels workshops of the 17th century belonged to the old Leiners, van den Heecke and Rees families. During the same period, fine workshops that rivaled those in Brussels were operating in Antwerp, Audenarde, Bruges. They were also keen to commission cartoons from the best artists of their time.

The themes of the 17th-century tapestries in general corresponded to the tastes and artistic principles of the Baroque period: these are mythological and religious scenes from the Old and New Testaments, stories of famous generals, epic battle scenes and triumphal processions of victors. Simultaneously with carpets on elevated subjects, Flemish workshops produced landscape verduras to adorn private interiors. They derive their name from the French word "verdure" meaning "greenness" or "foliage". Their main content - green landscapes with figures of animals and birds in the foreground, architectural constructions in the background, sometimes small figures of shepherds and hunters or scenes from history or mythology were introduced into the composition, which together created the so-called "garden of pleasures" (Jardin du plaisire).

At the end of the 17th century tapestry weaving was enriched by themes from everyday life of common people, which previously could not be presented in such a high art form. The compositions of small paintings by David Teniers the Younger were translated into cartoons for full-length tapestries, which gained great recognition on the European market in the late 17th and early 18th century.

In 1662, the Royal Tapestry Manufactory was launched on the estate of the wool dyers and bankers Gobelins and immediately began to produce wall carpets of the highest quality. The success was no accident, as considerable experience had been built up in France by this time and there were excellent specialists, both weavers and artists. Charles Le Brun, the king's first painter, was appointed director of the manufactory. The support of the state contributed to the prosperity of the tapestry manufactory and the immediate success of its products. As a result, French weavers beat the Flemish, and from that time on the finest European tapestries were made in France. The first cartoons for the manufactory were made by French artists, but on a par with this, the Gobelins produced a series of rugs, a kind of loose copies of the Flemish tapestries of the 16th century. Tapestries often bear a manufactory mark - the name of the head of the workshop and the year of manufacture.

Throughout the 18th century the Gobelins produced tapestries in large series: Styles, Muses, Vatican Halls, New and Old Indies. In the middle of the century tapestries were produced based on the cartoons of François Boucher, who had a great influence on the European textile industry. In the second half of the 18th century the trend towards oil painting imitations was consolidated in tapestry production. Advances in weaving and dyeing meant that hundreds of shades could be present in a single tapestry. This gave almost limitless possibilities for imitating a painted surface. Even the borders of the tapestries began to take the form of massive moulded gilded frames. Such tapestries were stretched on frames and inserted into wall panels.

All tapestries were at the disposal of the royal court, as the manufacture was paid for by the king. They often served as special gifts on behalf of the French crown. When Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna travelled to France, Louis XVI gifted them 20 tapestries that are now kept in the collections of the State Hermitage, Gatchina and the Pavlovsk Palace.