Bulletin Monumental, XL^^II, 5® série, X (1882), p

664 ACTES DU CONGRÈS d’HISTOIRE DE L’ART

et le motif iconographique ont donné heu à des conjectures sans nombre ». He too déniés that the story of Zizim has any foundation.

The problem of the subject then is unsolved, and an unsolved problem has an attraction ail its own. An attempt to remove or simplify a mystery such as this seems almost as bad as giving a matter-of-fact explanation of a fairy-tale to a child. I am therefore happy to think that the suggestion I hâve to make does not altogether solve the mystery which surrounds these beautiful panels.

There are six tapestries. Each represents a circumscribed patcl of flowery meadow with trees, bushes and a multitude of small animais. In this meadow the lady is seen, generally with an attendant, and always accompanied by a lion and a unicom with lances blazoned with the heraldic bearings of her family. The background on which the scenes are placed is red, covered, not like the meadow with a natural growth of flowers, but with scattered stems, in the style known as « mille fleurs » and amid these are animais again. The incongruity ,of this arrangement is warranted by the opportunity it gives of introducing the red ground. The first panel is introductory. The lady stands in a tent, the sides of which are held back by the heraldic animais. On her right is a stool with her pet dog on a cushion. On her left a waiting-maid holds out before her an open jewel casket from which she selects a chain. We need not seek for allegory here. In the second scene she is feeding a small parrot, perched on her left hand, with nuts or berries held in a cup by the kneeling attendant.

In the third she plays on a portable organ, the attendant blowing the bellows.

In the fourth she takes a flower from a dish held by the attendant ; a monkey on a stool beside her also snatches a flower from a basket.

In the fifth she places her left hand on the neck of the unicom which crouches with its front paws in her lap, while with

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her right she holds a mirror in which the animars head is reflected.

In the sixth she holds the lance with her right hand, and with her left grasps the unicom’s hom.

In each of the last two scenes there is only one lance so these were probably the end panels.

Taking them in the order above we hâve the Five Senses plainly exemplified. The subject became a popular one when artists were looking round for something to replace the sacred scenes which absorbed so much of the attention of artists and craftsmen in médiéval times. It was quite usual, as in the case of these tapestries, to associate with each scene an animal considered to hâve the particular Sense abnormally developed. The subject is found sometimes in paintings, and very frequently in embroideries. We may take two of the latter, almost at random, which happen to be in the Victoria and Albert Muséum. Many others would serve the purpose equally well.

One is a swiss coverlet of embroidered linen, dated 1580. This has the five figures, with attendant animais, enclosed by scrollwork. The names of the senses are inscribed above the figures (PI. i). The other is an english embroidered casket of the first half of the xvii‘h century (PL 2).

In the following table, letter A will dénoté the tapestries, B the swiss coverlet, and C the english box.

Taste. A, feeding a parrot ; B, Gusius : eating fruit, and a monkey eating fruit ; C, eating fruit.

Hearing. A, playing an organ ; B, Auditus, playing a lute, a boar by her side ; C, playing a lute.

Smelling. A, holding a flower, and a monkey with a flower ; B, Olfactus ; holding a flower, a dog by her side ; C, holding a flower, a dog at her feet.

Sight. A, holding a mirror ; B, Ftsus : holding a mirror, an eagle by her side ; C, holding a mirror.

Touch. A, grasping the unicom’s horn and the lance ; B Tactus : a parrot on her hand ; C, a parrot on her hand.

The chief discrepancy, when the three renderings of the subject are compared, is that the parrot represents Touch in B and C, while in A its is being fed, to stand for Taste.

The lady’s family, as indicated by the heraldic bearings, has already been traced, and I hâve no suggestions to make in regard to her identification.

II, — Les ateliers de tapisserie en Angleterre.

The aim of this paper is not so much to record newly-ascertained facts for the first time as to bring together in a brief form the results of investigations made during the last few years into the history of tapestry-weaving in England, Until quite recently, Mortlake was the only english tapestry-factory known to the World at large. Then people became vaguely aware that the Mortlake factory was neither the beginning nor the end of tapestrymaking in England. These ideas hâve been gradually taking shape, and although the whole story is not yet known, it is already possible to give a general outline of tapestry-making in the country, and to identify as english hundreds of panels hitherto ignored, or unknown, or regarded as foreign work. A single instance may be given. At Boughton House in Northamptonshire, a seat of the Duke of Buccleuch, there are altogether about hundred tapestries. Of this number no less than thirty may be safely identified as English weaving. They belong for the most part to the second half of the xvidh century. Until recently that phase of the Mortlake work has been little regarded. The factory has been mainly kno\vn and judged by its work of the first thirty years — from the time of its foundation in 1619 until the downfall of Charles I. Its réputation will not altogether be enhanced by a wider knowledge of its later activities, from the middle of the century until it was finally closed in 1703. The earlier phase of Mortlake work is not likely to be misjudged in Paris, where some of its best productions are

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to be seen. The first tapestries were the finest, rivalling the work of any other factory of the time. Some of the most skilful continental weavers were induced to co-operate, and the parisian Work was taken as a model. Not only did the committee, appointed to advise King James I. on the project, hâve before them a copy of the edict promulgated a few years earlier by King Henri IV for tapestry-making in Paris, but even the best sets woven at Mortlake copy closely the style of the contemporary french tapestries.

After the national troubles of the middle of the xviitb century, the technical standard dropped deplorably. The cessation of royal subsidies rendered the high cost of production a very serions burden, and the demand for lower prices was met by rougher and coarser work. Were it not for the fact that the designs were felicitously chosen at times, the products of the later period would hâve little intçrest as works of art.

From the point of view of décorative effect, the most successful of these later Mortlake tapestries are the sets known as the Playing Boys. These were very popular and they were often repeated. The subjects were obviously derived from the well-known tapestries woven at Ferrara in the early years of the xvi‘^ century, with groups of little naked boys (winged in the italian examples) climbing trees, gathering grapes, or occupied in frolicsome antics. How the designs came to England, or who prepared the cartoons, is not known at présent. They do not appear to hâve any relation to the Enfants Jardiniers designed by Lebrun for the Gobelins. In sentiment they are nearer the Italian originals, and research would probably strengthen the impression that they may hâve had some connection with Charles the First’s purchase of the Duke of Mantua’s collection of paintings in 1629-1632. It is well known that Mantegna’s cartoons of the “ Triumph of Julius Cæsar ” acquired by the King with that collection, and now at Hampton Court, were copied in tapestry at Mortlake ; examples are in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch. The scope of the Mortlake

factory is already beginning to be better understood, and the chief purpose of this brief summary is to explain its relation to the other less-known english tapestry-weaving enterprises. The chief of these preceded Mortlake itself, having been founded in Warwickshire about the middle of the xvi‘h century. It was set up and maintained by a private english family. The only tapestries made at this factory which hâve an unbroken pedigree are the maps, now the property of the Bodleian Library and the Philosophical Society at York. These differ from any other tapestries made anywhere. Birds’ eye views of land or sea hâve been woven at more than one factory, but these Elizabethan panels actually reproduced scale-maps of english counties, marking the towns and villages and giving their names. The maps chosen for reproduction represented the Midland districts of England, where the looms were situated. William Sheldon, the founder of the factory, owned land in Warwickshire and Worcestershire. His object was to provide useful employment for people on his estâtes, and in doing so he has raised a lasting monument to his own memory and that of his family. Richard Hyckes, whom he sent to the Netherlands to leam the craft, was put in charge of the factories. Looms were set up at Weston and Barcheston in Warwickshire. When Sheldon died in 1570 he enjoined his son Ralph to carry on the factories. The shields of arms represented on the maps show that the looms were still at work in the time of Ralph’s great-grandson, another Ralph who was born in 1624, and lived until 1684. The factory therefore lasted for a century at least, involving five générations of the Sheldon family. The names of Richard Hyckes and his successor Francis Hyckes are to be found on the maps. Particulars of these tapestries and other facts about Sheldon’s enterprise were first given in systematic form by the Rev. W. K. R. Bedford, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society and published in their Journal (Vol. IX, February, 1897). He has the distinction of being the first to bring long-forgotten facts to light. In 1914 the maps from Oxford and

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York, by the kind concurrence of their custodians, were ail brought together on view at the Victoria and Albert Muséum, and enquiries then set on foot were instrumental in the discovery and exhibition of portions of another map long lost sight of. So far as we know, ail the maps woven were done for members of the Sheldon family, remaining at the family seat at Weston until the later years of the xyiii**’ century. In recent years a number of other tapestries hâve been identified by their obvions relation to the maps ; the list is now considérable and is still growing. The most important discovery, made by Mr. John Humphreys, is a sériés of panels with classical and biblical scenes set in décorative framework, found in the servants’ quarters at Chastleton House, Gloucestershire. They bear the initiais of Walter Jones, who bought Chastleton in 1602 (an ancestor of the présent owner), and obviously they hâve remained there continuously from the time they were made.

Four very remarkable tapestries of the Seasons at Hatfield House are slightly later than the Chastleton panels. The date woven upon one of them is 1611. For some time they hâve been regarded as english work, and there seems little doubt that they may be safely claimed for Sheldon’s weavers. ’WTiat the end of the factory was we do not know. Certain arguments which there is not space to set down here tend to show that it is possible, or even probable, that Sheldon’s weavers in the end associated themselves with the Mortlake craftsmen. By that time, the décliné of the larger factory had already set in. It was then too, that individual tapestry-weavers began to break away from the Mortlake factory and to set up as independent craftsmen in and around London, soliciting orders in compétition with the parent factory.

William Benood of Lambeth was one of the first of these. He wove tapestries for Haddon Hall, and a few other tapestries bearing his name are known.

Several weavers, holding office under the Royal Wardrobe, worked in Soho, in the western district of London. John Vander-

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bank is the best known. He worked in the last years of the xvii*^ and the early part of the xviii‘^ century. Signed panels by him show that he was a facile and versatile weaver. Sometimes he copies the subjects woven at the Gobelins factory, but his most characteristic panels were in the chinese style on brown, black or dark blue grounds. Other panels of the same type bear the name Mazarind. We know nothing of this weaver, and it is only pure conjecture that he may hâve been a collaborator with Vanderbank. Another weaver, Morris, wove tapestries with subjects of scroUs, fiowers and birds in a style half french, half flemish. One of his tapestries is signed “ I. Morris ” and dated 1723. There seems some reason to think that Morris is to be identified with Joshua Morris upholsterer and tapestry-worker, who was sued by Hogarth in 1727 for payment for a tapestry-design not approved by Morris. In defence of the latter, one William Bradshaw was called. Can this be the weaver whose name appears on a number of tapestries scattered in varions places ? The most striking of the tapestries signed by Bradshaw are the four remarkable panels at Ham House with subjects çopied from Watteau’s landscape scenes. The design of one of these is almost identical with that of a tapestry sold at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, on the I4th June 1920, and described in the catalogue as being probably italian. It would serve no useful purpose to mention here the names of tapestryweavers recorded in contemporary documents, of whom we can only say that none of their works is identified up to the présent. This account must close with a reference to a very original weaver of Soho, John Saunders, whose work carries us forward into the second half of the nviiP^ century, later than aU the others mentioned. His tapestries hâve a strain of poetry and a lightness of touch which single him out from most other enghsh weavers. He faveurs romantic scenes with fanciful oriental figures, and picturesque ruins, in landscapes flooded with the light of a setting sun. Saunders’ work deserves to be better known. The Soho tradition lasted down to recent times. A skilful weaver of frêne

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origin, Brignolas, who had been employed in the Windsor factory, founded in 1876 and closed thirteen years later, settled in Soho, where he continued to practice his craft until his death only a few years ago. The relation of the later english weavers to the great french factory of the Gobelins would form a most interesting chapter, if materials were available for writing it. That they often had the Gobelins work in mind is as indisputable, as that they made no attempt to reach its high technical standard. Lebrun’s designs of the Eléments, for example, were copied many times in England. There is an uncertainty about Bradshaw’s subjects after Watteau. If he can be shown to hâve been the first weaver to interpret that artist’s landscapes and figures in tapestry, it is much to his crédit. The décorative panels of I. Morris may hâve some french association, but this is another of the problems which must be cleared up before the history of tapestry-weavirig in England can be properly written.