![BeijingObservatoryUpdateTapestry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/BeijingObservatoryUpdateTapestry.png)
The Beauvais Manufactory () is a historic
tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...
factory in
Beauvais
Beauvais ( , ; pcd, Bieuvais) is a city and commune in northern France, and prefecture of the Oise département, in the Hauts-de-France region, north of Paris.
The commune of Beauvais had a population of 56,020 , making it the most populous ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. It was the second in importance, after the
Gobelins Manufactory
The Gobelins Manufactory () is a historic tapestry factory in Paris, France. It is located at 42 avenue des Gobelins, near Les Gobelins métro station in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally established on the site as a medieval ...
, of French tapestry workshops that were established under the general direction of
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (; 29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683) was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the countr ...
, the finance minister of
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Vers ...
. Whereas the royal Gobelins Manufactory executed tapestries for the royal residences and as ambassadorial gifts, the manufacture at Beauvais remained a private enterprise. Beauvais specialised in
low-warp tapestry weaving, although the letters patent of 1664, authorising the company and offering royal protection, left the field open for the production of high-warp tapestry as well.
History
The first entrepreneur, Louis Hinard, a native of Beauvais who had already established workshops in Paris, produced unambitious floral and foliate tapestries called ''verdures'' and landscape tapestries, which are known through chance notations in royal accounts. He was arrested for his debts in 1684, and the workshops were refounded more successfully under Philippe Behagle, a merchant tapestry-manufacturer from
Oudenarde
Oudenaarde (; french: Audenarde ; in English sometimes ''Oudenarde'') is a Belgian municipality in the Flemish province of East Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Oudenaarde proper and the towns of Bevere, Edelare, Eine, Ename, Heu ...
, who had also worked in the traditional tapestry-weaving city of
Tournai
Tournai or Tournay ( ; ; nl, Doornik ; pcd, Tornai; wa, Tornè ; la, Tornacum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Tournai is part of Euromet ...
. Behagle's first successes were a suite of ''Conquests of the King'' which complemented a contemporaneous Gobelins suite showing episodes in the ''Life of the King'', without directly competing with them. A suite of ''Acts of the Apostles'', following copies of
Raphael's cartoons, are in the
cathedral of Beauvais. The so-called ''Teniers'' tapestries, in the manner of village scenes painted by
David Teniers the Younger
David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (bapt. 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile arti ...
, began to be woven under Behagle and continued popular, with up-dated borders, into the eighteenth century, when the earliest series of archives begin.
![Kronborg - Gobelin 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Kronborg_-_Gobelin_1.jpg)
The great series of ''Grotesques'' (''illustration, left'') initiated in the 1690s became a mainstay of Beauvais production, woven through the Régence. The cartoons, which were inspired by the engravings of the elder
Jean Bérain and were carried out to cartoons by
Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer
Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (12 January 1636 – 20 February 1699) was a Franco-Flemish painter who specialised in flower pieces. He was attached to the Gobelins tapestry workshops and the Beauvais tapestry workshops, too, where he produced cartoons ...
, a painter attached to the Gobelins factory, were based on fanciful ''
grotteschi
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
''. Against mustard yellow grounds vases and baskets of fruit with birds, a specialty of Monnoyer's, are contrasted with lively figures, sometimes acrobats and dancers, sometimes from the ''
Commedia dell'arte
(; ; ) was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as , , and . Charact ...
'' in slender and fanciful ''arabesque'' architecture.
Behagle continued his private workshops in Paris, as had his predecessor. From these shops came the suite of ''Marine Triumphs'' with the arms of the
comte de Toulouse
The count of Toulouse ( oc, comte de Tolosa, french: comte de Toulouse) was the ruler of Toulouse during the 8th to 13th centuries. Originating as vassals of the Frankish kings,
the hereditary counts ruled the city of Toulouse and its surroundin ...
. On his death in 1705, the Beauvais manufacture was continued by his wife and son, and in 1711 by new proprietors, the brothers Filleul. Under Filleul ownership Beauvais produced suites of ''The story of Telemachus'' and Ovidian ''Metamorphoses'' as well as animal combats, and a series of "Chinese" hangings that are a high point in the career of
chinoiserie
(, ; loanword from French ''wikt:chinoiserie#French, chinoiserie'', from ''wikt:chinois#French, chinois'', "Chinese"; ) is the European interpretation and imitation of China, Chinese and other East Asia, East Asian artistic traditions, especial ...
. Between 1722 and 1726, Beauvais was directed by Noël-Antoine de Mérou, and maintained showrooms in Paris, and in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
and
Ratisbon
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...
(
Regensburg
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...
), for Beauvais found many commissions among foreigners.
![Chevalfondu](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Beauvais_Tapestry%2C_Le_Cheval_Fondu_by_Manufacture_de_Beauvais.jpg)
The great period of Beauvais tapestry begins with the arrival of
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (; 17 March 1686 – 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. His son, Jacques-Ch ...
, 22 July 1726, replacing the unsatisfactory Jacques Duplessis. When Mérou was dismissed in 1734 for falsifying the accounts, for the first time the manufacture was directed by an artist, since Oudry's financial backer, Nicolas Besnier, a goldsmith of Paris, was wise enough not to interfere with the artistic production, and the partnership lasted until 1753. Oudry was simultaneously inspector of the works at Gobelins. At Beauvais he reorganized the training of the young workers and turned out designs and constantly renewed borders: the ''New Hunts'', the suite of ''Country Pleasures'', the hangings illustrating
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
's comedies, a renewed suite of perennially popular ''Metamorphoses''. Sets of tapestry covers for seat furniture were introduced, and in September 1737 it was decided that the King of France should purchase two sets of tapestry each year, for 10,000 ''livres'', for gifts to foreign ministers, an advertisement of French hegemony in the field of art and also a fine advertisement for the quality of the Beauvais manufacture. The king had the entire production of Gobelins at his disposal, but as
Edith Standen points out, they were rather large, rather solemn and definitely old-fashioned. In 1739, for the first time, cartoons for Beauvais were exhibited at the
Paris salon
The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...
, another way of keeping the tapestry workshops before the public eye.
Oudry turned to other artists to supplement the tapestry cartoons he was producing; from
Charles-Joseph Natoire
Charles-Joseph Natoire (3 March 1700 – 23 August 1777) was a French painter in the Rococo manner, a pupil of François Lemoyne and director of the French Academy in Rome, 1751–1775. Considered during his lifetime the equal of François Bouc ...
's designs Beauvais wove the suite of ''Don Quichotte'', and from
François Boucher
François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...
, starting in 1737, a long series of six suites of tapestry hangings, forty-five subjects in all, constituting the familiar "Boucher-Beauvais" suites that embody the
rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
style: the ''Fêtes Italiennes'', a set of village festivals in settings evoking the
Roman Campagna
The Roman Campagna () is a low-lying area surrounding Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, with an area of approximately .
It is bordered by the Tolfa and Sabatini mountains to the north, the Alban Hills to the southeast, and the Tyrrhenia ...
, the ''Nobles Pastorales'', a further suite of six chinoiseries, now in a lighter, Rococo handling. Boucher's eight oil sketches for these ''Tentures chinoises'' were shown in the Salon of 1742;. It was unusual for the artist's sketches to be enlarged to provide cartoons, as in this case; the translation to cartoons was made by
Jean-Joseph Dumons de Tulle. The successful series was woven at Beauvais at least ten times between July 1743 and August 1775; in addition further copies were made at
Aubusson.
![Boucher-chinoiserie-Besançon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Boucher-chinoiserie-Besan%C3%A7on.jpg)
Boucher also designed for Beauvais the ''Story of Psyche'' and at the apex of the lot, the ''Amours des Dieux'', the "Loves of the Gods", after paintings by Boucher delivered 1747–49; suites from among the nine subjects, though never all subjects in one suite, were being woven at Beauvais as late as 1774.
[Standen 1984, pp. 63-84.]
A new partner, André-Charlemagne Charron, and increased royal support, with annual order for sets of hangings now with complete suites of furniture coverings, to be delivered to the
Garde-Meuble de la Couronne or the foreign ministry should have launched new successes for Beauvais, but Oudry's death, 30 April 1755, and Boucher's defection to the Gobelins the same year, initiated a period of stagnation, while the old designs were repeated, and then decline. At the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
the workshops were temporarily closed, following a dispute between the weavers and the administration, and then were reopened, under State direction, making little but upholstery covers.
Notes
Further reading
Beauvais Tapestry Factoryin Campbell, Gordon. ''The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts'', Volume 1. Oxford: University Press, 2006, pp. 87–88.
* Lejard, André. ''French Tapestry''. London: P. Elek, 1946.
* ''Important French and Continental Furniture, Ceramics and Carpets: Including an Important Beauvais Tapestry''. New York: Sotheby's, 2006.
External links
*
* Beauvais tapestries in the
collections of the Mobilier national (France)
Manufacture de Beauvais(in French)
{{Authority control
Tapestry-making operations
Textile arts of France
Textile industry of France
Textile mills
Manufacturing companies based in Paris
Arts and culture in the Ancien Régime
17th-century French art
Rococo art
History of Paris
1664 establishments in France
Companies established in 1664