Catalogue of the Retrospective Loan Exhibition of European Tapestries

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF ART
CATALOGUE OF THE RETROSPECTIVE LOAN EXHIBITION OF EUROPEAN TAPESTRIES BY PHYLLIS ACKERMAN M.A.; PH.D.
WITH A PREFACE BY J. NILSEN LAURVIK DIRECTOR
SAN FRANCISCO PUBLISHED BY THE MUSEUM MCMXXII

Published September 29, 1922, in an edition of 2000 copies. Copyright, 1922, by San Francisco Museum of Art. Reprinted November 15, 1922, 500 copies. Printed by TAYLOR & TAYLOR, San Francisco. In the making of the type-design for the cover, the printer has introduced an illuminated fifteenth-century woodcut by an unknown master. Its original appears, illuminated as shown, in L'Istoire de la Destruction de Troye la Grant, a book printed at Paris, dated May 12, 1484, of which only a single copy is known to exist, that in the Royal Library at Dresden, this reproduction having been made from the excellent facsimile of the block shown in Claudin's Histoire de l'Imprimerie en France. The border-design of the cover is composed of the names of the chief tapestry-producing cities in Europe during the Gothic and Renaissance periods. Halftones made by Commercial Art Company, San Francisco.

This historical exhibition of European Tapestries is the fourth in a series of retrospective exhibitions which we have planned to illustrate the chronological development of some important phase of world-art, as in the Old Masters Exhibition, held in the fall of 1920, or of the art of an individual in whose work is significantly reflected the spirit of his age, as in the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection of drawings and etchings by Rembrandt, exhibited here in the spring of 1920.
In its scope and general lines this exhibition follows closely the plan of our Exhibition of Paintings by Old Masters, and, as will at once be apparent from the subject-matter and treatment, covers the same period of European history. Although important exhibitions of European tapestries have been held at various times both here and abroad, it has remained for our museum to arrange the first complete historical survey of this art given in America. This collection presents in unbroken sequence the main currents influential in the development and decadence of the great art of tapestry-weaving in Europe, from the XIVth century down to and including the early XIXth century, as exhibited in the work of the foremost designers and weavers of the period, in examples that, for the most part, are brilliantly typical and always characteristic of their particular style.