The Spanish Royal Tapestries

by Albert Frederick Calvert

CHAPTER V
RENAISSANCE TAPESTRIES

THE date of the beginning of the Renaissance tapestries is well defined. In 1515 came the order to Brussels to execute tapestries of The Acts of the Apostles from the cartoons of Raphael. The Pope required them for the Sistine Chapel. This was the beginning of the decline of the art of Flemish tapestry weaving.

Raphael was not accustomed to designing cartoons for tapestry. His methods were unsuitable for translation into fabric. He set the tapissiere problems to solve in paint. Only the wonderful skill of the Flemish workmen enabled them to produce tapestries that astonished Europe. But a new method had to be adopted. Raphael had planned out both his cartoons and his borders in every detail. Nothing was left to the tapissier but to copy with the minutest care every line, every shade of colour expressed by the painter. The artist tapissier became under this new fashion only a master craftsman. The most pleasing feature of the Gothic tapestries disappear—the riot of millefleurs, and the spasmodic intrusion of fascinating little dogs and wild animals.

But if there were losses there were compensating gains. The whole art of the Italian cartoonist was freer, more vital and less stilted than that of his northern neighbour. The crowded figures disappeared and their place was taken by one group accompanied only by a few subordinate figures, but the central figures were perfect in their form. The Gothic buildings of the background gave way to a rich Renaissance architecture. The old woodland flowers were replaced by the luxuriant and exotic verdure of the south. That the methods introduced by Raphael should degenerate in the hands of artists of less genius was inevitable, and in course of time the tapissier was no longer capable of improving the original design.

Group 18. The Acts of the Apostles (10 Tapestries)

These tapestries are not the original ones woven for Pope Leo X, but are reproductions which (from the absence of any tapestry mark) must have been woven from the original cartoons within a very short space of time. These cartoons, as has been said, were the work of Raphael Santi assisted by his pupils. The original tapestries were executed by Pierre van Aelst in gold, silk, and wool, under the supervision of Bernard van Orley, who had been the pupil of the great Italian painter. They were painted in 1519. Pierre van Aelst had been tapestry maker to Philip le Bel and Charles V., and was probably the foremost weaver of his time in Brussels. More than one reproduction was made, and it is probable that one fell into the hands of the Emperor Charles. They are not mentioned, however, before the inventories made by Philip II. The tenth piece in the original series is not found in this collection on account of its size, and may not have been included in the reproduction. A similar series was in the possession of Henry VIII. of England and was bought at the sale of Charles I.’s effects by Marquis del Carpio. It was inherited by the house of Alba in 1662, and sold in 1823 to the English Consul in Catalonia. George IV. refused to purchase it and it finally reached the Berlin Museum.

For a time the cartoons of Raphael were lost. Seven of them, however, were purchased by Charles I. on the advice of Rubens and ordered to be reproduced at Mortlake. The cartoons are now in the South Kensington Museum.

The tapestries represent the following subjects:

Tapestry No. 1. The miraculous draught of fishes.

Tapestry No. 2. St. Peter chosen by Christ as the head of the Church.