Another fine kitchen of the period occurs in a Family Group by Cocx (Coques), in the Cassel Gallery. In the foreground a man is seated at a table looking at his son’s drawings. Not far away his wife is teaching her daughter to make lace, and through a large door the kitchen is visible, where fish, oysters, pastries and birds show preparations for a feast.
The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has a series of rooms fitted up in the old style with original furniture. The kitchen represented in Plate [XXXII] is equipped with all the pots and pans dear to the heart of the Dutch housewife. The hearth, ovens and shelves are furnished with all the implements and utensils necessary for good housekeeping: cauldrons, spits, churns, plate-warmers, kettles, bellows, waffle-irons, etc., are all there. A Frisian clock hangs on the tiled wall, and the cupboards contain everything necessary for cooking and cleaning.
The library of the Pitsembourg was well stored with religious works. The chapel, a beautiful edifice built in 1228 and dedicated to St. Elizabeth of Hungary, contained some fine carvings, two crucifixes, one of silver and one of copper, organs, carved statues, silver chandeliers;’and exceptionally rich vestments, altar-cloths and Flemish lace.
It will be noticed that all the principal rooms in this establishment were hung with leather, or “leather tapestry” in accordance with the taste of the age.
The leather hangings of the seventeenth century are even more brilliant than those of the past; and on the bright background of scarlet, blue, sea-green, gold or silver, a wealth of ornamentation appears—animals, birds, flowers, fruits, mascarons and other favourite devices of the time. Leather hangings are always present in wealthy homes of Holland. An excellent example is shown in the picture of The Young Scholar and his Sister by Coques (Cocx), now in the Cassel Gallery. The room, which is richly furnished, is hung with blue and gold leather. This picture was painted in the seventeenth century.
The Low Countries by this time had become renowned for their fine leather and exported a vast amount of it. Notwithstanding the rivalry of the French and Italian workshops, there was a special shop in the Rue St. Denis in Paris where Flemish and Dutch leathers could be obtained. Some of the French inventories of this century mention especially “tapestries of leather” from the Netherlands; for example, Fouquet has at his Château of Vaux, in 1661, “a rich hanging of tapestry of cuir doré from Flanders, consisting of eight pieces”; and in 1698, a rich Parisian owns “a hanging of tapestry of cuir doré de Hollande,” with a red background.
The Rijks Museum in Amsterdam contains a great number of gilt leather hangings of the seventeenth century; at the Hôtel de Ville of Furnes, there are some hangings of Spanish leather and the Antiquarian Museum of Utrecht also contains some embossed gilt leather hangings.
In the seventeenth century, the great centres for the production of tapestry shifted to Paris and London. This is the period when the famous looms of the Gobelins and Mortlake were established. The directors and workers in these famous establishments were Flemings. It was largely owing to the influence of Le Brun that Paris triumphed over Brussels with her Gobelins manufactory established in 1662. This was really the outgrowth of the high-warp looms established by Henry IV in 1597, under an excellent tapestry-worker named Laurent. These workshops were first situated in the house of the Jesuits in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and were transferred to the Louvre in 1603. The King sent to Flanders for tapestry-workers over whom he placed the Sieur de Fourcy. In 1607 he sent for more workers, among whom were Marc Comans (or Coomans) and François de la Planche, who were given charge of the workshops at Tournelles. These were removed to the Faubourg St. Marceau. The tapestries had to be made façon de Flandres.
Plate XXVIII.—Flemish Chair.
CLUNY MUSEUM, PARIS.