The King’s enterprises were not universally approved. “They cost large sums to his Majesty,” says a contemporary, and loss and ruin to his subjects. Witness the Brussels tapestries at St. Marcel, the Flemish linens at Mantes and the cloths of silk and gold of Milan.
After the King’s death, Comans and De la Planche continued to work in Paris, and in 1630 were engaged at the manufactory that afterwards became the Gobelins.
Flemish workmen were also employed at Maincy near Vaux in 1658. When, owing to the wars, the Gobelins was closed in 1694, some of the workmen entered the army, twenty-three returned to Flanders and others went to Beauvais. This great factory was no less indebted than was the Gobelins to the Flemings. It was established in 1664 by a “marchand tapissier,” named Louis Hynart, a native of Beauvais, who owned a large number of workshops in Flanders as well as in Paris. As Beauvais was at that time an important centre for woollen stuffs, Hynart proposed to the municipality that he should establish workshops of high-warp tapestry “in the manner of those of Flanders.” Hynart obtained a subsidy and brought a number of Flemish workmen to Beauvais. He was negligent, however, and in 1684 the directorship of the Beauvais manufactory was given to Philippe Béhagle (originally Behagel) of a famed family of tapestry-weavers of Oudenarde. Under Béhagle the “Royal Manufactory of Tapestry,” flourished until his death in 1704. Another workman who contributed greatly to the success of Beauvais was Georges Blommaert, who was also called to Beauvais in 1684 from Lille, where he had established a workshop in 1677.
When Georges Blommaert left Lille to go to Beauvais, he was succeeded by François and André Pannemaker, descendants of the famous Pannemaker family of tapestry-makers. In 1688, they had a rival in Jean de Melter, of Brussels, who was particularly fond of reproducing compositions after Rubens. The Pannemakers devoted their skill chiefly to “Verdures.”
The looms at Nancy, established in the seventeenth century, and closed in 1625, were also worked by men from the Low Countries, among them one Melchior van der Hameidan. The Brussels looms were still busy in this century, but the corporation of tapestry-workers was recruited from a few families, such as the De Vos, De Castros, Raës, Van der Borchts, Van der Heckes, and Leyniers. They repeated the cartoons of the last century; but in the middle of the seventeenth Teniers produced many rustic scenes that, known as Tenières, became very popular. Flemish tapestry-weavers are found in Rome; in Denmark (twenty-six were there about 1604); in Russia (Martin Steuerbout of Antwerp had a manufactory in Moscow in 1607); and in England.
Plate XXIX.—Flemish Chair.
CLUNY MUSEUM, PARIS.
The Mortlake manufactory, established by James I near London in 1619, was practically a Flemish manufactory. In a short while its only rival was the Gobelins. The King sent specially to Flanders for skilled workmen and no less than fifty arrived in one month, among whom were Josse Ampe of Bruges, Simon Heyns, Jacques Hendricx, Josse Inghels, and Pierre Foquentin of Oudenarde. Rubens and Van Dyck were commissioned to supply cartoons; but many of the old favourite historical and religious sets of the past century were reproduced. Paris and Hampton Court Palace contain a number of these.
Mortlake had closed when William III ordered his victories to be commemorated in woven pictures. The cartoons for The Battle of Bresgate, The Descent on Tor bay and The Battle of the Boyne, were drawn by Jean Lottin, the painter, and made by Clerck, Vander Borcht, Cobus and De Vos of Brussels.
Flemish tapestry-weavers settled in Sandwich, Canterbury, Maidstone, Norwich and Colchester in 1567–8, after the persecutions of the Duke of Alva; but notwithstanding the good work produced in England, Admiral Howard ordered the famous set of six pieces to commemorate the destruction of the Spanish Armada from the painter H. Cornelis de Vroom of Haarlem and Franz Spierinx of Delft. These fine pieces hung in the House of Lords, London, until destroyed by the fire of 1824.