CHAPTER XVIII
IDENTIFICATIONS
IDENTIFYING tapestries is like playing a game, like the solving of a piquant problem, like pursuing the elusive snark. I know of no keener pleasure than that of standing before a tapestry for the first time and giving its name and history from one’s own knowledge, and not from a museum catalogue or a friend’s recital. The latter sources of information may be faulty, but your own you can trust, for by delightful association with tapestries and their literature you have become expert. The catalogue is to be read, the friend is to be heard, in all humility, because these supply points that one may not know; but, who shall not say that an intensely human gratification is experienced when the owner of a tapestry with the Brussels mark tells you that it is a Gobelins, or one with the History of Alexander tells you it is the only set of that series ever woven, and you know better.
The first thing that strikes the eye and the intelligence is the drawing, the general school to which it belongs. There is matter for placing the piece in its right class. It might be said to place it in its right century or quarter century, but that tapestries were so often repeated in later times, the cartoon having no copyright and therefore open to all countries in all centuries. Next, then, to fix it better, comes a study of the border, for therein lies many a secret of identity, and borders were of the epoch in which the weaving was done, even though the cartoon for the centre came from an earlier time.
Last, as a finishing touch, come the marks in the galloon. This is put last because so often they are absent, and so often unknown, the sign of some ancient weaver lost in the mists of years, although a well-known mark so instantly identifies, that study of other details is secondary.
But under these three generalising heads comes all the knowledge of the savant, for the truth about tapestries is most elusive. Knowledge is to be gained only by a lover of the objects, a lover willing to spend long hours in association with his love, prowling among collections, comparing, handling, studying designs, discerning colours, searching for details, and indulging withal a nice feeling for textures, a vision that feels them even without touch of the hand.
If the study of design has not given a keen scent for the vague quality which we call “feeling,” the eye would better be trained still further, for herein lies the secret of success in difficult places, and not only that, but if he have not this sense he is deprived of one of the most subtile thrills that the arts can excite.
But this sense is not a matter of untrained intuition. It is the flower of erudition, the flame from a full heart, or whatever dainty thing you choose to call it. It has its origin primarily in keen observation of the various important schools of design that have interested the world for centuries. We unconsciously augment it even in following the side-path of history in this modest volume. Our studies here are but those of a summer morn or a winter eve, yet they are in vain if they have not set up a measuring standard or two within the mind.