It is perhaps allowable to include among the oldest makers of Spanish tapestry the names of Gonzalo de Mesa and Diego Roman, who, in the year 1331, were paid respectively one thousand maravedis and eighteen hundred maravedis, for decorating the tents of King Sancho the Fourth. There also exists the following entry, dating from the same period; “To Boançibre, master of the tents; XXX maravedis for his food, for fifteen days.”[44]
Far clearer than these laconic excerpts is a document preserved in the library of the Academy of History at Madrid, in the form of a memorial presented to Philip the Second by a Spanish tapestry-maker of Salamanca, named Pedro Gutierrez,[45] and setting forth, in pessimistic language, the unhappy condition of this craft in the Peninsula. Pedro relates of himself that in twenty-four days he made for the Cardinal-archduke no less than a hundred and twenty reposteros; and that in order to exhibit his cleverness as a tapestry-weaver, he set up a loom in the royal palace (being officially the tapicero to the Crown), and worked for forty days where all might criticise the product of his toil. Gutierrez also states that the township of Madrid had provided him with six hundred ducats to enable him to establish there a tapestry-factory for the space of ten years, together with six hundred and fifty ducats from the Cortes for supporting his apprentices, and a thousand ducats from the king to defray the cost of certain voyages he had made to Lisbon, Monzón, and Barcelona, and of removing his residence from Salamanca to the capital of Spain. He complains, however, that the house he dwells in at Madrid is not large enough to contain his loom, and replies to the objections of such persons as opposed his opening the tapestry-works at all (on the ground that this craft was practised better and more cheaply in Flanders), by asserting that Spanish makers of reposteros were now accustomed to receive a daily wage of no more than three reales and “a miserable meal.” This, he urges, should render Spanish tapestries at least as inexpensive to produce as those of Flanders; although, upon the other hand, he admits that the colouring of the former is likely to prove inferior to the Flemish cloths in purity and durability. “Common tapestry,” he says, “seldom keeps its colour upward of a couple of years, so that, if such were used in open sunlight on the backs of beasts of burden, or to cover carts, exposed to sun, wind, dust, and mire, or else for cleaning shoes upon, as now is practised with the reposteros, their imperfections would become apparent all the sooner.”
Mention of these typically Spanish objects known as reposteros,[46] induces me to quote an interesting notice relating to the visit of Philip the Second to Cordova, in the year 1570. The train of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who journeyed to this city in order to receive his sovereign, consisted of a hundred and three mules covered with “new reposteros of wool, and of six mules covered with reposteros of purple velvet, embroidered with silver and gold, and bearing the duke's arms.”
If, as seems most likely, the woollen reposteros above referred to were of woven work containing a device, this passage would demonstrate that the manufacture of the cloths in question was sometimes the province of the tapestry-maker and sometimes that of the embroiderer. Ramírez de Arellano, from whose instructive studies on the craftsmen of older Spain I quote the foregoing extract, says that the making of reposteros constitutes a branch of craftsmanship distinct from embroidery of the common class, and that the men who produced them deserve to be included among artists of real merit. He gives the names of two, Hernán Gonzalez and Juan Ramos, who worked at Cordova in the middle of the sixteenth century. A document relating to the former of these men tells us that in those days the price of a repostero de estambre measuring sixteen palms square, with a coat-of-arms worked in the centre, and a decorative border, was ninety reales.
XXI
THE SPINNERS
(By Velazquez. Prado Gallery)
Riaño says: “I do not find any information of a later date which suggests the existence of the manufacture of tapestries in Spain during the Middle Ages.” Davillier, however, affirms that in the year 1411 two master-makers of tapestry were living at the court of the King of Navarre, and that other craftsmen, holding the same title, were established at Barcelona in 1391 and 1433. This notice is accepted by Müntz: “A la fin du XIVe et au commencement du XVe siècle, les Espagnols tentèrent de fonder dans leur patrie quelques ateliers de haute lisse. A Barcelone, en 1391 et en 1433, plusieurs tapissiers (maestros de tapices) firent partie du grand Conseil. Mais ces tentaves ne semblent pas avoir eu de résultats durables. Il était plus commode de recourir aux manufactures flamandes, si merveilleusement organisées. Peut-être même ce système était-il plus économique. Ne voyons-nous pas aujourd'hui jusqu'à l'extrême Orient tirer, pour raison d'économie, des fabriques de Manchester et de Birmingham les tissus courants dont il a besoin?”
The history of tapestry-making at Madrid may be said to date from the establishment in this town of a small factory by Pedro Gutierrez, whose petition to Philip the Second I have already quoted, and who received protection both from that monarch and from the queen, Doña Ana. In 1625 Gutierrez was succeeded by Antonio Ceron, who formally styled himself “tapicero de nuevo, sucesor de Pedro Gutierrez” (“maker of new tapestries, successor to Pedro Gutierrez”), and petitioned the king for the grant of a meal a day, “in recompense of having taught his trade to eight lads, and of having mounted eight looms in (the factory of) Santa Isabel.” This factory of Santa Isabel was so called from the street in which it lay, and part of it is represented in the celebrated painting by Velazquez called Las Hilanderas (“The Spinners,” not, as it is translated in Riaño's handbook, “The Weavers.” Plate xxi.).
This factory was unsuccessful, and declined by degrees until it ceased completely, in spite of the efforts made to revive it in 1694 by a Belgian named Metler, and in 1707 by a Salamanquino, Nicholas Hernández.