As early as the year 1600 a Spaniard wrote enthusiastically of “the rich and cunning tapestries belonging to His Majesty, to whom it would be easier to win a kingdom than to get them made anew.”[49] At the present day it is impossible to estimate with any certainty the number of these tapestries, the greater part of which are locked away. Only on certain festivals, such as the days of Corpus Christi and the Candelaria (Purification), a few are unfolded and displayed in the upper galleries of the palace at Madrid. Their total number is believed to be not far short of one thousand pieces;[50] but Señor Tormo calculates that were they no more than five hundred, they would, if placed end to end, cover more than two miles of ground.

Among the sets which form this wonderful collection, distributed between the palaces of Madrid, the Prado, and the Escorial, none is of greater merit or magnificence than the series of twelve cloths depicting the Conquest of Tunis (Plate [xxii].), designed for Charles the Fifth by his Court painter, Jan Vermay or Vermeyen, of Beverwyck, near Haarlem, and executed by William Pannemaker, of Brussels. It was agreed by Pannemaker in 1549 that the materials employed upon this tapestry should consist of the finest wool, Granada silk, and, for the woof, the choicest Lyons fillet—the very best that money could procure. The Emperor himself was to provide the gold and silver thread. Accordingly, Pannemaker was supplied with five hundred and fifty-nine pounds and one ounce of silk, dyed and spun in the city of Granada, where one of Charles' agents resided for two years seven months and twenty-five days, for the purpose of superintending its preparation. The cost of this silk, exclusive of the agent's expenses, amounted to 6,637 florins. Nineteen colours were employed in the dyeing, each colour consisting of from three to seven shades, and a hundred and sixty pounds of the finest silk were consumed in trying to obtain a special shade of blue.

After receiving these materials, Pannemaker kept seven workmen constantly engaged upon each paño of this tapestry, or eighty-four workmen in all. As soon as any one of the pieces was concluded, he submitted it to experts who pointed out such details as they recommended for correction. The entire work required a little more than five years, and was therefore terminated in 1554. The price paid for it was twelve florins per ell, and the number of these was 1246, representing a total cost of 14,952 florins, while Pannemaker, subject to the Emperor's being satisfied with the work, was further promised a yearly pension of a hundred florins.[51]

Equally remarkable are the spirited design and the flawless execution of this series of elaborate cloths, recalling, in their swarms of armed figures and the lofty point of view, which reduces the sky to a mere strip, the vivacious war and camp pictures of Snyders. The titles of the subjects, forming, as it were, a pictured epitome of the expedition led by Charles in person against the Barbary pirates, are as follows: (1) A map of the Spanish coast; (2) The review of the troops at Barcelona; (3) The landing of the forces; (4) A skirmish; (5) The camp; (6) Foraging; (7) The capture of La Goleta; (8) The battle of Los Pozos, Tunis; (9) A sortie of the besieged; (10) The sack of Tunis; (11) The victors returning to the harbour; (12) The forces embarking.

According to Müntz, this tapestry has been copied at least on two occasions; once in the eighteenth century by Josse de Vos, of Brussels, and also, in the same century, in Spain, partly at Seville, and partly at the factories of Santa Isabel and Santa Barbara.

XXIV
TAPESTRY. ARRAS WORK, FROM ITALIAN CARTOONS
(First half of 15th Century. Zamora Cathedral)

Other most valuable and beautiful tapestries belonging to the Spanish Crown are the series titled The History of the Virgin, believed to be from cartoons by Van Eyk, The Passion, from cartoons attributed to Van der Weyden, the History of David and History of Saint John the Baptist, the Mass of Saint Gregory, and the Founding of Rome. All of these series date from the fifteenth century and early in the sixteenth. Belonging to a later period are the reproductions of rustic scenes and hunting subjects by Teniers and others, executed in Spain between 1721 and 1724, the Scenes from Don Quixote, made at Santa Barbara from Procaccini's cartoons, and the eminently national series produced at the same factory from designs by Francisco Goya y Lucientes. This latter group amounts to several dozen pieces, including the well-known Blind Man's Buff, A Promenade in Andalusia (Plate [xxiii].), The Crockery-seller, The Grape-Gatherers (Frontispiece), and other spirited and charming scenes of popular Spanish life—“tout cela,” as Lefort describes it, “spirituel, vif, pittoresque, très mouvementé, bien groupé, s'élevant sur des fonds champêtres ou baignant gaiement en pleine lumière.”

Other tapestry collections of great merit belong to the cathedrals of Burgos, Zamora (where they line the walls of the Sacristy; Plate xxiv.), Zaragoza, Toledo, Tarragona, and Santiago. The first of these temples possesses the following sets, which are displayed to decorate the cloisters on the feast of Corpus Christi:—