60, 61 BEAUVAIS, XVIII CENTURY
Wool and Silk.
No. 60:
H. 15½ in.
W. 19 in.
No. 61:
H. 15½ in.
W. 19 in.
Lent by Maison Jamarin, Paris.
TWO STILL-LIFE PIECES: In one (No. 60) a glass, a napkin, and some vegetables on a table. In the other (No. 61) various vegetables about a china dish.
These panels, after paintings by Chardin, are the only recorded examples of still-life composition in tapestry. From the middle of the XVth century household utensils and various other types of accessories were used to contribute richness of ornamentation to scenes, and during the Baroque period embossed metals and lavish carvings became especially important in creating a luxurious effect, but not until tapestry was thought of as a form of painting was a purely still-life subject attempted. All still-life designs depend so much on contrasted weights, and especially on textures, that they are particularly difficult to translate into a medium which, like tapestry, renders primarily silhouettes and which has such a decided texture of its own. But the extraordinary skill of the XVIIIth-century French weavers was equal even to that problem. The skillful care of the composition of the original paintings and the pure beauty of the colors of the tapestry make of rather unpromising subjects beautiful decorations.
Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) studied under Noël Coypel and assisted Jean Baptiste Van Loo in restoring one of the galleries of Fontainebleau. He was admitted to the Academy in 1728. His early work was devoted to still-life subjects principally, his later to peasant scenes, in which there are often fine incidental still lifes.
62 AUBUSSON, MIDDLE XVIII CENTURY
Wool and Silk.
H. 9 ft. 8 in.
W. 10 ft. 9 in.
THE PRIEST AND CARDENIO MEET DOROTHY: The priest and the barber while looking for Don Quixote come across Cardenio. While Cardenio is telling them the sad story of how his love, Lucinda, has been stolen from him by the treachery of Don Fernando they hear someone lamenting. Following the sound of the voice, they find Dorothy disguised as a shepherd-boy bathing her feet in a stream. She is on her way to seek Don Fernando, who is her pledged husband and who has deserted her for Lucinda. In the background Don Quixote, exhausted and starved from his wanderings, lies on the ground, while the faithful Sancho pleads with him to return to Toboso.
The border simulates a carved frame. On the lower selvage is the signature M. R. DAUBUSSON. MAGE. PICON.