The technical difficulty was the greater because almost the entire piece was woven in wool, the proper material for tapestry, silk being relied on only for a few high lights. As a portrait it has directness and conviction, carrying the essential dignity of royalty. The XVIIIth century, which first undertook to weave tapestry portraits, produced a kind of portrait that was especially ill-adapted to this material; for the likenesses depended primarily on the delicate modeling produced by a very sensitively differentiated scale of values and scarcely at all on lines. Even in Gothic tapestries there are many heads that are striking portraits, but these are entirely graphic in character and so fitted for tapestry. In rendering this portrait the weavers had literally to paint with the shuttle.
Carle Van Loo (1705-1756) studied in Rome under Luti and Le Gros. In his youth he painted scenery for the opera with Boucher. In 1737 he was admitted to the Academy, and in 1762 made first painter to the king.
65 GOBELINS, FIRST HALF XVIII CENTURY
Wool.
H. 13 ft. 3 in.
W. 8 ft. 3 in.
Another rendering in the Vienna Collection, No. 253; another in the Musée Impériale des Ecuries, Petrograd, No. 118.
Lent by Demotte.
THE INDIAN HUNTER: This tapestry is one of a set of eight illustrating the New India after designs by François Desportes. The set was first woven in 1687. This piece has the first type of border used with the series, bearing the arms of the king, which means that it was woven before 1768 under either Cozette or Neilson.[32]
The design is typical of the romantic primitivism that Rousseau formulated in his conception of the Noble Savage. The accuracy of detail in the Indian basket is interesting and rather unexpected.
François Desportes (1661-1743) studied under Bernaert, a pupil of Snyders. He entered the Academy in 1699 and was made painter to the king. He is famous for his paintings of animals and hunting scenes.
66 BEAUVAIS, XVIII CENTURY (1777)
Wool.
H. 11 ft. 1 in.
W. 21 ft. 3 in.
Formerly in Collection of Count Polovzoff, Petrograd. Another example in the Swedish Royal Collection. Illustrated: Böttiger, Svenska Statins Samling, vol. 3, pl. LXVI.
Lent by Jacques Seligmann & Company.