A fine Beauvais verdure tapestry

Circa 1670-1690.

Woven in wool and silk, on woollen warps, the wooded landscape with a bank of flowering plants to the foreground and, beyond, a pair of ducks on a pond, with other birds perched in the trees.

The manufacture Royale de Beauvais was established in 1664 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and in contrast to the then recently instituted Gobelins workshops - the output of which was intended for the use or disposal of the king - remained a commercial manufactory, with the king later committing to the purchase of a certain number each year as diplomatic gifts. Its status, and the excellence of the tapestries produced on the low warp looms, was surpassed among the French workshops only by the Gobelins itself.

Verdures of this type were woven at Beauvais under the aegis of the first director, Louis Hinart (d. 1697), who founded the workshops with the protection of Colbert, and with the financial support of the state. With the death of his patron in 1683, the administration of the looms was passed to Philippe Béhagle the following year.

A Beauvais tapestry of a similar type is in the collection of the French Mobilier National, inv. no. GMTT-680-000

261cm (102¾”) high and 340cm (134”) wide.