Summary

Tapestry, wool and silk, 7 warps per cm, The Triumph of Belshazzar from a series of the Story of Nebuchadnezzar, probably Thomas Poyntz, London, c. 1678-1686. In the centre a king rides on a golden chariot, his head partly cut off by the top of the tapestry, wearing a red robe over a golden tunic and breastplate and carrying a sceptre in one hand and a great seal in the other. The chariot is drawn by four straining horses led by two attendants, the nearer wearing a dagger in his belt and the other carrying a whip. To the left and in front of the chariot is a further group, with a young man wearing a red cloak over blue armour and a crown walking between two soldiers, the nearer of which has his back to us and carries a large golden vase. Above these three figures is a stately figure raised up above them, possibly being carried in a litter; he is dressed in armour, a greenish cloak and a helmet with blue feathers, and holds a baton. At the lower right a man walks ahead of the procession, carrying on his back a large basin full of gold and silver vessels; only his head and shoulders are visible the rest of his body deliberately cut off by the lower edge of the scene. The whole procession takes place in a landscape with a tree on a hillside on the right hand side. The side borders are composed of putti climbing amongst festoons of fruit and flowers, with the head of a female herm at the top, and a carved putto at the bottom peeing into a stone basin. The tapestry was woven without upper or lower borders.

Full description

'The Triumph of Belshazzar' is the final tapestry in the 'History of Nebuchadnezzar' set. Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar succeeded him as King. Chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel relates how Belshazzar made a great feast for all his lords and drunk a lot of wine, and he then ordered that all the golden vessels that his father had taken from the Temple of Jerusalem be brought so that his princes, wives and concubines might drink from them. These are represented by the vessels carried at the head of the procession on the tapestry. Then a hand appeared to Belshazzar and wrote a message on the wall of his palace, and he was so terrified that “his knees smote one against anther” (Daniel 5:6). No-one could interpret the meaning of the words and finally Daniel was summoned to interpret them. Daniel told Belshazzar that although his father Nebuchadnezzar had been punished by God for his pride and thrown into the wilderness to live like a beast for seven years, still Belshazzar had not humbled his heart; and that the words told that his kingdom would end, he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and finally that the Kingdom would be divided and taken by the Medes and the Persians. Belshazzar then commanded that Daniel be clothed in a robe of crimson, with a chain about his neck, and proclaimed as the next ruler of the kingdom. In the tapestry it is almost certainly Daniel, now an old man with a flowing white beard, who rides in the chariot wearing a gold chain around his neck, whilst the young King Belshazzar walks to the left with his soldiers, wearing his crown. The same night Belshazzar was killed and his kingdom was taken by the Medians, who established Daniel as president (Daniel 5:31-6.2) The four tapestries show scenes from the story of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, told in the Book of Daniel, chapters 1-5. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem and defeated Jehoiakim, the King of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar decided to take the brightest and most cunning of the children of Judah to be brought up in his palace, so that they might be taught the tongue of the high priests, the Chaldeans. Among the children taken were Daniel and his brothers Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Daniel first came to the attention of King Nebuchadnezzar as a young man, when the king’s prophets had been unable to guess the meaning of his dreams. Daniel not only described the dreams, he was able to interpret their meaning; Nebuchadnezzar was awed by Daniel’s prophecy, and rewarded him richly. Later Daniel interpreted a second dream, foretelling that Nebuchadnezzar would be made to live with the beasts of the field if he did not mend his ways; this dream is the subject of the first tapestry in the series. The second tapestry shows the Golden Idol which Nebuchadnezzar set up, ordering everyone to pay homage to it; this scene also includes in the background Nebuchadnezzar’s brutal punishment of Daniel’s brothers for refusing to worship the idol, and their miraculous escape from the fiery furnace. The third tapestry represents the fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy, and shows Nebuchadnezzar being struck down by the word of God, avian claws and feathers growing from his hands and arms. The final scene shows not Nebuchadnezzar but his son Belshazzar, who was just as bad as his father, leading an extravagant triumphal procession accompanied by Daniel, with servants carrying precious vessels stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem. Belshazzar himself was soon to be struck down by warning words from God in the middle of a banquet. The tapestries appear to have been woven without upper or lower borders, as part of the originally brown galloons are visible at top and bottom of some of the panels. The side borders are made up of an imitation carved and gilded Corinthian capitol above the head if a herm, and below this a winged putto securing a blue ribbon to the top of the column, which is joined to festoons of leaves and flowers which hang down filling most of the border. A second putto catches the blue ribbon lower down, and holds a flaming heart, and below its feet is a carved stone satyr mask. At the bottom is the carved and gilded figure of a third putto in the form of a fountain, standing on a stone ledge and peeing into a stone basin by his feet. During restoration the gilded putti on one of the tapestries, ‘The Golden Idol’, have been modified so that they are no longer peeing. Carved elements, putti and garlands were very common in the borders of both English and Flemish tapestries in the late seventeenth century, and this border has no particular relevance to the story of Daniel. The designer of the ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ series is not known. Wendy Hefford has noted similarities with a series of the ‘History of Jephtha’ woven in Antwerp in the late seventeenth century, suggesting that the designer may have been Flemish, although there is no direct evidence for this (Hefford 2002, p. 60). ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream’, the first tapestry in the series, shows some similarities to a print by Adriaen Collaert representing the same scene. The dwarf in Collaert’s print is also very similar to the dwarf who appears in the tapestry ‘The Golden Idol’; moreover no dwarf appears in the biblical account. This tapestry includes another intriguing reference, in the form of a small boy bedecked in flowers being led to worship the Golden idol. The pose and attributes of this boy are closely related to a child in a tapestry of ‘Niobe’s Pride’ from a series of the ‘Story of Diana’ designed by Karel van Mander and woven by François Spiering in Delft between c. 1590 and 1610. Van Mander’s tapestry designs are not known to have been engraved, but a version of ‘Niobe’s Pride’ is today at Knole, along with another series of the ‘Story of Nebuchadnezzar’, and both sets were probably in the Royal Collection until the 1690s. Despite these borrowings, a single artist was almost certainly responsible for producing the suite of designs for the ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ series. No permanent designer is known to have been attached to the Poyntz workshop, where the tapestries were almost certainly produced, and none of the other sets of new tapestry designs they produced has been attributed to a particular designer. Of these a series of the ‘Story of the Eurcharist’ is based in part on a set of prints, but the sources for others such as the ‘Story of Don Quixote’ have eluded identification. The only painter known to have collaborated with the workshop is George Freeman, whose petition for the post of ‘chief designer of the King’s tapestry works’ in 1671 was supported by Sir Peter Lely, but the nature of his work is not known and he could have been charged simply with preparing cartoons (Lyte 1907, p. 80). The series at Powis Castle is one of four sets of ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ tapestries to survive. Of these only one, at Knole, is signed, with the initials T P either side of the white shield with a red cross of Saint George. The shield mark was first used at the Mortlake workshop from 1619 but by the later seventeenth century was a more general sign of English manufacture. The initials ‘T P’ are almost certainly those of Thomas Poyntz (d. 1685), an associate and possibly a relative of Francis Poyntz, Yeoman Arrasworker to Charles II from 1661 until his death in 1684. After the Restoration of 1660 Charles II became an active patron of the tapestry medium, as his father had been; but rather than exclusively using the workshop of Mortlake, established in 1619, he preferred to commission tapestries from the Royal Arrasworker, Francis Poyntz. Royal support for Mortlake ceased altogether in 1666, and from that date onwards Charles II commissioned a number of different sets from Francis Poyntz, often high-quality weavings with metal thread. Thomas Poyntz seems to have worked with Francis Poyntz in the 1670s and 1680s, and is first recorded in 1678 when the two men jointly signed a petition asking for concessions for immigrant catholic tapestry weavers in England (Thomson 1973, pp. 357-8). Thomas does not appear in Francis Poyntz’s will of 1684, where he left his workshop in the care of a doctor friend, asking him to provide for his children who were minors (National Archives, Prob/11/379). However despite this Thomas appears to have been involved in the continuation of Francis’s tapestry workshop in Hatton Garden until his own death in 1686. He sold a set of tapestries of the Months to the King in 1686, and his signature appears, amongst others, on a series of tapestries of the Battle of Solebay, woven in or after 1683, and a set of Eucharist tapestries at Ugbrook Park, Devon (Thomson 1973, pp. 358-9; Hefford 1988, p. 42). No record survives of a series of The Story of Nebuchadnezzar produced by either Thomas or Francis Poyntz, so the attribution to Thomas Poyntz rests solely on the signed series at Knole. The four surviving sets of Nebuchadnezzar tapestries all have different borders, and there are also slight variations in the designs, including the omission of figures or the addition of new figures in some of the versions of each scene, and some cases where a figure from one scene is moved to another scene in the set. There are also variations in the size of individual panels, indicating that some of the sets were tailor-made for an individual patron. The set at Knole with Thomas Poyntz’s signature is the finest quality, and gilt-metal thread is used in large quantities throughout the main fields. This strengthens the possibility that the set was made for the crown. The borders include male figures dressed as American Indians supporting vases of flowers at the sides, and hunting scenes with huntsmen, centaurs and animals amongst foliage at the top. The set was woven without lower borders. There are five scenes, including versions of the four subjects that appear at Powis plus a fifth, ‘The Fiery Furnace’. At Glamis Castle, Angus another set survives, containing the same five scenes as at Knole, although one, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream’, has been cut in half horizontally and the lower half is missing. This set is woven in wool and silk with a narrow acanthus-leaf border imitating a carved picture frame. Although some of the original galloons survive on this set, there is no discernable signature (Scott-Moncrieff 1950). Parts of a fourth set consisting of three known subjects, ‘The Fiery Furnace’, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream’ and ‘Nebuchadnezzar Transformed into a Beast’ has surfaced on the art market at various points during the twentieth century, and one panel is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A 1984). This series is woven with gilt metal thread and has a border design of scrollwork on a pale ground and an as yet unidentified monogram and ducal coronet at the centre of each horizontal border. The first record we have of the ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ set at Powis is in 1791, when a travel book advised that “The tapestry of the sextagon bedchamber represents several parts of ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s life’” (Brydges 1791, p. 32). The set is not mentioned by name in the 1891, 1908 or 1930 inventories of Powis, and was probably in London at this time: two tapestries from the set, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream’ and ‘Nebuchadnezzar Transformed into a Beast’ appear in a photo accompanying a Country Life article on the Earl of Powis’s house at 45 Berkeley Square in 1937 (Hussey 1937, fig. 6, p. 17). However this was only a relatively recent development: a notebook kept by the 4th Earl of Powis recording his alterations to Powis Castle records that “When I succeeded [in 1891] the walls of the State Dressing Room were hung with two pieces of tapestry of the “Nebuchadnezzar” set. The other two pieces were put away in a chest.” This is followed by an annotation: “1. is now in Gallery. The other three pieces in Berkeley Square.” (Powis n.d.) (Helen Wyld, 2010)