Landscape with Fountain
Aubusson
Category
Tapestries
Date
circa 1710 - circa 1740
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk, 3½ warps per cm
Measurements
2.36 m (H); 2.86 m (W)
Place of origin
Aubusson
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 516761
Summary
Tapestry, wool and silk, 3½ warps per cm, Landscape with Fountain, Aubusson, c. 1710-1740. In the centre is a building with four bays with narrow windows and pointed gables, a large cupola in the centre and at either side a tower rising above a sloped red roof. To the left a smaller building nestles in the landscape, and to the right, closer to the foreground, is a fanciful stone structure with a water jet flowing into a stream that runs across the foreground of the tapestry. A bird perches on a tree by the fountain and another stands on the grass to the left, between two large trees, one a palm tree. Leaves and colourful flowers grow in the foreground. The border consists of a wide red ribbon twisting around a band of flowers on a brown ground. The upper and right-hand borders have been re-attached, and an orange-brown galloon has been applied around all four edges.
Full description
The tapestry is one of a pair that hang in the Living Room at Anglesey Abbey (see also 516765). Both tapestries were made at Aubusson in the first half of the eighteenth century but despite being similar in size and design they probably do not come from the same set. The two tapestries have a slightly different warp count, different borders and their subject matter is slightly different, as no. 516765 has a 'chinoiserie' theme but the present tapestry does not. Landscape tapestries or verdures, with details of picturesque buildings and birds, were produced in large numbers at Aubusson in the early eighteenth century (Chevalier, Chevalier and Bertrand, p. 55). Such tapestries were cheaper to produce than figural compositions, and their decorative designs and bright colours made them very popular. (Helen Wyld, 2011)
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Aubusson, workshop
References
Chevalier, Chevalier and Bertrand, 1988: Dominique Chevalier, Pierre Chevalier and Pascal-François Bertrand, Les Tapisseries d'Aubusson et de Felletin 1457-1791, Paris 1988