The School of Plato
English
Category
Tapestries
Date
circa 1680 - circa 1700
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk, 8 warps per cm
Measurements
0.87 m (H); 2.17 m (W)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Llanerchaeron, Ceredigion
NT 548684
Summary
Tapestry, wool and silk, 8 warps per cm, Diogenes Discarding his Cup (fragment), English, possibly Mortlake, c. 1680-1700. An irregularly shaped tapestry fragment cut from the right hand side of a larger tapestry. There is a border of scrolling stonework and garlands of flowers along the lower and right hand edges, and a small section of the main field with foliage and landscape. On the lower galloon is a maker's mark in the form of a white shield with a red cross between the initials 'IR'.
Full description
The fragment is part of a larger tapestry of 'Diogenes discarding his cup' from a series of 'The Life of Diogenes'. The original 'Diogenes' series included seven scenes, some of their designs derived from etchings by Salvator Rosa published in 1662 (Hefford 2010, p. 240). The 'Diogenes' tapestries were made at Mortlake and/or smaller London workshops at the end of the seventeenth century. A number of surviving examples bear the maker's mark of a red cross on a white shield, that was first used at Mortlake from 1619 but was adopted by other tapestry workshops in the London area after 1660. The fragment at Llanerchaeron is unique in including the initials IR, which may stand for Jan Rosset, who worked at Mortlake, or possibly John Ridges, an upholsterer active in London in the 1670s and 1680s (Hefford, 1985; Hefford 2010, p. 240; Hefford 2002, p. 55). The 'Diogenes' tapestries can be definitely dated to after 1662 when Salvator Rosa's etchings were published. With their extensive, elegaic landscapes they are closer in spirit to tapestry designs of the 1670s onwards. The earliest record of the series comes in 1683 when a set of 'Dioguines hangings' was bought for Charles II, although the details of the purchase have been lost. 'Five pieces of tapestry hangings of the Story of Diogenes' were repaired for the crown by the Yeoman Arrasworker, John Vanderbank, in 1692, and in 1696 Vanderbank relined five pieces. In March of that year six Diogenes tapestries, 11 feet high, were in the Standing Wardrobe at St James's Palace. These records probably relate to a set of five that survive in the Royal Collection at Holyroodhouse. The original lining of one of these panels is marked '6:ps 11 FOOT DIOGENES', and the reverse of another bears the crowned 'IR' stamp used by King James II (r. 1685-1688), indicating that the set entered the royal collection before or during his reign (Swain 1988, pp. 12-16). Numerous sets and partial sets of 'Diogenes' tapestries survive including, within the National Trust's collections, a set of four which has seen significant alteration to fit the walls of the Tapestry Room at Belton House, Lincolnshire (no. 437003), two tapestries at Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire (nos. 454596-7), and a single panel of 'Plato's Academy' in the Chapel at Chirk Castle, Wrexham (no. 1171322). (Helen Wyld, 2012)
Provenance
An item from the Pamela Ward collection, left to the National Trust in the will of Miss Ward in 1994
Credit line
Llanerchaeron: Llanerchaeron, the P M War Collection (The National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
On lower galloon: a white shield with a red cross, between the letters 'IR'
Makers and roles
English, workshop possibly Mortlake Tapestry Manufactory , workshop after Salvator Rosa (Arenella, Naples 1615 – Rome 1673), designer
References
Hefford, 2010: Wendy Hefford, ‘The English Tapestries’, in Guy Delmarcel, Nicole de Reyniès and Wendy Hefford, The Toms Collection Tapestries of the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, Zürich 2010, pp. 239-294 Hefford, 2002: Wendy Hefford, ‘Flemish Tapestry Weavers in England: 1550-1775’, in Guy Delmarcel (ed.), Flemish Tapestry Weavers Abroad, Leuven 2002, pp. 43-61 Swain, 1988: Margaret Swain, Tapestries and Textiles at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in the Royal Collection, London 1988 Hefford, 1985: Wendy Hefford, 'The Diogenes Tapestries and the Stamford Legend', Bulletin du Liaison du Centre International des Textiles anciens, nos. 59-60, 1984 II, (1985), pp. 67-79 Diogenes Laertius, 1925: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. Robert Hicks, London and New York 1925