David and Abimelech
Flemish
Category
Tapestries
Date
circa 1580 - circa 1610
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk, 6-6½ warps per cm
Measurements
3000 x 2170 mm
Order this imageCollection
Packwood House, Warwickshire
NT 557843
Summary
Tapestry, wool and silk, 6-6½ warps per cm, David receiving the sword of Goliath, Flemish, possibly Enghien, c.1580-1610. In the foreground David kneels before a priest who stands on a low marble step holding a sword and a grey egg-shaped piece of bread. David wears blue and yellow tunic, a richly embroidered blue cloak, and red boots, and the priest wears reddish robes, a blue cloak and a tall hat similar to a bishop’s mitre. A child holding a candle stands behind the two figures. On the left a man wearing a yellow tunic and a red cloak approaches, and a distant landscape with an army of horsemen and foot soldiers is visible behind him. Behind the main figures on the right is a temple with lamps hanging from the ceiling and a green canopy above an altar. The tapestry’s border has been sewn on on all four sides and consists of a flattened pattern of acanthus leaves with roundels containing lions’ heads at the four corners.
Full description
The subject of the tapestry was identified by Graham Baron Ash as ‘David receiving the sword of Goliath and the Shew Bread from the High Priest at Nob’. After the boy David killed the giant Goliath the Israelites began to speak of him as their next king, using the words ‘Saul has killed his thousands, David his tens of thousands’ (I Samuel 21:11). Saul, the King of the Israelites, became uneasy and repeatedly tried to kill David, who finally fled Saul’s court after a warning from the King’s son Jonathan. He arrived at Nob and went to the priest Abimelech, asking him for food. The priest told David that he only had hallowed bread, or shew bread, which he gave to David. David realised that one of Saul’s herdsmen, Doeg, was also at Nob, and he asked the priest whether he had any arms. The priest said that all he had was the sword of Goliath whom David had slain, and David took the sword. The tapestry shows Abimelech presenting the kneeling David with the shew bread and the sword of Goliath. The man approaching on the left is probably Doeg, Saul’s herdsman, and the army in the background may allude to the army of Saul, or to David’s own followers. David’s arrival at Nob was not a particularly common subject in the visual arts, but occasionally formed part of series of the story of David. The Swiss printmaker Jost Amman (1539-2591) made a woodcut of the scene with Abimelech presenting David with a sword, and an attendant approaching with a pile of bread. A tapestry of similar date to 557843 was owned by the art dealers Charles of New York in the early twentieth century and shows David receiving the sword from Abimelech, with an army in the background (Getty Photo Study Collection, image no. 0236672); it was paired with a second tapestry showing David being chosen as King. A fragment showing David before the high priest receiving the shew bread with a crowd of people watching and an army in the background is in the Christian Museum, Esztergom (László & Kiadó 1981, cat. nos. 24.1, p. 85, and pl. 53), one of a set of four tapestries of the story of David probably woven in Oudenaarde. The border of the tapestry is not integral with the central panel, but has been stitched on around all four edges. The same border design appears on a number of tapestry sets woven in Brussels and in Enghien at the end of the sixteenth century, although there is usually another band of decoration either side of the acanthus leaf design. Tapestries bearing this border include two ‘Scenes from Roman History’ in the National Museum of Poznan, Poland, bearing the mark of an unknown weaver and the mark of the city of Enghien (Delmarcel 1980, cat. nos. 33-34, pp. 74-76; Wasilkowska 1971, pp. 45 and 53-60, ills. 3-12), and a single tapestry in Wawel Royal Castle, showing a King standing on a marble platform and gesturing to a group of warriors who surround him (Hennel-Bernasikowa 2000, cat. no. 21, pp. 90-93). The Wawel tapestry also bears some stylistic similarities to the tapestry at Packwood, especially in the rendering of the patterned marble, the trees and the landscape. It is therefore possible that the border and the central panel are related, even though they were not woven together. Another weaving of the same design as the present tapestry, but with a curtain at the top left instead of a landscape with soldiers, and with no borders, was formerly with Franch and Company, New York (Franses Archive). (Helen Wyld, 2009)
Provenance
Bought by Graham Baron Ash in Birmingham before c. 1938; given to the National Trust by Baron Ash in 1941
Credit line
Packwood House, The Graham Baron Ash Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Flemish, workshop possibly Enghien , workshop possibly Brussels , workshop
References
Hennel-Bernasikowa, 2000: Maria Hennel-Bernasikowa, Gobeliny XV-XIX wieku w Zamku Królewskim na Wawelu (Tapestries at Wawel Royal Castle 15th-19th centuries), Cracow 2000 Hennel-Bernasikowa 1994 Maria Hennel-Bernasikowa, Gobeliny Katedry Wawelskiej, Cracow 1994 László and Kiadó 1981 Emőke László and Corvina Kiadó, Flemish and French Tapestries in Hungary, Budapest 1981 Delmarcel, 1980: Guy Delmarcel, Tapisseries Anciennes d’Engien, Mons 1980 Packwood House 1931-38: Graham Baron Ash's Scrapbook c. 1931-1938 (557381) Wasilkowska, 1971: Aleksandra Wasilkowska, Gobeliny: katalog zbiorów, Poznan 1971 Göbel, 1923: Heinrich Göbel, Die Niederlande, vol. 1 of Wandteppiche, 2 vols., Berlin 1923, vol. 2, pls. 74 & 277