Resting Traveller
Flemish
Category
Tapestries
Date
circa 1660 - circa 1700
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk, 6 warps per cm
Measurements
830 x 830 mm
Order this imageCollection
Packwood House, Warwickshire
NT 557890
Summary
Tapestry fragment, wool and silk, 6 warps per cm, Resting Traveller, probably Brussels, c.1660-1700. A small square tapestry fragment with man seated in a landscape. The man wears a blue coat, a white linen collar, green breeches, shoes with red laces and a red fur-edged hat over his long brown hair. He holds a stick across one knee and leans sideways wearily. He is seated on a smooth green bank and behind him are a variety of large leaves of different types, some of which are cut off by the edges of the tapestry. The fragment is edged with pale brown wool rep tape.
Full description
This small panel is one of two small tapestry fragments showing pastoral figures in a landscape, which have clearly been cut from a larger tapestry. This is evident from the large leaves which are cut off by the edges of each fragment, and the lack of coherent background detail. The two fragments have traditionally been described as woven at Mortlake, but there is no evidence for this. In fact they are closely related to a number of verdure tapestries produced in Brussels in the second half of the seventeenth century. A number of weavers produced landscape tapestries populated by small figures representing stories from classical mythology, hunting scenes, or pastorals. Comparable figures are found in the so-called ‘Paysages de Hollande’ at Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic, woven in Brussels in the 1640s (Blažková 1968, pp. 800-805; Duverger 1971), in an exceptional series of ‘Pastorales’ woven by Jan II Raes in 1649-50 for Ottavio Piccolomini (Blažková and Duverger 1970, pp. 21-24, 42-49), and in a group of verdures with small figures woven at the Pannemaker workshop in Brussels in the 1670s (Duverger 1986). On the basis of the costume of the man in the second fragment at Packwood, the tapestries can be dated to c. 1660 or later. (Helen Wyld, 2009)
Provenance
Given to the National Trust by Graham Baron Ash in 1941
Credit line
Packwood House, The Graham Baron Ash Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Flemish, workshop probably Brussels , workshop
References
Blažková, 1968: Jarmila Blažková, ‘Deux verdures Bruxelloises du 17e siècle dans la château de Hluboká et de Český Krumlov’, Miscellanea Josef Duverger: bijdragen tot de kunstgescheidenis der Nederlanden, 2 vols, Gent 1968, vol.2, pp. 794-805, pp. 800-805 Blažková, 1970: Jarmila Blažková & Erik Duverger,‘Les tapisseries d’Octavio Piccolomini et le marchand Anversois Louis Malo’, II, St-Amandsberg 1970, pp. 21-24, 42-49 Duverger, 1971: Josef Duverger, ‘Der Brusselse tapijtwever Guilliam van de Vijvere en zijn atelier’, Artes Textiles, VII (1971) Duverger, 1981: Erik Duverger, ‘Patronen in het sterfhuis van François van den Hecke’, Artes Textiles, X (1981) pp. 221-234 Duverger, 1986: Erik Duverger, ‘Verdures uit het Brusselse atelier van Erasmus (III) en Frans de Pannamaker’, Artes Textiles, XI (1986), pp. 107-115, passim