Marcus Aurelius Recommending his Son to the Philosophers
Michel Wauters (d.1679)
Category
Tapestries
Date
circa 1660 - circa 1679
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk, 7-8 warps per cm
Measurements
3400 x 3660 mm
Place of origin
Antwerp
Order this imageCollection
Packwood House, Warwickshire
NT 557924
Summary
STOLEN IN 1991. Tapestry, wool and silk, 7-8 warps per cm, The Triumph of Marcus Aurelius from a set of the History of Marcus Aurelius, workshop of Michiel Wauters after a design by Abraham van Diepenbeeck, c. 1660-1679. Marcus Aurelius stands on the right on a raised dais with his young son, gesturing and speaking to a group of robed philosophers who are gathered no the right hand side. Beside the philosophers is a table with scientific instruments, and on the floor below the dais is a patterned carpet. The setting is a classical interior. The tapestry has borders at the top and sides; the upper border has swags of fruit and flowers with a trophy of trumpets and a laurel wreath in the centre; the side borders are composed of hanging festoons of fruit and flowers with a bird perched on a plinth in the centre, and putti at the upper and lower corners. The tapestry appears to have been cut at the bottom. The tapestry once formed part of a set of three from the 'Story of Marcus Aurelius' at Packwood. It was stolen on 2 August 1991 along with another tapestry of 'America' from a set of two ' Continents' (557925). (Helen Wyld, 2009)
Provenance
Formerly Ferrers Collection, Baddesley Clinton; sold Sotheby’s 24.06.1932, lot 141, and bought by Graham Baron Ash for Packwood House; Given by Ash to the National Trust in 1941. Stolen from Packwood house 02.08.1992
Credit line
Packwood House, The Graham Baron Ash Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Michel Wauters (d.1679), workshop Abraham van Diepenbeeck ('s-Hertogenbosch 1596 - Antwerp 1675) , artist
References
Forti-Grazzini, 1984: Nello Forti-Grazzini, Museo d'arti applicate. Arazzi (Musei e Gallerie di Milano), Milan 1984 Steadman, 1982: D W Steadman, Abraham van Diepenbeeck: seventeenth century Flemish painter (PhD, Princeton University, 1973), Ann Arbor 1982 Deurne, 1973: Anne Marie Peré, Eric Duverger and Jan Walgrave, Antwerpse Wandtapijten, exh. cat. Deurne 1973 de Mendonça 1939 Maria José de Mendonça, ‘As tapeçarias da história de Marco Aurelio’, Boletim dos Museus Nacionais de Arte Antiga’, I (1939), pp. 57-67 Denucé, 1936: Jean Denucé, Antwerpsche tapijtkunst en handel, Antwerp 1936 Crick-Kuntziger, 1935: Marthe Crick-Kuntziger, 'Contribution à l'histoire de la tapisserie anversoise: les marques et les tentures des Wauters', in Revue belge d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art, 5, 1935, pp. 35-44 Denucé, 1932: Jean Denucé, De Antwerpsche “Konstkamers”: inventarissen van kunstverzamelingen te Antwerpen in de 16e en 17e eeuwen, Antwerp 1932 Denucé, 1931: Jean Denucé, Kunstuitvoer in de 17e eeuw te Antwerpen: de firma Forchoudt, Antwerp 1931 Marillier, 1930: Henry C Marillier, English Tapestries of the Eighteenth Century, London 1930