Port Scene
Aubusson
Category
Tapestries
Date
1770 (circa) - 1800 (circa)
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk, 5 warps per cm
Measurements
190 x 561 cm
Place of origin
Aubusson
Collection
Lanhydrock, Cornwall
NT 885702
Summary
Tapestry, wool and silk, 5 warps per cm, Port Scene, Aubusson, after Claude-Joseph Vernet, c. 1770-1800. A very wide scene with a sailing boat beeing unloaded at a quayside on the left, a stone quay and buildings to the right of the centre and leaves and foliage on the far right. The tapestry has no borders.
Full description
The tapestry comes from a series of 'Port Scenes' (Ports de Mer) inspired by prints after the painter Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) and his associate Charles François de la Croix (c. 1700-1782) (de Reyniès 2010, pp. 214-5). The series enjoyed considerable popularity in the late eighteenth century, and at least thirteen different designs of ports are known. Vernet specialised in views of real and imagined seascapes and ports, often in exotic locations. The subjects chosen for the tapestry series range from his views of the Ports of France to views in Italy and generic scenes of sailors and fishermen. The ‘Port Scenes’ tapestries tend to include figures in Oriental dress, reflecting Vernet's romantic association of the quayside with voyages to distant lands. The tapestries were made in the French town of Aubusson in the late eighteenth century. Surviving tapestries from the series vary considerably in quality suggesting that a number of different Aubusson workshops wove the designs, and examples have surfaced with four different signatures. The set was probably in production from the mid 1760s until the end of the eighteenth century. Some examples are dated 1776 and 1777. A list of related tapestries can be found in De Reyniès 2010, pp. 214-5. Further examples include a tapestry dated 1777 was sold by Parke-Bernet, New York, 19 March 1949, lot 736, and a pair of fragments from the series sold at Christie’s, Paris, 22 April 2004, lot 645. At least seven different ‘Port Scenes’ passed through the New York dealers French and Company in the early twentieth century (Getty Photo Archive, nos. 0243243, 0243234, 0243236, 0243242, 0243246, 0184458). There are six further fragments from the series in the National Trust's collection at Polesden Lacey (nos. 1247023, 1247046, 1247047, 1247625, 1247626). (Helen Wyld, 2012)
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 de Reyniès, 2010: Nicole de Reyniès, 'The French Tapestries', in Guy Delmarcel, Nicole de Reyniès and Wendy Hefford, The Toms Collection Tapestries of the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, Zürich 2010, pp. 159-231