Tapestry; Aubusson; late 18th - early 19th century. Wool. It... Lot 9

Tapestry; Aubusson; late 18th - early 19th century. Wool. It has slight restorations. Provenance: private collection conceived since the 1970s between London and Madrid. Measurements: 258,5 x 165 cm. The interior scene is inspired by the works of Teniers, in it we see a country image with a milkmaid and several characters next to her. Finally, the piece is framed by a border made up of a floral chain, the style of which shows that we are in the neoclassical period.The town of Aubusson was home to numerous tapestry workshops, which were created by Flemish weavers who settled in the area at the end of the 16th century. They had a rudimentary operation, compared to the Royal Gobelins Manufacture: they had no painters, no dyers, and no commercial structure, so their tapestries were sold in inns, to a lower-class private clientele, mainly provincial aristocrats. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Aubusson workshops specialised in vegetable tapestries (with mainly floral decoration), but the situation changed radically when, in the mid-17th century, this centre was reorganised by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister, with the aim of converting these workshops into royal manufactories. He subjected the Aubusson and Felletin workshops to a guild regulation and, in return, promised to provide them with a painter and a dyer. This promise, however, did not become effective until the 18th century, a turning point for the workshops of La Marche, which saw a considerable increase in the quality of their tapestries as they were able to count on a painter dedicated to making cartoons and a dyer who produced dyes of a higher quality than those used until then. Until the 18th century, the tapestries of La Marche were characterised by their thick density (50-60 threads per square decimetre), poor quality wool, sometimes very poorly refined, limited colours with a predominance of earthy and green (almost never red, the most expensive and most complicated colour to produce), poor drawing, with few figures, hence the predominance of tapestries with vegetables, and little silk, with wool being used predominantly. On the other hand, the Aubusson tapestries of the 18th century were already of a much higher quality, thanks to the important transformations undergone by these workshops. Louis XIV gave the workshops of La Marche the character of a royal manufacture, and at the beginning of the 18th century, many Protestant weavers arrived in France as a result of the war with Spain and the renewal of the Edict of Nantes. In the 1830s, Colbert's promise was fulfilled; in 1732 Jean Joseph Dumons was appointed painter to the manufactory, and he was to produce the first cartoons made specifically for these workshops. He also retouched the cartons when they deteriorated, and gave drawing lessons to the workshop workers (a small drawing school was set up in Aubusson in 1742). Dumons was succeeded by Jacques Nicolas Julliard in 1755, who remained active until 1789. After his departure, the new painter at Aubusson was Jacques Dorliac, who specialised in tapestries of exotic vegetables, which were very successful commercially. A master dyer was also appointed to the manufactory, and so the colours were improved and a wider palette was introduced. There will be different qualities, as it is a group of different workshops, but some will produce tapestries as good as those of Beauvais, with fine densities. Vegetable tapestries continued to be produced at this time, but this was the time of the great development of tapestries "a la Teniers", with genre themes. Also, more silk was used in the tapestries of the 18th century than in those of the previous century, which, however, posed a problem for their conservation. Finally, it should be noted that Aubusson tapestry has been on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2009.