TextilesThere are 7 items
-
Three silk embroidered panels of equestrian battle scenes, each with raised metal thread embroidery on armour and harness, and glass ornaments stitched in as rivets on the armour, and for buttons and rings. They were made for wall decoration in the Roman palace of the Guidi di Bagno, as evidenced by heraldic insignia incorporated in the longest panel and a pattern source in engravings published in Rome c. 1610–1630. The needlework is remarkable both for its imposing dimensions and fine state of preservation.
[Rome], c. 1640?Three very large needlework panels embroidered in silk (89/91 × 340, 89/91 × 218, 89/91 × 218 cm), newly framed and glazed with ultraviolet filtering acrylic Perspex.
The longest panel (here designated A) depicts an assault by mounted Christian Knights on a tower defended by Muslims; the left half is derived from an engraving by Francesco Villamena after Antonio Tempesta, first published in Rome about 1610, and reissued there in the 1620s and 1630s. Each state of the print features the insignia of a different Roman family (Barberini, Cesarini, Brancaccio); in the panel, the insignia of the Guidi di Bagno family is displayed. The design sources for the other two panels are unknown, and the story narrated in the three panels is unrecognised – it could be factual, or literary (as is suggested by the image of the cloud-borne tower), or historical and allegorical elements could be mingling freely. The embroideries likely were commissioned in Rome by Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Guidi di Bagno, or by his brother, Cardinal Nicolò Guidi di Bagno; both had a particular regard for textiles.
The embroideries were re-discovered in the 1950s at the country seat of the Shrewsbury family, Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire, “rolled up and tucked away in an unfrequented corner of an attic where they had evidently been since their removal from Alton Towers” (Ingestre Hall: an illustrated survey of the Staffordshire residence of the Chetwynd Talbot family, 1957). They may have been acquisitions of Charles Talbot, 12th Earl and 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, who travelled in Italy 1701-1705 and married a Bolognese countess; another possible source is John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who after his succession to the earldom and its estates in 1827, bought artworks on a vast scale to furnish Alton. He was a frequent visitor to Rome (his two daughters married into the Borghese and Doria Pamphilij families) and he acquired there many works of art, including the entire collection of nearly two hundred paintings belonging to Letizia Bonaparte.
-
Europäische Seidengewebe des 13.-18. Jahrhunderts (Kataloge des Kunstgewerbemuseums Köln, 8)
Cologne, Kunstgewerbemuseum der Stadt Köln, 1976(25 cm), 463 (1) pp., 744 text illustrations, 59 plates (some in colour). Publisher’s pictorial wrappers. - An account of European silk weaving, from the Chinese-inspired medieval silks of the oldest Italian silk towns such as Lucca and Venice and velvet brocades of the Renaissance to the creations of 18th century France. The introduction also treats altar cloths, furniture and tapestry fabrics, and the education and organization of silk weavers, dealers and designers. Catalogue of the collection (731 entries). ¶ Light shelf wear. Very good, unmarked copy. -
The Tapestry Collection : Medieval and Renaissance
London, HMSO, 1980(23 × 29 cm), 83 (1) pp., [110] p. of plates (1 in colour). 73 catalogue entries. Publisher’s cloth covered boards, pictorial dust jacket. - Provides full catalogue entries for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Gothic and Renaissance tapestries, analysing subject matter, style, problems of attribution, place and date of manufacture. Every item is reproduced and a number of drawings that served as pattern sources are illustrated. ¶ Excellent, unmarked copy. -
European post-medieval tapestries and related hangings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985Two volumes (29 cm), I: 425 (1) pp. II: (6), pp.435-848, with 69 colour and 442 black & white text illustrations. 152 catalogue entries. Uniform publisher’s beige cloth, original slipcase with printed label (no dust jackets issued). - First edition of a magisterial catalogue of the Met’s collection of European tapestries and large embroidered hangings, c. 1520 to 1923. Published when its author was 80, it won an Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS) award. ¶ Fine copy, virtually as new. -
Ledertapeten (catalogue issued in conjunction with "The European Fine Art Fair", MECC Maastricht, The Netherlands, 9-17 March 1991)
Essen, Horst Glass / Galerie Glass, 1991(30 cm), 96 pp., colour illustrations. 34 items. Publisher’s pictorial wrappers. - Introductory essays (Gilt leather, historical developments; Stylistic developments) and catalogue entries in German and English. The first item, consisting of fourteen embossed gilt leather panels produced in the Southern Netherlands in the second quarter of the 17th century (panneau 256 × 48 cm, border 28 × 48 cm), seems to be based on Italian grotesque prints of the early 16th century. ¶ Very good, unmarked copy. -
European works of art, arms and armour, tapestries and furniture (catalogue for an auction conducted by Sotheby’s, New York, 12 January 1993)
New York, Sotheby's, 1993(27 cm), [224] pp., illustrations (some in colour). 514 lots. Publisher’s pictorial wrappers. ¶ Annotated copy, partly priced. No Price list. -
Tapestry in the Baroque : new aspects of production and patronage (papers presented at the symposium held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 20-21 October 2007, in conjunction with the exhibition "Tapestry in the Baroque : Threads of Splendor" held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17 October 2007-6 January 2008)
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010(26 cm), (6) 359 (1) pp., with 172 colour and 70 black & white illustrations. Publisher’s pictorial wrappers. - Papers by Koenraad Brosens (Tapestry production. New light on the Brussels Raes workshop and Rubens’s Achilles series), Isabelle Denis (A new look at the Story of Coriolanus), Jean Vittet (Charles de Comans’s post-mortem inventory, 1635), Pascal-François Bertrand (A question of scale: was it necessary to weave Poussin’s paintings?), Hanns Hubach (Patronage. Tales from the tapestry collection of Elector Palatine Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter King and Queen), Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis (Mannerist, Baroque, and classicist: narrative tapestries and related paintings in late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holland), Nello Forti Grazzini (On the tapestries in seventeenth-century Milan: some new findings), Ingrid De Meûter (An altar frontal for the Jesuit church in Rome after an unknown design by Rubens), James G. Harper (The sun also riseth: the Barberini Apollo series as an allegory of rise, fall, and return), Florence Patrizi (Tapestries in the Colonna collection), Concha Herrero Carretero (Tapestries for court and ecclesiastical use in seventeenth-century Spain), Guy Delmarcel, Margarita García Calvo, & Koenraad Brosens (Spanish family pride in Flemish wool and silk: the Moncada family and its baroque tapestry collection), Charissa Bremer-David (The tapestry patronage of Madame de Montespan and her family), Florian Knothe (Tapestry as a medium of propaganda at the court of Louis XIV: display and audience). ¶ Excellent copy.
