(ru K^. Reprinted from:Art in Americe 4.ril,1917. Y.5, no,3« p. 150-155. ^^^ XIVth Century French Tapestry. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. XIVth Century French Tapestry. The Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. THREE FRAGMENTS OF THE EARLIEST FRENCH TAPESTRY : BY R. A. MEYER-RIEFSTAHL 4MONG the most important pieces recently acquired by the J~\ Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is an early Gothic tapestry representing the Christ on the Cross, surrounded by Saints, which belonged formerly to the Morgan and Hoentschel collections. This piece is very famous as well for its beauty as for its historical importance, for it is generally considered to be the oldest French tapestry in existence. Paul Vitry calls it more archaic than the famous Escosura tapestry of the Presentation in the Temple now in the Musec du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, and ascribes it to a Parisian workshop. Jules Guififrey, Robert T. Nichol and W. M. Milliken take the same standpoint.^ Its date is unani- mously assigned to about the year 1300 A.D. It has been considered to have been an antependium. The Escosura tapestry in Brussels of the early XlVth century and the famous Apocalypse in the Ca- thedral at Angers, dating from 1376, are the only other early French tapestries of the XlVth century. We are fortunate enough to increase this series by one impor- tant piece. It is preserved in the Germanic Museum in Nuremberg — we feel able to prove that the Nuremberg tapestry comes certainly from the same workshop as the Metropolitan tapestry and is even a fragment of the same piece. The Nuremberg tapestry is described in the catalogues of the Museum as follows:^ "No. loi (670 in Hampe's Catalogue) Dorselet, for choir stalls or antependium of an altar, woolen tapes- try, six saints: St. Clara, St. John Baptist, St. Agnes, St. Elizabeth (St. Dorothea in Hampe's Catalogue), St. Peter, St. Paul. On blue ground covered with yellow stars, 168 cm. (^=66^ inches) long, 76 cm. (=30 inches) high, XlVth Century (about 1400 in Hampe's Catalogue)." This same tapestry is mentioned by Miintz as a German tapestry of the XlVth Century, but he seems not to have 1 Paul Vitry, Les collections Pierpont Morgan, Gazette des Beaux Arts, Vol. IV-XI, 1914, p. 434. Jules Guififrey, Les tapisseries du 12e a la fin du 16e siecle, p. 8— Robert T. Nichol in Guide to the Loan Exhibition of the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection at the MetropoHtan Museum of Art, New York, 1914, page 27, — W. M. M. in Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July, 1916. 2 Katalog der im Germanischen Museum befindlichen Gewebe und Stickereien (by Essenwein) Nuernberg, 1869, No. 101, with lithographic reproduction; and Theodor Hampe, Katalog der Gewebesammlung des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, Niirn- berg, 1896, No. 670 (with photographic reproduction). The tapestry has the inventory number of the Museum G. 101. 3G0559 known the piece itself, as he simply copies the notice in Essenwein's Catalogue.^ Circumstances have not permitted an examination of the tapestry itself, but even the photographic reproduction shows that it has been sewed together and consists of two fragments, each with a representation of three saints. Both groups of three figures seem to be facing towards a centre piece which, is not there, and this centre piece is without doubt the tapestry at the Metropolitan Museum. To establish this identity we must first study the meas- urements of both pieces. An absolute equality in the height of both tapestries cannot be expected, as neither is intact, either at the top or at the bottom. But the height of 30 inches of the Nuremberg tapestry and of 32 inches of the Metropolitan tapestry is nearly similar. The halos on the Metropolitan tapestry measure between 6% inches and 7 inches; the halos of the Nuremberg tapestry are about 7 inches in diameter. Both tapestries have a blue background with yellow stars. The distribution of the stars between the different figures is done in the same way on both pieces. The character of these backgrounds looks rather diflferent in the two photographs which we reproduce here. The Nuremberg photograph was made about twenty years ago with ordinary plates; the Metropolitan pho- tograph was made recently with orthochromatic plates, exaggerat- ing somewhat the values of the colors. Certain details are abso- lutely identical on both tapestries, as, for instance, the lining of the garment of the figure in the right corner of the Metropolitan tapestry (St. Margaret of Antioch) and that of the fourth figure from the left in the Nuremberg tapestry (St. Dorothea or St. Eliza- beth). To judge from the reproduction the texture seems to be of the same quality in both weaves. More important than the identity of measurement and of little details is the general character of the composition : the fine rhythm 'of the lines of the drapery, the expression, and the attitude of the saints, the way they move their arms and hold their different sym- bols is absolutely identical in both tapestries, while we find certain figures draped in white robes, others clad in colored garments in which the modeling is obtained by primitive hatchings which show that we are here at the beginning of a technical evolution. We are for the moment only able to give the list of the colors 1 Miintz, Histoire generale de la Tapisserie. Tapisseries allemandes, page 5. ^ employed in the Metropolitan tapestry. Thirteen colors are found: white, light cream, yellow, light brown (for the hair), another brown which seems to be a faded mauve, light red, dark red, light green, medium green, dark green, light blue, medium blue and dark blue (instead of black employed for the dark outlines). A technical peculiarity must be mentioned in the Metropolitan tapestry: the faces are outlined with dark blue thread employed in ordinary tapestry technique, and these dark blue lines are followed by a white couched thread which seems to have been contemporaneously applied by means of the "flying bobbin." The Metropolitan tapestry is in bad condition both at the top and at the bottom, but there are very few restorations and the remainder of the weave is in good condition. The number of warp threads to the inch is ii to 12, and the weft consists of about 32 double movements of the shuttle to the inch. The height is 32 inches, the length 62^ inches. If we insert the Metropolitan tapestry between the two halves of the Nuremberg piece we obtain a composition of a total length of 129 inches, which must have been about 35 inches high. We do not know whether these three fragments represent the whole length of the tapestry, but it is certain that a tapestry of this size cannot have been an antependium; it must have been a dorselet, for the choir stalls of a church or the benches of some hall for Ecclesiastical pur- poses. It may have been much longer, as early textile work for such purposes like the famous Bayeux embroidery or the Apostle tapestry and the Angels' tapestry at Halberstadt, are all of consider- able length. In any case we have the center of the composition, the Christ on the Cross, with the traditional Virgin and St. John on both sides. Next to this group we have on each side a group of four saints holding their attributes. The identification of the saints is in several cases not absolutely sure, but we have no reason to doubt the ascriptions which have been made by previous authors. On the left side of the cross we have (starting from the left) St. Clara, St. John Baptist, St. Agnes and St. Catherine of Alexandria. To the right side of the Cross, behind St. John : St. Margaret of Antioch, another saint which may be St. Dorothea or St. Elizabeth, St. Peter and St. Paul. We have not been able to find any clew as to whether these saints are characteristic for any particular region. We hope to receive information as to the source of the Nuremberg tapestry. But even if it was discovered in Germany, it seems certain that it is of French workmanship. The earliest German tapestries in Halber- stadt, the rugs from Quedlinburg and the earliest German embroi- deries we know, are of a different character. Their youthful vigor contrasts with the refined subtlety of our tapestry. Even some Rhenish and Westphalian embroideries (as published in Lessing's Deutsche Wandteppiche und Stickereien) are quite different in style from our piece. Consequently there is every reason to con- sider this precious dorselet as the earliest specimen existing of French tapestry. n. i x-c OTT THE LAST DATE THIS B00K^lS^^Ej.5^El.0V^ JTw^ OF 25 CENTS WIUU BE ASSESSED ^^^ ^"^ T!!h/foURTH DAY AND TO $^- _^==== OVERDUE.