BEAUVAIS, EARLY 18TH CENTURY, AFTER RENE-ANTOINE HOUASSE, POSSIBLY BY PHILIPPE BEHAGLE

In the late 17<->th and early 18<->th Centuries, the Royal Beauvais Manufactory produced two distinct series of Ovid's Metamorphoses, distinguished by the size of the figures depicted. The more valuable group, with larger figures, to which the present tapestry belongs, cost 6,000 livres while the small-figured set was 2,200 livres. The large-figured series was designed by the little-known René-Antoine Houasse, a pupil of Charles LeBrun, who is known to have supplied further tapestry series to the Gobelins and twenty-one paintings to the Grand Trianon. This series was woven at least eight times, although not always in its entirety, under Philippe Behagle between 1684 and 1705. The subjects which can with certainty be included in the series are, in order of the Beauvais records 1. The Abduction of Orinthia by Boreas, 2. Pan and Syrinx, 3.Vertumnus and Pomona, 4. Alpheius and Arethusa, 5. Cephalus and Procris, and 6. Diana and Callisto. This particular subject did not form part of the first firmly established group but was probably woven as an addition and the subject almost certainly formed part of a group of five tapestries of the same subject but with partially varying panels that appeared on the market in Paris, indicating that the series may have consisted of ten panels in total.
(B. Jestaz, The Beauvais Manufactory in 1690, Acts of the Tapestry Symposium, San Francisco, 1974.)