AFTER A DESIGN BY JEAN-BAPTISTE MONNOYER (1636–1699) AND JEAN I BERAIN (1640-1711), CIRCA 1690

Based on the striking designs of Jean Bérain I (1640-1711) and Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (d. 1699), ‘Grotesques’ tapestries on tobacco grounds woven at the Beauvais ateliers have remained highly sought after since they were first devised in the late 17th century. The subject of ‘Grotesques’ first appeared in tapestries in a series designed by Raphael's assistant Giovanni da Udine (1487-1564), and woven in Brussels in circa 1520 for Pope Leo X, but soon became widely popular. Louis XIV had his first set loosely copied from these by the Gobelins Manufactory as Les Triomphes des Dieux in 1687. Shortly thereafter Beauvais designed its own 'Grotesques' to meet the general interest in the subject. The original cartoons of the present series date from the years 1686-1687 and seem to have been completed in 1688 when Philippe Behagle (died in 1705), director of the Manufacture Royale de Beauvais, was commissioned to provide four tapestries of Monnoyer’s design for the royal court by the King’s advisor, Jean Talon. This tapestry forms part of the celebrated series usually consisting of six tapestries including three horizontal panels, The Animal Tamers, The Camel and The Elephant, and three vertical panels, The Offering to Bacchus, The Offering to Pan and The Musicians.

JEAN-BAPTISTE MONNOYER (1636-1699)

Monnoyer was France's most celebrated flower painter of the 17th Century but was versatile and also painted history, still-life and portrait paintings. Although he is known to have collaborated on the creation of many cartoons for Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries, the 'Grotesques' series is the only series attributed entirely to him. The playful arabesque borders that are often found on tapestries in the series, however, have traditionally been attributed to Jean Bérain, who is documented to have produced such designs. In his correspondence with the Swedish architect Nicodemus Ticino the Younger (1654-1728), Baron Daniel Cronström (1655-1719) mentions a ‘Grotesques’ tapestry intended for the Swedish chancellor Carl Piper, explaining: "Je fais mettre à la grotesque une bordure d’un goust grotesque du dessein de Berain." However, he did not seem to know of the existence of the "au chinois" border on our present tapestry. Sitting in the centre of the vertical borders, we find the figure of the Emperor depicted in the Hearing of the Prince, one of the tapestries that composes the History of the King of China series.

A SUCCESSFUL MODEL

As the ‘Grotesques’ don't follow any of the narrative themes of history, religion or mythology they were widely considered more suited to domestic interiors than the formal hangings produced for the court by the Gobelins Manufactory. The ‘Grotesques’ were intended to hang either together, or independently as purely decorative weavings with no loss to their narrative value, a characteristic that appealed to a wide range of collectors throughout the centuries. Such was the interest in the theme that by 1710 the Beauvais manufactory developed cartoons in eight different variants to satisfy demand. The survival of over 150 tapestries from 40 separate series featuring the motif testifies to the success of these beautiful designs. Several ‘Grotesques’ on tobacco ground are known to have been acquired by contemporary foreign collectors, contributing to the diffusion of the French taste across the courts of Europe.

COMPARABLE EXAMPLES

Among the most significant sets of the 'Grotesques' is a set of four in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: L’Eléphant (inv. 1977.437.3); L’Offrande à Bacchus (inv. 1977.437.4); Le Dromadaire (inv. 1977.437.1) and Les Musiciens (inv. 1977.437.5). The J. P. Getty Museum, Los Angeles, conserves another example from the series, l’Offrande à Bacchus (inv. 86.DD.645), purchased in 1986 from a Rothschild collection (C. Bremer-David, An illustrated summary catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1993, p. 166). Two further related examples, les Musiciens and les Dresseurs d’animaux, sold Christie’s, London, 7 July 2016, lots 332 and 333. Finally, a tapestry L’Ofrande à pan is conserved in the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (inv. 14248 bis).