BY JACQUES NEILSON, MAURICE JACQUES AND LOUIS TESSIER CIRCA 1778-81, THE MEDALLIONS AFTER THE DESIGN BY FRANCOIS BOUCHER

Conceived as a material expression of French cultural and artistic excellence, this tapestry is a rare example of a royal diplomatic gift woven at the state manufactory of Gobelins finally presented by Louis XVI to Prince Heinrich of Prussia, scion of one of Europe’s most powerful and culturally aspirational courts.

The tapestry belongs to one of ten sets of tapestries from the series Les Tentures de François Boucher designed at the Gobelins from 1763 by the premier peintre François Boucher and the ornamental designers Maurice Jacques and Louis Tessier. With mythological scenes symbolising the elements within ornamental surrounds, these tapestries achieved particular renown among foreign nobility. Representing the elements of air and water respectively, the two medallions in this tapestry depict Aurora and Cephalus (designed 1763) and Venus Emerging from the Waters (designed 1766). The surround of the medallions is a skilful and imaginative translation of a decorative scheme into textile, with the frames and border imitating giltwood boiseries, and the ground imitating crimson silk damask wall coverings hung with swags of flowers and centred by an ormolu-mounted hardstone vase flanked by marble statuary. There are three 'types' of medallion surrounds across the ten sets, with their size and ornament adapted accordingly.

While the tapestry is a statement of French artistic output, produced in the royal manufactory, designed by the foremost French painter of the period, and depicting the ideals of French decorative arts, it is interesting to note that the surround of the tapestry, which was woven separately to the medallions, was a result of English peculiarities and the longstanding predilection in Great Britain for rooms hung with sets of tapestry. Indeed five out of the 10 sets of Les Tentures de François Boucher delivered before the French Revolution were commissioned for English houses, with our own tapestry belonging to a set initially destined for the residence of the French ambassador in England, the comte d’Adhémar. Aware no doubt of the celebrity of these tapestry rooms and keen to act as a cultural as well as political ambassador for the Kingdom of France, Adhémar’s commission of the Tentures for his London embassy was both informed and astute. While the present lot and the set to which it belongs were never delivered to the spendthrift comte, the set’s diplomatic value was clearly recognised for in 1784 Louis XVI gave the set of four tapestries, of which the present lot is the largest and most expensive, to Prince Henry of Prussia, younger brother of Frederick the Great, who installed them in the alcove of his bedroom in his Berlin palace.

The first and most celebrated tapestry set of the Tentures is most probably that commissioned by the Earl of Coventry for the specially-designed tapestry room at Croome Court, Worcestershire delivered from 1764-1771 and currently preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. No. 58.75.1–.22). The largest tapestry from this set is related to our own and is similarly inset with two medallions with one depicting, like ours, Aurora and Cephalus, the other depicting Vertumnus and Pomona. The specifications of the room at Croome Court dictated the ornamental surround which is the first in a series of three ‘surround’ designs and which varies from our own in the ribbons, shape of the swags and design of the vase. This commission was instrumental in inspiring a number of English ‘Mylords’ to order their own tapestry rooms hung with Boucher’s Tentures and Coventry was followed in this endeavour by William Weddell at Newby Hall, Yorkshire, the Earl of Bradford at Weston Park, Staffordshire and the Marquis of Zetland at Aske Hall who all ordered sets from Gobelins conforming to the first ‘surround’ design.

The beginning of Louis XVI’s reign produced the third and final ‘surround’ design seen on the present lot, displaying clearly the ascendancy of neoclassicism while remaining faithful to the vocabulary of the earlier rocaille designs. The first set made according to this design was again made for England and was commissioned by the Earl of Jersey for Osterley Park, Isleworth, illustrated here. With its twin medallions suspended from a pair of blue ribbons, guilloche border and flowering vase flanked by putti, the tapestry from the Osterley set is very closely related to the present lot, with the exception of the right medallion which depicts, like the Croome tapestry Vertumnus and Pomona. Another set of tapestries with a related design were given to the comte du Nord, Grand Duke Paul of Russia and installed in the Palace of Pavlovsk. They were sold by the Soviet Government and are currently preserved in the Getty Museum (inv. nos. 71.DD.466-470).

It is remarkable that out of the 10 sets of the Tentures de François Boucher delivered before the French Revolution, six sets were commissioned by English noblemen and a further three, including the one to which the present lot belongs, were given as state gifts to the great continental powers of Prussia, Russia and Austria. Other than a single tapestry from the series commissioned for the King and a set of tapestries commissioned by the duchesse de Bourbon, currently preserved in the Musée du Louvre (OA 5118-5122), these sets were made almost exclusively for foreign patrons. The foreign appeal of these tapestries and the economic and reputational benefits this afforded the manufactory and the French nation as a whole was not lost on the officials of the Gobelins, as evidenced by a 1767 letter from Neilson to the duc de Chastelet, the French ambassador in London, requesting assistance in exporting tapestries to their patrons in England. Praising the ambassador’s ‘service au Commerce du Royaume’ Neilson describes the tapestries as ‘une partie si précieuse des Manufactures de France’, thus explicitly linking the production of the Gobelins to the economic health and national pride of the French nation.
Prince Heinrich von Preussen was, like his brother Frederick the Great, an admirer of French arts and culture and in 1784 he undertook a trip to the French capital and the court of Louis XVI at Versailles. Heinrich, travelling as the comte de Oels, was generously rewarded by the French King for this visit and presented with gifts from France’s most distinguished manufactories including Gobelins tapestries, Savonnerie carpets, furniture coverings, a screen, and a suite of seat furniture. The present lot was subsequently listed in Heinrich’s posthumous inventory in 1802 as hanging in the Prince’s bedroom in his palace on Unter den Linden in Berlin. The present lot, with its twin medallions, hung in a rounded alcove. Coincidentally the related set of Gobelins tapestries from the Tentures given in 1782 by Louis XVI to the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, travelling as the comte du Nord, were also hung in a rounded alcove in Pavlovsk. In addition to the present lot, which was the largest and most valuable of the group, the four Tentures tapestries in the gift included two tapestries of thinner dimensions and decorated with Cupid roundels, both of which are currently preserved in the Rijksmuseum (inv. Nos. BK-1975-68, BK 1955-103), and a tapestry with a single medallion depicting Neptune and Amymone, sold Property of J. Paul Getty Museum, Christie's New York, 31 October 1996, lot 324.