Yet we know relatively little of these master weavers. Many names of tapicers appear in tax-lists and other documents, but not until the XVIIIth century do the names often represent to us definite personalities, and until then we can only occasionally credit a man with his surviving work. From the long lists of names and the great numbers of remaining tapestries a few only can be connected. Among the greatest of these is Nicolas Bataille, of Paris, who wove the famous set of the _Apocalypse_ now in the Cathedral of Angers; Pasquier Grenier, of Tournai, to whom the _Wars of Troy_ and related sets can be accredited (cf. No. 7), but who apparently was an _entrepreneur_ rather than a weaver; Pieter Van Aelst, who was so renowned that the cartoons of Raphael were first entrusted to him; William Pannemaker, another Brussels man, who had supreme taste and skill, and his relative Pierre, almost as skilful; Marc Comans and François de la Planche, the Flemings who set up the looms in Paris that developed into the Gobelins (cf. No. 38); Jean Lefébvre, who worked first in the gallery of the Louvre and then had his studio in the Gobelins (cf. Nos. 39, 40); the Van der Beurchts, of Brussels (cf. Nos. 42, 56), and Leyniers (cf. Nos. 26, 27), and Cozette, most famous weaver of the Gobelins. Such men as these, and many more whose names are lost or are neglected because we do not know their work, were in their medium as important artists as the painters whose designs they followed. With the passing of such master craftsmen the art of tapestry died. When men must compete with machines their work is no more respected, and so tapestry is no longer the natural medium of expression for the culture of the times. Tapestries are still being made, but there is no genuine vitality in the art and little merit in its product. It exists today only as an exhausted and irrelevant persistence from the past, and, as a fine art, doomed to failure and ultimate extinction. P.A. [Illustration: _The Annunciation_ No. 1 ] [Illustration: _The Chase_ No. 2 ] CATALOGUE _Abbreviations_: H. (_Height_); W. (_Width_); _ft._ (_Feet_); _in._ (_Inches_). _"Right" & "Left," refer to right & left of the spectator_ [Sidenote: 1] FRANCO-FLEMISH, POSSIBLY ARRAS, BEGINNING OF XV OR END OF XIV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool, Silk, Gold._ H. 11 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 9 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] THE ANNUNCIATION: _The Virgin, in a blue robe lined with red, is seated before a reading-desk in a white marble portico with a tile floor. Behind her is a red and metal gold brocade. The lily is in a majolica jar. The angel, in a green robe with yellow high lights lined with red, has alighted in a garden without. In the sky, God the Father holding the globe and two angels bearing a shield._