When Georges Blommaert left Lille to go to Beauvais, he was succeeded by
François and André Pannemaker, descendants of the famous Pannemaker
family of tapestry-makers. In 1688, they had a rival in Jean de Melter,
of Brussels, who was particularly fond of reproducing compositions after
Rubens. The Pannemakers devoted their skill chiefly to “_Verdures_.”
The looms at Nancy, established in the seventeenth century, and closed
in 1625, were also worked by men from the Low Countries, among them one
Melchior van der Hameidan. The Brussels looms were still busy in this
century, but the corporation of tapestry-workers was recruited from a
few families, such as the De Vos, De Castros, Raës, Van der Borchts, Van
der Heckes, and Leyniers. They repeated the cartoons of the last
century; but in the middle of the seventeenth Teniers produced many
rustic scenes that, known as _Tenières_, became very popular. Flemish
tapestry-weavers are found in Rome; in Denmark (twenty-six were there
about 1604); in Russia (Martin Steuerbout of Antwerp had a manufactory
in Moscow in 1607); and in England.
[Illustration:
PLATE XXIX.—_Flemish Chair._
CLUNY MUSEUM, PARIS.
]
The Mortlake manufactory, established by James I near London in 1619,
was practically a Flemish manufactory. In a short while its only rival
was the Gobelins. The King sent specially to Flanders for skilled
workmen and no less than fifty arrived in one month, among whom were
Josse Ampe of Bruges, Simon Heyns, Jacques Hendricx, Josse Inghels, and
Pierre Foquentin of Oudenarde. Rubens and Van Dyck were commissioned to
supply cartoons; but many of the old favourite historical and religious
sets of the past century were reproduced. Paris and Hampton Court Palace
contain a number of these.
Mortlake had closed when William III ordered his victories to be
commemorated in woven pictures. The cartoons for _The Battle of
Bresgate_, _The Descent on Tor bay_ and _The Battle of the Boyne_, were
drawn by Jean Lottin, the painter, and made by Clerck, Vander Borcht,
Cobus and De Vos of Brussels.
Flemish tapestry-weavers settled in Sandwich, Canterbury, Maidstone,
Norwich and Colchester in 1567–8, after the persecutions of the Duke of
Alva; but notwithstanding the good work produced in England, Admiral
Howard ordered the famous set of six pieces to commemorate the
destruction of the Spanish Armada from the painter H. Cornelis de Vroom
of Haarlem and Franz Spierinx of Delft. These fine pieces hung in the
House of Lords, London, until destroyed by the fire of 1824.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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