The looms of Ypres, Middelburg, Alost, Lille, Valenciennes, Douay and
Oudenarde flourished during the fifteenth century. To this list we must
add the fine looms of Bruges, established by Philip the Good, which for
a time eclipsed all others in Flanders. After Bruges supplied this Duke
of Burgundy with _The History of the Sacrament_ and “two chambers of
tapestry” in 1440, many commissions were received from foreign
countries. The Medicis and other Italian families ordered rich sets, but
they supplied their own cartoons by Andrea Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci
and other great painters.
Bruges, doubtless, owed no little of its fame as a centre for fine
tapestry to the Flemish artists, Memling and the Van Eycks and their
school who lived there. It is believed that the famous tapestry that
found a home in the Château des Aygalades, representing the marriage of
Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany, under the allegorical figures of
Esther and Ahasuerus, was made in Bruges. The cartoons have been
attributed to the school of Van Eyck.
In 1449–53, Philip ordered from Tournay _The History of Gideon_ and _The
Story of the Golden Fleece_ in eight pieces.
In 1430, one Jean Hosemant, a tapestry-weaver of Tournay, was in Avignon
and the Pope’s chamberlain, the Archbishop of Narbonne, ordered him to
make “a tapestried chamber on the hangings of which were to be
represented foliage, trees, meadows, rivers and clouds, as well as birds
and quadrupeds.” Italy also attracted the French and Flemish weavers to
learn their secrets, and they flocked in numbers to Rome and other
cities. Their work was in such demand that the Flemish workers found
encouragement everywhere; and in the fifteenth century they emigrated to
England, Spain, Italy and even Hungary.
Rinaldo Boteram of Brussels was in charge of the workshop in the court
of the Gonzagas in Mantua, where Andrea Mantegna was employed to design
the cartoons. Jehan de Bruges and Valentin d’Arras directed the
workshops in Venice as early as 1421; Giacomo d’Angelo the Fleming had
charge of the Marquis d’Este’s tapestries at Ferrara with a large number
of Flemish weavers under him. Flemish workmen and master workmen were
engaged in Siena, Florence, Correggio, Urbino and also by the Sforzas in
Milan.
A woman was also weaving Arras at Todi in 1468, one Giovanna Francesa,
“_maestra di panni de arazzi_.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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