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Friday 19 May 2023

À la recherche des tapis perdus









 Imagine a walkway some 13 metres wide and 442 metres long-covered in carpets.


in 1615


This was the ambitious plan presented to Louis XIV by his minister Colbert to furnish the space stretching between the Louvre(at that time the king`s residence) to the Tuilleries Palace and its garden.  

The carpets were woven in a disused soap factory which came to be known as the Savonnerie.

Two families,the Dupont and the Lourdet,vied for the commissions.The designs were overseen by the King`s painter Charles Le Brun together with a group of leading artists.

Initially,13 carpets were woven for the Galerie d `Apollon, followed by 93 for the Grande Galerie(actually 92,as one,Nr 36,was never produced)Work begun in 1665 with the designs.Weaving commenced in 1668,and the entire project took around twenty years.At some point along the way the King lost interest as his attention turned to Versailles,and the carpets were assigned to storage.

The entire assembly seems never to have been shown in place.A number of carpets were presented as gifts,to the Persian and Turkish ambassadors,to the Swedish Royal House-even to the King of Siam.

During the revolution some of the carpets were  bartered for horse-feed and their royal insignia were often cut out and replaced with more mundane decoration.

Some 40 pieces remain in the Mobiler National and others are scattered worldwide.

  


The Long Gallery


The entire surface area is said  to have covered around 3,700 square metres,with a standard length of just under 9 metres.Years were spent foraging for the right quality of wood to build the looms.The Savonnerie building was enlarged to accomodate them and an army of orphans was pressganged into service,many of whom subsequently fled.

The present photo-essay builds on the work of Pierre Verlet, whose catalogue to the Rothschild Collection ("Waddesdon")is a history of the Grande Galerie enterprise.Verlet`s publication is one of the great carpet books.In 2012 Wolf Burchard published an update to the list of surviving examples.

Woven uniformly on a brown-black ground,the carpets echo the design system employed by the Mamluks in their large productions: a dominant central medallion accompanied by two  satellites.The French examples replace the minor medallions with bas-reliefs featuring either landscapes or mythological characters. A border of Gadroons and blue leaves was standard on all examples.According to Susan Sherill, the carpets were woven sideways,allowing many more weavers to work on each carpet,thus speeding up the operation considerably.Although woven with the Turkish knot,the depressed warp structure is more akin  to the Persian world,or indeed to that of the Mamluks.Colbert had attempted to acquire oriental carpets as early as 1662, but such a large quantity was not forthcoming.This is presumably why he went ahead with local production.Not much investigation has been carried out regarding the dyes used.The Savonnerie had their dyework outsourced, unlike the Gobelins where it was part of the manufacture.Cochineal,madder,indigo(or woad?) and local yellow dyes were employed.It can be assumed that the brown-black ground colour common to all examples was produced by overdying natural dark brown wool.


Carpets for the Galerie d `Apollon.




 

13 carpets for this space were delivered on  7 October 1667. 4 complete examples survive, and 8 fragments.The series can be considered as a dry run, made on the first giant looms set up at Chaillot.


GdA1 & 2

GdA3(Louvre)






 

GdA4(Stavros Niarchos,Paris)

GdA5 & 6-Fragments from the first carpet in the series-left:Mobilier national;right. Notre Dame




GdA7-At Christies in 2018


GdA8 -Mobilier national 1531

 

GdA9-Mobilier national 2881



GdA10-Mobilier national 1345


GdA11-Mobilier national 10159

 

GdA12-Sothebys 2017

The borders on the carpets for the Galerie d `Apollon were simplified for the larger series.


after Verlet,figure 121



Francesca Galloway




 Carpets for the Grande Galerie.

Nr.1

Palazzo Reale,Naples




Nr 1


Nr 1



Nr.2

Lempertz 29.5.2020-927


Nr 5 or 17

Louvre OA5432



Nr 6

Mobilier national 6304


Nr 9 or 19

Mobilier national 6304



Nr 10 or 14

Catan Collection,later at Christies



Nr 11

Metropolitan Museum 52.118



Nr 11

Huntington Art Gallery



Nr 12 or 18






Nr 13 or 27

Mobilier national 4062


15

Mobilier national 10157



Nr 16 or 26

Mobilier national 12362



Nr 17

Louvre 5432


Nr 19 or 9


Mobilier national 16019


Nr 20



Louvre 2267



Nr 21



Louvre 6735



Nr 22



Mobilier national 4061



Nr 23


Huntington Art Gallery



Nr 26 or 16


Philadelphia Museum of Art



Nr 28 or 6


Mobilier national 6978



Nr 29 or 33


Mobilier national 2013


Nr 34 or 15


Louvre



Nr 38


Metropolitan Museum 58.75.129



Nr 40


Mobilier national 2012




Nr 43



Sothebys-Christies



nr 44


Christies 2021-formerly Garcia Collection




Nr 46





Mobilier national 2022



Nr 48




Etude Couturier Nicolya Paris 1993



Nr 49


Mobilier national 4060




Nr 50



Nissim Camondo,Paris





Nissim Camondo,Paris



Nr 51


Mobilier national 2021


Nr 53


Mobilier national 2037


Nr 54




Mobilier national 1345




Nr 55


Mobilier national 2023




Nr 56




Mobilier national 2027



Nr 57


Waddesdon


Nr 58



Mobilier national 2036



nr 59


Mobilier national 2016



Nr 60


Pitti Palace



Nr 61or 89




Ex-Deering Collection, sold at Christies in 2000 for $1,326,000




Nr 62




Mobilier national 2017



Nr 64


Mobilier national 2018



Nr 65




Mobilier national 2024




Nr 67




Mobilier national 14041




Nr 68


Mobilier national 2032



Nr 69




Mobilier national 2028




Nr 70





Mobilier national 2025



Nr 72


Ex-Getty



Nr 73




Wrightsman Collection MET 1976.155.114




Nr 74




Mobilier national 74





Mobilier national 74




Nr 75





Mobilier national 2034



Nr 76


Mobilier national 14039



Nr 77




Mobilier national 14040




Nr 78




Mobilier national 2067



Nr 82




Mobilier national 20471



Nr 83



Mobilier national 2035



Nr 84



Mikaeloff


Mikaeloff



Nr 85




Mobilier national 2020



Nr 88





Mobilier national 6776



Nr 92




Waddesdon




Nr 93




Mobilier national 2015



Verlets plan of the Grand Galerie carpets in formal layout






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