A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe". - image-1
A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe". - image-2
A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe". - image-3
A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe". - image-1A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe". - image-2A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe". - image-3

Lot 855 Dα

A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe".

Auction 1039 - overview Cologne
14.11.2014, 14:30 - Porcelain, Ceramics, and Furniture
Estimate: 7.000 € - 10.000 €
Result: 8.060 € (incl. premium)
Artist Alert
Print page
Watchlist

A silk and wool woven Beauvais tapestry "Enlèvement d'Europe".

Textile backing, slightly faded, minor damage due to insects. The borders 20th century. H 295, W 275 cm
After a drawing by Francois Boucher, woven in the period 1750 - 1820.

The tapestry depicts a scene from the series "Les Amours des Dieux", which is known to have been woven in Beauvais between 1750 and 1820. The present work is the seventh piece from a series of nine, which Ananoff, the editor of the Beauvais catalogue raisonné, states as being woven 13 times. Apart from the 13 complete series, they also carried out individual commissions, as the Beauvais catalogue carried this pattern until 1820. This piece was probably woven without borders, and ordered exactly as we see it now. The motif planned by Boucher is not shown here in its entirety: The figure of Neptune in the outer left is missing, and instead the tapestry ends with Amphitrite, who would originally have faced him.

Literature

Ananoff, Francois Boucher, tome II, Lausanne-Paris 1976, nr. 350, p. 49 ff.
For this series, see: Appleton/Standen, European Post-Medieval Tapestries and related hangings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1985, vol. II, p. 534 ff.