Once the formerly dispersed Parisian factories were brought together in one place, Colbert placed Charles Le Brun at the head of the Gobelins. The king’s first painter instilled in it a golden age of around thirty years, arousing envy both in France and abroad. Le Brun himself supplies the new pattern for the hangings, the weavings of which follow one another at a frantic pace, both on the high and low loom. Then, 775 pieces leave the factory, 545 of which are enhanced with gold thread. The masterpieces follow one another, the hangings of the Muses, the Elements, the Seasons or The History of Alexander arouse admiration and all are to the glory of the king. Alas, this creative vitality submitted to royal power was soon to be subject to painters as well; the sawyers still kept a certain freedom on the choice of colors and the transcription of the details of the cardboard on the loom, but the 18th century would not be as permissive.

Visite de Louis XIV à la Manufacture des Gobelins, le 15 octobre 1667. D'après un carton de Charles Le Brun. Tapisserie de basse lisse en laine, soie et fiil d'or.
Visite de Louis XIV à la Manufacture des Gobelins, le 15 octobre 1667. D'après un carton de Charles Le Brun
At the same time, the dyeing workshop set up in 1665 developed a palette of dazzling and solid colors – called colorfast – and experimented with a few chemical dyes. In the 17th century, the palette had around a hundred colors and around six hundred in the following century, when the Middle Ages only used around ten! Luxury of the privileged, the tapestries deign to show themselves in decorations as spectacular as ephemeral during solemnities where everyone can admire them, but these events are as rare as this art is envied. They naturally make the golden hours of diplomatic gifts, exporting French prestige and excellence abroad with panache. Everywhere, the perfection of their design, their weaving and the luxury of their materials are praised, it is therefore quite natural that the heads of workshops, regularly signing the tapestries with their initials, take advantage and pride on occasion of private orders. The latter, freed from royal imperatives, show unreal, charming and poetic architectures renewing the aesthetic vocabulary of the end of the Grand Siècle, in the manner of Jean Bérain. Alas, the wars demanded all the resources of the treasury and after abandoning the weaving in precious threads, the Gobelins had to close between 1694 and 1699, for lack of means.
Portière représentant Vénus et l'Amour, de la Tenture des Attributs de la Marine. D'après Jean Bérain, 1689 - 1692 © 2002 RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Jean-Gilles Berizzi
Berain, JeanHinart, Jean-BaptisteLemoine, Jean, Musée du Louvre, Département des Objets d'art du Moyen Age, de la Renaissance et des temps modernes, OA 11943 - https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010111296 - https://collections.louvre.fr/CGU

Prestigious Factory in the 18th century

Under the notable direction of the Duc d’Antin and then the Marquis de Marigny, the directors of the factory produced some 1,700 tapestries forming hangings on mythological, religious or romantic subjects, including The Story of Don Quichotte (1715 – 1751) according to Coypel is a resounding success. All the great painters of the time were called upon: Natoire, Boucher, Vanloo and even Oudry created around 250 new subjects with graceful and learned aesthetics. The prestige of the Gobelins goes hand in hand with the private orders flowing in from France and Europe, which is reinforced by the craze for woven portraits and furniture fittings. But by dint of subjecting the liciers to the faithful imitation of pictorial shades, the use of colorfast dyes is no longer enough and it is soon necessary to resort to small colors that are not very resistant to light.
Histoire de Don Quichotte Don Quichotte servi par les demoiselles de la Duchesse. D'après Charles-Antoine Coypel, 1779 © Isabelle Bideau, Mobilier national, janvier 2019.
© Isabelle Bideau, Mobilier national, janvier 2019.

To overcome this inconvenience, the color of the tapestries was enhanced and the result deemed disastrous by Coypel who in 1737 criticized both the vulgarity of the colors and the mediocrity of the design. He is asked for his help to avoid the disintegration of the factory and his recovery helps to avoid the worst. But the end of the century questions an art that we want to be identical to painting for a much higher cost. After the Revolution, fatal to many tapestries, the Gobelins passed through the 19th century without brilliance. The low loom was definitively abandoned in 1826 while the chromatic discoveries of Eugène Chevreul simplified the task of the weaver. Production became so monotonous that the appointment of curator Alfred Darcel in 1871 and then that of Jules Guiffrey in 1893 as head of the factory breathed new life into it.

Invigorating Modernity

Finally, the uniqueness of the tapestry is recognized. The copying of paintings is gradually abandoned in favor of cardboards by modern artists such as Moreau, Chéret or Boutet de Montvel, whose manner corresponds precisely to the essence of tapestry. One advocate the simplification of the model and the palette, the enhancement of the decorative and the monumental until the International Exhibition of 1925 crowns the tapestry and restores its medieval function as a mobile partition. Shaken by this concept, which was conscientiously denied for more than two centuries, the Gobelins had to adapt to a luxury far removed from the grand settings to which they were accustomed. The creations of Jean Dunand or Paul Véra contribute in this sense to the renewed interest in tapestry as an essential part of modern interiors.

Jean Dunand, Pastorale tissée en 1933 © Isabelle Bideau, Mobilier national, janvier 2019.
Jean Dunand © Isabelle Bideau, Mobilier national, janvier 2019.

In 1936, the talented Jean Lurçat entrusted the Gobelins with his first tapestry, The Illusions of Icarus, which turned out to be just as illusory for the Parisian manufacture, from which Lurçat turned away to prefer those of Aubusson. A year later, the Gobelins are attached to the Mobilier National but it is after the war that the new woven creation awakens and attracts contemporary artists. The long exercise of transcribing their writing into weavings of excellence still unites tradition and contemporary creation today. By appropriating it, these artists underline the vitality and the durability of this art, always signed since 1889 with the monogram G crossed by a weaving brooch.

Marielle Brie
Art Historian for Art Market and Cultural Media
Author of the blog Objets d’Art et d’Histoire