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Animal tapestries and Wildlife tapestries
Throughout history animals have proved a source of fascination to humans. Whether as a means of sustenance or a loyal companion, animals have inspired many artists to create compelling works of art. The earliest forms of art, cave paintings, depicted animals as a source of wonder, an inspiration that continues up until the modern day.
Our animal tapestries and wall hangings continue this tradition and we have an impressive range from across the broad spectrum of art. This includes traditional work as well as contemporary tapestry wall hangings.
The series of animal tapestries below explore the role of animals and wildlife in art.
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$60.00
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$100.00
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$199.00
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Price:
$406.00
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Price:
$279.00
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$215.00
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Price:
$410.00
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$695.00
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$60.00
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$100.00
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$189.00
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$65.00
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$109.00
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Price:
$689.00 -
$995.00
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17th CENTURY ITALIAN TAPESTRIES
The Barberini Workshop
The most typical of 17th century workshops was the private one established in Rome by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII. The Barberini workshop was directed by a rich and cultivated dilettante and collector of antiques who was also well versed in inscriptions, history and literature.
The work produced here was to the Roman Baroque what the Medici tapestry works had been to the early Florentine Mannerist movement. Its establishment may have been encouraged by Louis XIII’s gift to the Cardinal of the first series of History of Constantine [Museum of Art, Philadelphia]. This was continued in the Roman workshop, from designs by Pietro da Cortona [1632-1641; Museum of Art, Philadelphia]. Though there is a certain resemblance with the Paris series of Rubens, the tapestries designed by Pietro da Cortona differ in their insistent evocation of the ancient world, based on precise literary knowledge. The classical themes are reclad with Baroque sensibility and taste, a flowing eloquence and an even greater arrogance.
The choice of subjects is most interesting, ranging from a parallel ideal of Constantine as Christian emperor to ‘His most Christian Majesty of France’, whose temporal power of the Pontiff – Urban VIII Barberini. In one of the tapestries Constantine is shown killing a lion, the symbol of royalty. This implies that the King of Heaven will always prevail over the kinds of the Earth. The Theme of the distinction between heavenly and earthly glory is repeated in another series, the copy [1633-1642; Museo di Palazzo Venezia, Rome] of Putti at Play by Giovanni da Udine, then in the Vatican. Romanelli altered the old cartoons, but added an unusual new subject, the Lion defeated by Bees. This obvious symbol [bees form part of the Barberini coat of arms] exalted both the House of Pope Urban VIII and the Pontifical political supremacy. The Mysteries of the Life and Death of Christ [1643-1646; St John’s Cathedral, New York] from designs by Romanelli and Pietro da Cortona was woven for the hall in the Palazzo Barberini, the ceiling of which had been painted by Cortona with the Triumph of Divine Providence. The tapestries were to complete a decorative unity and to enforce it by an iconographical link. The allegory on the ceiling, as conceived by Bracciolini, exalted both Divine Providence and the grandeur of the Barberini family. The Life of Christ was intended to complete the cycle, celebrating the glory of the Redeemer as well as that of His Vicar, the Roman Pontiff. The theme, in fact, if not exactly profane was far from sacred, with its eulogistic allusions. It is to be read, however, only in connection with the original historical context.
This often happened in Italian tapestries, conceived in terms of complex organic decoration.
When Cardinal Barberini died in 1679 production languished and finally ceased - a fate common to workshops dependent on an individual patron.
The Medici Workshop The artistic quality of the relatively small production of tapestries from the Barberini workshop was superior to that of the larger Medici workshop in Florence. From the middle of the century the latter seems to have stagnated stylistically. The Hours and the Seasons, woven between 1630 and 1643, still show considerable in the 16th century style. Although not lacking in merit, they do not conform to the taste of the other contemporary workshops. The importation of foreign workers, such as the Fleming van Asselt and the Frenchman Le Févère, did not have the expected results, at least as far as the style of the tapestries woven there was concerned.
A certain modernity was attempted by Melissi, especially in his cartoons for the History of Moses, repeated several time between 1650 and 1659. A more definite attempt towards the Baroque was made in the third quarter of the century by Giovanni Battista Termini, but he came up against important technical difficulties and abandoned his work, and Florence, to which he only returned in 1703.
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