Textile Antiques has dated this 18th Century Aubusson Tapestry to the 18th Century.
Circa 1751-1765
From a series of seven tapestries known as ‘La Tenture des Petites Figures’, the cartoons for which were designed by Jean-Joseph Dumons (1687-1779) in 1751, with retouchings by François Boucher (1703-1770).
Woven in silk and wool with a young woman reclining beneath a lofty thatched shelter amid tall sinuous trees, her head gently cradled by her shepherd companion who holds his houlette and points towards his sheep cooling themselves beside some swans in a calmly flowing river, over which a cowherd crosses a wooden bridge beneath the large round tower from which the tapestry takes its name.
The two painters had previously collaborated at the Beauvais tapestry workshops, and here Dumons adapted an existing Boucher painting, ‘The Washerwoman’ - now in the collection of the Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf (inv. no.
The exceptionally fine weave of the tapestry echoes that of an example in the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, Lisbon (inv. no. 2132), while another more coarsely woven version may be found in the collection of The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (acc. no. 1964.74).
Vide: ‘Aubusson - Tapisseries des Lumières’, Pascal-François Bertrand, publ. Snoeck 2013, pp. 149-156, for a comprehensive discussion of this tapestry.
Textile Antiques has dated this 18th Century Aubusson Tapestry to the 18th Century.
Fine european textiles and tapestries of the period spanning the 15th century to the early 20th century.
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A Fine 18th Century Aubusson Tapestry
