18th Century Beauvais Tapestry - Design after Jean Berain

"-18th century Beauvais Tapestry; designed after Jean Berain
-Provenance: from a private French collection

This tapestry comes from the so-called “Grotesques” hanging which was woven at the Beauvais factory under the direction of Philippe de Béhagle from the end of the 17th century and in the first third of the 18th century. The style is directly inspired by the compositions of the ornamentalist Jean Bérain but the cartoons must be attributed to Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer as suggested by C. Bremer-David in “French Tapestries and Textiles in the J. Paul Getty Museum”, Los Angeles , 1975, p.75 when she quotes a letter of December 7, 1695 where “grostesque which is sold in tapestry … is from the drawing of Baptiste, excellent painter and designer of icy ornaments”. The hanging, mainly composed of six tapestries (The Elephant, the Dromedary, the Offering to Bacchus, the Offering to Pan and the Musicians) could be adapted at will with main compositions of figures and characters represented under porticoes. In 1710, a list drawn up at the Manufacture mentions eight different cartoons for the compositions of Grotesques - they could've been woven with different borders or simply without to be inserted into a woodwork frame.Designed by Jules Chebeaux

In the 1850s, Jean-Jacques Sallandrouze, cousin of Charles Sallandrouze de Lamoraix, began producing high-end carpets featuring designs by talented artists like Jules Chebeaux, who had previously worked for the Sallandrouze carpet manufacture. The intricate designs of these carpets were inspired by 18th-century rock garden woodwork.

This rug was recently on exhibition at the Aubusson Museum in France."