PROPERTY FROM THE SPRINGFIELD MUSEUMS A SET OF SEVEN AUBUSSON CHINOISERIE TAPESTRIES AFTER FRANÇOIS BOUCHER The following seven Aubusson tapestries form part of a suite of Chinoiserie tapestries originally designed by François Boucher for the Beauvais tapestry workshop. FRANÇOIS BOUCHER AND JEAN-JOSEPH DUMONS François Boucher (1703 - 1770) supplied the designs of this series to Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686 - 1755), the director of the Royal Beauvais Tapestry Workshop, as the third suite of tapestries designed for the Beauvais tapestry workshop. He exhibited the set of eight Chinoiserie paintings at the Salon at the Louvre between August and September 1742 (today preserved in the Musée des Beaux Arts et d'Archéologie in Besançon). Their designs were immediately translated into cartoons by Jean-Joseph Dumons de Tulle (1687 - 1779) and the successful series, consisting of six subjects, was woven at least ten times between July 1743 and August 1775 at Beauvais and in addition further copied were made at Aubusson. Boucher, who is known to have owned many Chinese objects, took inspiration for the tapestries from engravings, some from the previous century, but also from illustrations on export porcelain and other Chinese objects. It was arguably Boucher who popularized the Chinoiserie style again in the 1740s and his figures, objects and Oriental forms became basic components of the European rococo. Before Aubusson took over the designs from Beauvais, Jean-Joseph Picon employed Dumons to adapt the compositions for them sometime before 1754. He expanded the set to comprise nine tapestries, eight entre fenêtres, three overdoors and almost 50 furniture upholstery panels. Dumons had been appointed designer to the Aubusson tapestry manufactory by Louis XV in 1731 and continued to supply over 20 sets until 1755, when he left to work for Boucher at Beauvais. (P.-F. Bertrand, 'La Seconde "Tenture Chinoise" tissée à Beauvais et Aubusson', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, November 1990, pp. 173 - 184; C. Adelson, European Tapestry at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1994, pp. 322 - 342) PROPERTY OF THE SPRINGFIELD MUSEUMS (LOTS 361 - 369)

A LOUIS XV AUBUSSON CHINOISERIE TAPESTRY

AFTER FRANÇOIS BOUCHER AND A CARTOON BY JEAN-JOSEPH DUMONS, THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

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A LOUIS XV AUBUSSON CHINOISERIE TAPESTRY
AFTER FRANÇOIS BOUCHER AND A CARTOON BY JEAN-JOSEPH DUMONS, THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY
Woven in silks and wools, depicting Le Divertissement, with the Emperor seated beneath a baldachin holding a fan and before him with various musicians and a group to the right dancing around a central performer with large hat, all set within a wooded landscape with some architectural features, within a floral and C-scroll border and later brown guard border, limited areas of reweaving, reduced in height at the bottom of the main field
9 ft. (275 cm.) high, 15 ft. 1 in. (460 cm.) wide

Lot Essay

COMPARABLE EXAMPLES
A tapestry of the same design is at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and illustrated in D. and P. Chevalier and P. Bertrand, Les tapisseries d'Aubusson et de Felletin, Lausanne, 1988, pp. 114 - 115. A nearly identical panel was with N. De Koenigsberg, Buenos Aires, in 1946 and sold anonymously, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 1 June 1978, lot 412, while an expanded version was sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 23 October 1998, lot 100. A further version, from the collection of the Vicomte de Curel, sold Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 3 Mai 1918, lot 63.

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