POSSIBLY BY JOHN VANDERBANK, IN THE MANNER OF FRANCIS CLEYN, LATE 17TH EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Details

A MORTLAKE MYTHOLOGICAL TAPESTRY
POSSIBLY BY JOHN VANDERBANK, IN THE MANNER OF FRANCIS CLEYN, LATE 17TH EARLY 18TH CENTURY
Woven in wools and silks, depicting a Bacchanalian scene from the series Naked Boys, with the infant Bacchus being led in on a goat in a playful procession, young satyrs dancing in the centre and climbing a tree to the right, in a wooded landscape with formal gardens in the background, within a scrolling foliate border decorated with putti, grotesques and bunches of fruit and a brown outer slip, losses, especially to the light silks, areas of reweaving and patching, including a restored vertical cut to the centre, possibly Soho
8 ft. x 12 ft. 5 in. (244 cm. x 377 cm.)

Provenance

W.S. Bell, Esq.; Christie's, London, 17 April 1975, lot 65.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 8 February 1979, lot 152.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

This tapestry belongs to a group of tapestries generally known as the Naked Boys, with the subject deriving from Italian tapestries woven in the 1540s, based on the frescos by Giulio Romano in the Palazzo del Te, Mantua. The winged children depicted in the frescoes were engraved in Germany in 1529 and it was probably from these engravings, which omitted the wings, that Brussels weavers drew their inspiration. The theme was then much copied and also repeatedly woven at Mortlake and Soho. A complete set of this series is recorded at Cotehele, Cornwall and one panel has the signature of John Vanderbank (d. 1717), the most important director of the Great Wardrobe, re-sewn from a cut-off selvedge (H.C. Marillier, English Tapestries of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1930, p. 25).

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