HATTON GARDEN OR SOHO, IN THE MANNER OF FRANCIS CLEYN, LATE 17TH/EARLY 18TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY BY THOMAS POYNTZ

King Charles I, then still Prince of Wales, arranged for Francis Cleyn to join the Mortlake tapestry manufactory in 1624. Cleyn became a key designer at the manufactory and was responsible for several of its most successful series such as the 'Story of Hero and Leander' and the 'Royal Horses'. He also designed a series depicting 'Playing Boys', which took direct inspiration from two paintings by Polidoro de Caravaggio which Charles II purchased in 1637, and which appears to form the basis for this tapestry. The series was frequently woven at Mortlake and then taken up as a subject by Hatton Garden and Soho, which were established as private ateliers with the slow demise of Mortlake in the late 17th Century. Francis Poyntz indeed moved from Mortlake and became the head of the Great Wardrobe, a competing workshop, which was moved to Hatton Garden in 1679. Upon his death in 1685 the workshop moved to Great Queen Street in Soho while his son Thomas Poyntz continued to execute tapestries in Hatton Garden. He is recorded supplying Charles II with a series of the 'Playing Boys' as early as 1668 but continued to weave the subject for several decades (D. Heinz, Europäische Tapisseriekunst des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1995, pp. 182, 186 and 190).