.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This tapestry formed part of a series of six tapestries depicting the four Seasons plus Parnassus and Latona, after paintings executed by Pierre Mignard for Philippe d'Orléans at château de Saint-Cloud in 1677 (destroyed in a fire in 1870). The first weaving including gold and silver-thread was commenced while Charles LeBrun was still head of the Gobelins in 1686 for the marquis de Louvois, who was a patron of Mignard, in the workshop of Jean Jans. Upon LeBrun's death in 1690 Mignard succeeded him in his post and the payments by Louvois were reimbursed while the tapestries continued to be woven, now for King Louis XIV. Before this first set was completed, Louvois ordered a second set also woven with gold and silver-thread, but from the low looms, which reversed the design in 1689. A third set also included metal-thread. Three sets were subsequently commissioned from the low looms woven without metal-thread. The fourth set remains in the French State Collection as does Summer and Autumn from the sixth set. It his thus very probable that the offered lot formed part of the fifth set. This set was commenced in 1735 and completed in 1739 with the offered lot being completed in the third Gobelins low-loom workshop headed by Etienne-Claude LeBlond. The set was supplied to the duc the Nivernois for the French Embassy in Rome on 25 August 1748. The tapestries remained in the Embassy until the French Revolution when Cardinal de Bernis, then Ambassador, did not accept the new government.