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Lot Essay
These two tapestry panels relate closely to the second Chinese Series executed at the Royal Beauvais Tapestry Manufacture after designs by Franois Boucher and cartoons by Jean Joseph Dumons. This second set was probably designed and first woven in 1743 when the atelier was under the directorship of Jean-Baptiste Oudry and Nicolas Besnier. Boucher was the major force in spreading this second chinoiserie fashion during the reign of Louis XV.
The first and extremely successful Chinese Series was first woven circa 1688 to the designs of Guy-Louis Vernansal, Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay and Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and consisted of nine or possibly ten subjects. That series was only abandoned in 1732 when the cartoons were so worn that they could no longer serve their purpose. Oudry, when sensing a growing revival of chinoiserie, commissioned Boucher to supply the second series. It consisted of six panels and a total of 47 tapestries were woven for ten sets. However, the subjects of these two panels do not feature among those listed in the Beauvais records (J. Badin, La Manufacture de Tapisseries de Beauvais, Paris, 1909, p. 61). It is therefore possible, despite the high quality of the weave and the design, that these tapestries were not woven at Beauvais. Other centres of tapestry manufacture, such as Berlin and Wrzburg (D. Heinz, Europäische Tapisseriekunst des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1995, p. 328), are recorded as having made chinoiserie tapestry series of high quality, and indeed the unusual design of the trees relate to the trees depicted in the chinoiserie series woven by Jean Barraband II in Berlin in the early 18th Century.
The first and extremely successful Chinese Series was first woven circa 1688 to the designs of Guy-Louis Vernansal, Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay and Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and consisted of nine or possibly ten subjects. That series was only abandoned in 1732 when the cartoons were so worn that they could no longer serve their purpose. Oudry, when sensing a growing revival of chinoiserie, commissioned Boucher to supply the second series. It consisted of six panels and a total of 47 tapestries were woven for ten sets. However, the subjects of these two panels do not feature among those listed in the Beauvais records (J. Badin, La Manufacture de Tapisseries de Beauvais, Paris, 1909, p. 61). It is therefore possible, despite the high quality of the weave and the design, that these tapestries were not woven at Beauvais. Other centres of tapestry manufacture, such as Berlin and Wrzburg (D. Heinz, Europäische Tapisseriekunst des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1995, p. 328), are recorded as having made chinoiserie tapestry series of high quality, and indeed the unusual design of the trees relate to the trees depicted in the chinoiserie series woven by Jean Barraband II in Berlin in the early 18th Century.