LATE 17TH/EARLY 18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY BY JOHN VANDERBANK

This tapestry forms part of a group of Chinoiserie tapestries attributed to John Vanderbank's (d. 1717) London workshop in Great Queen Street. These tapestries, woven between 1689 and 1717 when he headed the factory, incorporated Turkish and Indian as well as European figures that were inspired by Oriental lacquer screens. The first mention of these tapestries is in the 1690s when Vanderbank supplied Queen Anne at Kensington Palace with a set of nine tapestries 'designed after the Indian manner'. This particular panel belongs to an even rarer group where the figures are depicted against a light ground rather than the usual dark brown or black ground. Although the designs of these tapestries cannot be firmly attributed to any specific artist, some of the figures of the tapestries on light ground can be identified in Arnold Montanus' Atlas Japanensis of 1669.

Vanderbank, who migrated from Paris and was the head of the Great Wardrobe, supplied tapestries inspired by Continental prototypes. He is credited with numerous series but the most interesting and probably most frequently woven was the Chinoiserie group. Of the over fifty surviving examples, many of which are in museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, several bear the signature of Vanderbank. It is also presumed that Vanderbank's widow (d. 1727) and his son Moses, who was at the Great Wardrobe until 1731, continued to weave these designs (D. Heinz, Europ/uaische Tapisseriekunst des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1995, pp. 312-313, and E. Standen, European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, vol. II, pp. 717-718).