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拍品专文
In the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, the Royal Beauvais Manufactory produced two distinct series of the Metamorphoses, distinguished by the size of the figures depicted. The more valuable group, with larger figures, to which the present tapestry belongs, cost 6,000 livres while the small-figured set was 2,200 livres. The large-figured series was designed by the little-known René-Antoine Houasse, a pupil of Charles LeBrun, who is known to have supplied further tapestry series to the Gobelins and twenty-one paintings to the Grand Trianon. This series was woven at least eight times, although not always in its entirety, under Philippe Behagle between 1684 and 1705. The other subjects which can with certainty be included in the series are, in order of the Beauvais records (this one being the second) 1. The Abduction of Orinthia by Boreas, 3.Vertumnus and Pomona, 4. Alpheius and Arethusa, 5. Cephalus and Procris, and 6. Diana and Callisto. The appearance of five tapestries of the same subject but with partially varying panels may indicate that the series may have consisted of ten panels in total. Five different borders are recorded, this one being apparently unique.
A tapestry of identical subjecct but lacking the foliage to the far left and including five further panels of this series was sold anonymously, Maître Morelle, Paris, 6 May 1974, lot 116 and is illustrated in B. Jestaz, The Beauvais Manufactory in 1690, Acts of the Tapestry Symposium, San Francisco, 1974, p. 199, fig. 11. (Jestaz, op.cit., pp. 195-207.
A tapestry of identical subjecct but lacking the foliage to the far left and including five further panels of this series was sold anonymously, Maître Morelle, Paris, 6 May 1974, lot 116 and is illustrated in B. Jestaz, The Beauvais Manufactory in 1690, Acts of the Tapestry Symposium, San Francisco, 1974, p. 199, fig. 11. (Jestaz, op.cit., pp. 195-207.