BRUSSELS, THIRD QUARTER 17TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY BY HENDRIK REYDAMS OR EVERAERD LEYNIERS, IN THE MANNER OF JACOB JORDAENS

Hendrik I Reydams (d. 1669) is recorded as having collaborated with Everaerd III Leyniers (d. 1680) several times to weave the The Riding School, such as in 1651 for a commission by Carlos Vinque and in 1654 for Jan de Backer. It was indeed in 1651 that the series is mentioned for the first time when the Antwerp merchant Frans Smit records handing Pieter van Houte and Pieter Thonnet the designs for the series drawn by Jacob Jordaens. Jordaens took inspiration from the engravings of Crispyn van de Passe the Younger in A. Pluvinel's L'Instruction du Roy en l'exercise de monter à cheval of 1623. There were two differing sizes woven, The Large Riding School and The Small Riding School. The most important version of The Large Riding School was probably that supplied to Emperor Leopold I through the merchant Bartholomäus Triangl in 1666 which is today at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The only surviving set of The Small Riding School, which has a lower horizon and is generally somewhat more somber than The Large Riding School is that at Hluboka Castle, Czech Republic, and includes a panel of identical subject to the offered lot (J. Duverger, 'De Rijschool of Grote en Kleine Paarden in de XVIIe Eeuwse Tapijtkunst', Het Herfsttij van de Vlaamse Tapijtkunst, Brussels, 1959, p. 143). The designs of The Small Riding School are sufficiently different from The Large Riding School that it is believed that The Small Riding School is not by Jordaens but by an as yet unidentified artist, while the tapestries were woven by the same weavers.

(J. Duverger, 'De Rijschool of Grote en Kleine Paarden in de XVIIe Eeuwse Tapijtkunst', Het Herfsttij van de Vlaamse Tapijtkunst, Brussels, 1959, pp. 121 - 176, D. Heinz, Europäische Tapisseriekunst des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1995, pp. 28, 42 and 55-56)