Museum News

European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards 2011

The conservation prize was awarded to the restoration programme of the Tapestries of Pastrana | Foundation Carlos de Amberes in collaboration with other institutions from several countries. See http://www.fcamberes.org/actividades/exp/premio_tapices_pastrana.htm

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exhibition in 2014

Tapestry designer, Renaissance master: Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550)
This international loan exhibition will explore the career and achievement of Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550), primarily from the perspective of his tapestry designs. Pieter Coecke was one of the leading Flemish artists of the second quarter of the sixteenth century and probably Pieter Bruegel’s master. Following an apprenticeship in Brussels, Coecke established his own workshop in Antwerp in 1527. His eclectic, mannerist style was nurtured by trips he made to Rome and, in 1533, to Constantinople. During the 1530s and 1540s he produced groundbreaking designs for a myriad of different media. The exhibition will set the tapestries within the context of the drawings and paintings created within Pieter Coecke’s vibrant workshop and, in doing so, provide a long-overdue reassessment of Coecke’s achievement and his contribution to the development of the northern Renaissance. It will incorporate a number of complete tapestry sets, along with related drawings, some paintings, engravings, stained glass and printed books. Curated by Elizabeth Cleland, with Maryan Ainsworth, Stijn Alsteens and Nadine Orenstein.

Acquisitions

June 2009 | Hunters in a Landscape ("The Crocker Tapestry"), ca. 1580 | attr. Flemish weavers working in London, design partly based on a print by Jost Amman. Entry by Elizabeth Cleland in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 68, 2 (Fall 2010): 26-27.

November 2010 | Neptune, from the Doria Grotesques, ca. 1545 | Brussels, design attr. to Perino del Vaga

Glasgow, The Burrell Collection

Burrell Tapestries Research Project:
The aim of this three-year project is to prepare a scholarly catalogue and comprehensive research archive of over 200 tapestries acquired by Sir William Burrell. This is one of the largest and most important tapestry collections of its kind in the world, and consists of a coherent and comprehensive series of tapestries. They range from modest small panels and cushion covers to rich wall-hangings. Most of them were made in the late medieval period – between 1400 and 1600 – and originate from various regions of Northern Europe. Despite previous attempts to catalogue them, most have never been published and are not as well known to scholars or to the public as they should be.
Each tapestry is currently being photographed and condition-checked, and a public programme of project-related displays, events and activities is providing an opportunity for visitors to learn more about Burrell’s tapestry collection and the specialist staff and experts who are taking an active part in the project.
The results of the project will provide a sound basis for future research, management and public interpretation of the tapestries.
For more details see this Website: www.glasgowmuseums.com/tapestriesproject
Contact: Patricia Collins, Curator of Medieval & Renaissance Art, Culture and Sport Glasgow: pat.collins@csglasgow.org

Paris, Louvre

Curators in charge of tapestries:
Elisabeth Antoine (Medieval tapestries): elisabeth.antoine@louvre.fr
Agnès Bos (Renaissance and pré-Gobelins tapestries): agnes.bos@louvre.fr
Frederic Dassas (Gobelins and 18th-century tapestries): frederic.dassas@louvre.fr
Anne Dion (19th-century tapestries): anne.dion@louvre.fr

Ecouen, Musée national de la Renaissance

Acquisition: two pieces of the Story of Diana (Anet).
Posted March 2007

Oudenarde

The city of Oudenaarde purchased two Trojan War pieces (Christies New York, September 28 september, 2006, lots 177-178).

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Acquisition: The Liberation of Oriane, from the series Amadis de Gaule, Delft, workshop François Spierinx, design by Karel I van Mander.
Entry by Tom Campbell in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 64, 2 (Fall 2006): 32-33.
posted December 2006

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

The Museum acquired The intervention by Artemis during the preparations of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia from The Story of Iphigeneia and Orestes series (September 28, 2006; Christie's, New York; 358 x600 cm). The series was woven between 1648 and 1662 by Pieter de Cracht in Gouda after designs by Salomon de Bray (attr.). The Rijksmuseum now has six tapestries that made part of the same suite which presumably counted eight pieces, as archival material shows that the two documented suites (sold to the elector of Brandenburg and to the Swedish crown) each comprised eight tapestries. The six Rijksmusem tapestries most likely belonged to one of these two editions.
For the series: see Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis and Hillie Smit, European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam/Zwolle 2004, cat. no. 62-a-e.

Ghent

The City of Ghent purchased a tapestry of the scattered set of the Lives of SS. Peter and Paul: Christ and Peter walking over the waters. The set was comprised of ten pieces and was woven in Brussels between 1563-1567 for the St. Peter Abbey in Ghent. The cartoons were designed by Peter de Kempeneer. It is the fourth piece that has returned to Ghent. Five other tapestries of the same set are in a French private collection.
For this set, see a.o.:
Marguerite Calberg, 'Episodes de l'Histoire des Saints Pierre et Paul. Tapisseries de Bruxelles tisses au XVIe sicle pour l'abbaye Saint-Pierre Gand', Bulletin des Muses royaux d'art et d'histoire (Bruxelles) IV, 34 (1962): 63-110.
Guy Delmarcel, 'Peter de Kempeneer (Campana) as a Designer of Tapestry Cartoons', Artes Textiles X (1981): 155-162.

Lausanne, Fondation Toms Pauli
web site

La Fondation Toms Pauli a pour mission d'tudier, de conserver et de mettre en valeur les collections d'art textile ancien et moderne appartenant l'Etat de Vaud. Ce patrimoine est constitu d'un important ensemble de tapisseries et de broderies europennes du 16e au 19e sicle lgu par Mary Toms en 1994, ainsi que d'ouvres d'art textile contemporain (1961-1992) provenant de l'Association Pierre Pauli et de divers donateurs. La Fondation est galement l'hritire des archives du Centre International de la Tapisserie Ancienne et Moderne (CITAM), organisateur des Biennales de la tapisserie de Lausanne de 1962 1995. Son centre de documentation est ouvert aux chercheurs. Installe Lausanne, la Fondation ne possde pas encore d'espace de prsentation permanent. Nanmoins, elle organise des expositions dans des muses suisses et trangers et publie des catalogues. Les collections sont visibles lors de manifestations temporaires.

Madrid, Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas
Acquisition: The Vision of Ezekiel, with arms of Pope Leo X, model and cartoon by Tommaso Vincidor after Raphael, Brussels workshop of Pieter van Aelst, c. 1521.
The original canopy and only surviving component of Pope Leo X's "letto da paramento", the cartoon of which is preserved in Boughton House (identified and discussed by Thomas Campbell, The Burlington Magazine, July-August 1996, pp. 436-445, the cartoon at p.438). Campbell traced this highly important Raphael school tapestry, previously thought lost, in a Spanish collection in 2003. The tapestry was subsequently offered for sale to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, but the exportation license was denied by the Spanish authorities. Eventually, the Spanish Ministry of Culture acquired the tapestry, and it has now been entrusted to the Madrid museum.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Acquisition: Gathering of the Manna, a Florentine tapestry after Alessandro Allori, workshop of Guasparri di Bartolommeo Papini, ca. 1595-96.

Paris, Muse national du Moyen Age
Acquisition: La Pirouète (c. 1500), an emblematic tapestry based on the Ditz moraux pour faire tapisserie by Henri Baude. See entry by Viviane Huchard in La Revue des Musées de France LIV (April 2004): 93-94.

Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen
Acquisition: The Wrath of Achilles, model by Peter Paul Rubens, Brussels, workshop Daniel Eggermans, around 1635.
A piece of the presumably first edition, formerly in a French private collection. It was shown in the exhibition Peter Paul Rubens, The Life of Achilles, Rotterdam 2003 (catalogue p.104-105). The Rotterdam museum owns Rubens' original bozzetto of this tapestry.