Aubusson French design tapestry, vintage.

French design tapestry Aubusson, vintage.
"Hunting scene".
Hand-knotted wool.
Signed on the reverse.
Exhibits wear consistent with age and use.
Measurements: 370 x 289 cm.

Hand-woven tapestry of Aubusson, following models of the XVII century in the confection of this leafy forest through which run hares and gazelles. In the foreground we see the hunter, whose attire has been carefully detailed. The landscape appears worked with different levels of depth thanks to the audacious tonal management in the choice of the threads. Likewise, the border stands out for the effect of volume acquired by the allegories of spring, the angels and the floral festoons. The tapestry has been resolved with ease and descriptive precision, in richly contrasting tones with a predominance of green, blue and earthy shades, with pink details.

The city of Aubusson was home to numerous tapestry workshops, which were created by Flemish weavers who settled in the area at the end of the 16th century. They had a rudimentary operation, compared to the Royal Gobelins Manufacture: they had no painters, dyers, nor a commercial structure, so their tapestries were sold in inns, to a lower class private clientele, mainly provincial aristocrats. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Aubusson workshops specialized in vegetable tapestries (with eminently floral decoration), but the situation changed radically when, in the mid-seventeenth century, this center was reorganized by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister of Louis XIV, with the aim of converting these workshops into royal manufactories. He then subjected the Aubusson and Felletin workshops to a guild regulation and, in exchange, promised to provide them with a painter and a dyer. This promise, however, would not become effective until the 18th century, a turning point for the workshops of La Marche, which would see a considerable increase in the quality of their tapestries by being able to count on a painter dedicated to making cartons and a dyer who would produce dyes of a higher quality than those used until then.