About fifty years later than The Falconers, this beautiful tapestry with
scenes from the Story of Esther, in the Charles Jairus Martin Memorial
Collection, represents the tendency toward a more ornate and sumptuous art
that characterized the late XV century. In the lower right-hand corner of
the tapestry, just above the scroll, may be noted a small fleuron, which
is probably the mark of an atelier, but tapestries before 1528 can rarely
be assigned to any definite atelier or weaver. We must be content to
designate our tapestry as Flemish, woven at the close of the XV century.
The story of Esther was popular among the Flemish weavers at this time.
Our tapestry, which formed part of a set, may be compared with three
hangings of the same subject belonging to the Cathedral of Saragossa.
The reproduction can give but an unsatisfactory idea at best of the
original. Not only do we lose the mellow harmonies of color, but in
reducing the design of so large a tapestry to a few square inches many of
the most beautiful details are necessarily lost. In the left-hand
compartment, Queen Esther, kneeling before the King, kisses the golden
scepter which Ahasuerus extends to her. Having won favor in the King’s
eyes, Esther asks as a boon that the King and Haman, the King’s favorite,
whose plot for the persecution of the Jews Esther intends to circumvent,
shall attend a feast which she has prepared for them. In the upper
left-hand corner are two little scenes; Esther kneeling in prayer, and
Esther receiving instructions from Mordecai. In the compartment at the
right is pictured Esther’s banquet, the second feast, related in Chap. VII
of the Book of Esther, which brought about the fall of Haman.
Particularly interesting in this scene is the representation of table
furnishings, the damask cloth, the enameled ewer in the shape of a boat,
the knives with their handles of ivory and ebony, the hanap, the cup of
Venetian glass, and the various pieces of plate. We have in this
composition a remarkable document illustrating the luxury that
characterized the life of the great nobles at the close of the XV century.
In the scrolls at the bottom of the tapestry are Latin mottoes referring
to the scenes above. Our tapestry was formerly in the J. Pierpont Morgan
Collection.
In such tapestries as this and The Falconers, we may note the perfect
relationship which exists between the nature of the design and the purpose
to which the tapestry was put. Gothic tapestries of the XV century
illustrate the true principle of mural decoration. Designers deliberately
avoided realistic imitation of nature with spatial effects and tricks of
illusion. They strove to achieve a decorative flatness of design which
would emphasize rather than destroy the architectonic quality of the wall
the tapestry was to cover.
A tapestry is woven, not embroidered, and forms a single fabric. Only two
elements are employed in the making of it, the warp and the woof (or
weft). These are the upright and the horizontal threads. The weaving is
done upon a loom or frame. The bobbin, or shuttle, filled with thread of
the weft, is passed from right to left behind the odd warp threads, and in
passing leaves a bit of the weft thread in front of the even warp threads.
On the backward trip, from left to right, the shuttle reverses its course
and leaves the weft in front of the odd warp threads. Thus, all the warp
threads are covered with the weft. A comb is used to press down the
threads, so that they form an almost even line. Wool is generally used
for the weft, linen or hemp for the warp. The texture was sometimes
enriched with passages of gold and silver thread or perhaps a bit of silk.
[The Virgin and St. John. Flemish, about 1500]