MORTLAKE
1619-1703
The three great epochs of tapestry weaving, with their three
localities which are roughly classed as Arras in the Fifteenth
Century, Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, and Paris in the
Seventeenth, had, as a matter of course, many tributary looms. It is
not supposable that a craft so simple, when it is limited to
unambitious productions, should not be followed by hundreds of modest
people whose highest wish was to earn a living by providing the market
with what was then considered as much a necessity as chairs and
tables.
To take a little retrospective journey through Europe and linger among
these obscurer weavers would be delectable pastime for the leisurely,
and for the enthusiast. But we are all more or less in a hurry, and
incline toward a courier who will point out the important spots
without having to hunt for them. Artois had not only Arras; Flanders
had not only Brussels; France had not only the State ateliers of Paris
and Beauvais; but all these countries had smaller centres of
production. The tapestries from some of these we are able to identify,
even to weave a little history about them. These products are
recognisable through much study of marks and details and much digging
in learned foreign books, where careful records are kept--a congenial
business for the antiquary.
But even though we may neglect in the main the lesser factories, there
is one great development which must have full notice. It is the
important English venture known as Mortlake.
Sully, standing at the elbow of Henri IV of France, called James I of
England the wisest fool in Europe. A part of his wisdom was the
encouraging in his own kingdom the royal craft of tapestry-making. To
this end he followed the example set by that grand Henri of Navarre,
and gave the crown's aid to establish and maintain works for tapestry
production.
The elegance of the Stuart came to the front, desiring gratification;
but craftiness had a hand in the matter, too. After the introduction
of Italian luxury into England by Henry VIII, and the continuance of
art's revival through the brilliant period of Elizabeth, it is not
supposable that no tapestry looms existed throughout the length and
breadth of the land at the time that James came down from Scotland.
They were there; documents prove it. But they were not of such
condition as pleased the fastidious son of Marie Stuart, who needs
must import his weavers and his artists. And therein was shown his
craftiness, for he had coaxed secretly from Flanders fifty expert
weavers before the canny Dutch knew their talented material was thus
being filched away. Every weaver was bound to secrecy, lest the Low
Countries, knowing the value of her clever workmen, put a ban upon
their going before the English king had his full quota for the new
venture.
Wandering about old London, one can identify now the place where the
king's factory had habitat. The buildings stood where now we find
Queen's Court Passage, and near by, at Victoria Terrace, was the house
set aside for the limners or artists who drew and painted for the
works.
To copy Henri IV in his success was dominant in the mind of James I.
To the able Sir Francis Crane he gave the place of director of the
works, and made with him a contract similar to that made with Francois
de la Planche and Marc Comans in Paris by their king.
If to James I is owed the initial establishment, to Crane is owed all
else at that time. It was in 1619 that the works were founded and Sir
Francis took charge. He was a gentleman born, was much seen at Court,
had ambitions of his own, too, and was cultivated in many ways of mind
and taste. Besides all this, he had a head for business and an
enthusiasm rampant, which could meet any discouragement--and needed
this faculty later, too.
The king then gave him the management of the venture, started him with
the royal favour, which was as good as a fortune, with a building for
the looms, with imported workers who knew the tricks of the trade, and
with a pretty sum of money to boot.
Prudence was born with the enterprise; so the men from the Low
Countries were advised to become naturalised to make them more likely
to stay, and to bring other workers over, Walloons, malcontents,
religious fugitives, or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful.
Down in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,--those
lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small leaded panes
which we are so keen to restore and live in these days.
To swell the number of workers, and to have an eye for the future,
there must be apprentices. The king looked about among the city's
"hospitals" and saw many goodly boys living at crown expense, with no
specified occupation during their adolescence. These he put as
apprentices, for a term of seven years, to work under the fifty
Flemish leaders. They were happy if they fell under the care of Philip
de Maecht, he of Flanders, who had wandered down to Paris and served
under De la Planche and Comans, and now had been enticed to the new
Mortlake. He has left his visible mark on tapestries of his
production--his monogram, P.D.M. (Plate facing page 70.)
A designer for the factory, one who lived there, was an inseparable
part of it. And thus it came that Francis Clein (or Cleyn) was
permanently established. He came from Denmark, but had taken an
enlightening journey to Italy, and had a fine equipment for the work,
which he carried on until 1658. His name is on several tapestries now
existing.
Even kings tire of their fulfilled wishes. James wanted royal tapestry
works, yet, when they were an established fact, he wearied of the
drafts on his purse for their support. It was the old story of
unfulfilled obligations, of a royal purse plucked at by too many vital
interests to spend freely on art.
And Sir Francis Crane bore the brunt of the troubles. Contracts with
the king counted but lightly in face of his enthusiasm. He continued
the work, paid his men the best he could, and let the king's debt to
him stand unsued.
In a few years--a very few, as it was then but 1623--he was obliged to
petition the king. His private fortune was gone by the board, the
workmen were clamouring for wages past due, and the factory trembled.
Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of his interest in
the tapestries that were demonstrating the artistic enterprise of
England. The Italian taste was the ultimate note in England as well as
elsewhere--the Italy of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had
ordered paintings and drawings. What was more to the purpose at this
hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the crown a bill of seven hundred
pounds, which covered their expense. The king, unwillingly,--for needs
pressed on all sides--paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for moneys
he had expended, but left him struggling against the hard conditions
of a ruined private purse and a thin royal one.
At this juncture, 1625, James I died, and his son reigned in his
stead. The Prince of Wales was now become that beribboned,
picturesque, French-spirited monarch, whose figure on Whitehall
eternally protests his tragic death.
As Charles I, he had the power to foster the elegant industry which
now grew and flowered to a degree that brought satisfaction then, and
which yields a harvest of delight in our own times. Sir Francis Crane
was at last to get the reward of enthusiasm and fidelity. Too much
reward, said the envious, who tried in all ways, fair and foul, to
drive him from what was now a lucrative and conspicuous post. The
money he had advanced the factory came back to him, and more also.
Ever a well-known figure at court, he now even aspired to closer
relations with royalty, and built a magnificent country home, which
was large enough to accommodate a visiting court. He even persuaded
the king to visit the Mortlake factory, that the royal presence might
enhance the value of art in the occult way known only to the subjects
of kings.
Debts from the crown were not always paid in clinking coin, but often
in grants of land, and by these grants Sir Francis Crane became rich.
But the prosperity of Crane was not worth our recording were it not
that it evidenced the prosperity of Mortlake. From the death of James
I in 1625 for a period of ten years, the factory flowered and fruited.
Its productions were of the very finest that have ever been produced
in any country.
The reasons for this superiority were evident. First of all, Mortlake
was the pet of the king; next, Crane was an able and devoted minister
of its affairs; its artistic inspiration came from the home of the
highest art--Italy--and its weavers were from that locality of sage
and able weavers--Flanders. Add to this, tapestries were the fashion.
Every man of wealth and importance felt them a necessary chattel to
his elegance. And add to this, too, that Mortlake had almost a clean
field. It was nearly without rival in fine tapestry-making at that
time. Brussels had declined, and the Gobelins was not formed in its
inspired combination.
[Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE
Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York]
[Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE
Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York]
Besides this, were not the materials for the industry found best
within the confines of the kingdom? What sheep in all the world
produced such even, lustrous wool as the muttons huddling or wandering
on the undulating _pres sales_ of Kent; and was not wool, par
excellence, the ideal material for picture-weaving, better than silk
or glittering gold?
The hangings made then were superb. Thanks to destiny, we have some
left on which to lavish our enthusiasm. The cartoons preferred came
from Italy's great dead masters. First was Raphael. The Mortlake would
try its hand at nothing less than the great series made to finish and
soften the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. And so the _Acts of the
Apostles_ were woven, and in such manner as was worthy of them. They
can be seen now in the Garde Meuble. Van Dyck, the great Hollander,
made court painter to the king, drew borders for them, and was proud
to do it, too. Van Dyck's other work here was a portrait of Sir
Francis Crane and one of himself.
Rubens likewise associated his great decorative genius with the
factory and gave to it his suite of six designs for the _Story of
Achilles_. Cleyn, the Mortlake art-director, furnished a _History of
Hero and Leander_, which found home among the marvellous tapestries of
the King of Sweden.
There were other classic subjects, and the months as well, but of
especial interest to us is the _Story of Vulcan_. Several pieces of
this series have been lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, by their owners, Mrs. von Zedlitz, and Philip Hiss, Esq. Thus,
without going far from home, thousands have been able to see these
delightful examples of the highest period of England's tapestry
production. The series was woven for Charles I when he was Prince of
Wales, from cartoons by Francis Cleyn, and woven by the master, Philip
de Maecht. The borders are especially interesting, and carry the
emblematic three feathers of the prince, as well as his monogram, in
Mrs. von Zedlitz's example, _The Expulsion of Vulcan_. (Coloured plate
facing page 170.)
It was this same series of _Vulcan_ that was used as a text by Crane's
enemy to prove to the king, in 1630, that Crane was profiting unduly
and dishonestly from the land grants given him in payment for arrears.
The plaintiff speaks of this set as being "the foundation of all good
tapestries in England." We are fortunate in having pieces from it in
America.
Only by actual contact with the tapestry itself can the beauty of the
colour and the work be known. We well believe the superior quality of
the English wool when it lies before us in smooth expanse of subtle
colour. And as for even weaving, it is there unsurpassed. Every inch
declares the talent and patience of the craftsman. As for colour, it
is on a low scale that makes blues seem like remembrance of the sea,
and reds like faint flushings planned in warm contrast, while over all
is thrown a veil of delicate mist that may be of years, or may have
been done with intent, but is there to give poetic value to the whole
of the artist's scheme.
[Illustration: THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS]
Sir Francis Crane died in 1636, and Captain Richard Crane succeeded
him. And then began the decline of a factory which should have lived
to save us deep regret. This second Crane could not carry on the work,
and besought the king to relieve him by taking over the factory, which
was thenceforth known as King's Works.
But civil wars came on in 1642 and other matters were more urgent than
the production of works of art. So evil days fell upon the weavers.
Then came the black day when Charles was beheaded. The Commonwealth,
to do it justice, tried to keep alive the industry. They put at its
head a nobleman, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and, to inspire the workers,
brought a new model for design.
They went to Hampton Court and took from there _The Triumph of Caesar_,
by Mantegna, to serve as new models. Some hope, too, lay in the
weavers of the hour, clever Hollanders taken prisoners in the war; and
all this while Cleyn directed.
But there were too many circumstances in the way, too many hard knocks
of fate. People were too poor to buy good tapestries, and loose-woven,
cheaper ones were heavily imported--to the amount of $500,000
yearly--from France and the Low Countries. Anti-Catholic feeling
displayed hatred toward the able Catholic weavers, who were forced out
of the country by proclamation.
The sad end of this story is that in 1702 a petition was placed before
the king asking permission to discontinue the Mortlake works. It was
granted in 1703, and thus ended the English royal venture in England.