Here are some detailed views of the tapestry Cupid and Psyche, woven at Manufacture des Gobelins, Paris and hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is all wool, silk and metal thread, designed by Charles Francois Poerson between 1684-86 and woven in Paris for Louis XIV at the Gobelins workshop of Jean Jans the Younger between 1692-1700.
I had an opportunity to tour the Gobelins factory back in 2007 and see first hand this esteemed workshop and rooms filled with weavers threading looms. Les Gobelins has it’s own artisan school of apprentices and a 4 year study program, along with its own gallery and archive. That the knowledge within it’s walls has been handed down through the centuries is remarkable.
Remarkable, but not exclusive to France of course. Tapestry weavers proliferate the world over. Melbourne, Australia has it’s own Victorian Tapestry Works fulfilling commissions for artists; the late great Arthur Boyd’s tapestry in the New Parliament House being one example. Touring the South Island of New Zealand in 2005 I happily stumbled across Marylin Rea Menzies weaving tapestry in her studio in the Arts Centre on Worcester Boulevard, Christchurch. Just one lone weaver in a studio surrounded by looms and partially finished cloth. I sat watching the ‘painting’ grow thread-by-thread for some time as she talked me through the process and her latest piece.
