A fine and silk and wool Beauvais tapestry, representing a strengthened harbour city, animated with characters, a lighthouse and sailboats.
In the foreground, shellfishes, fishes, shells and rare fowls.
Border decorate with flowers (taken off because it needs a restoration).
This tapestry was weaved in Beauvais between the year 1695 and the year 1730, under the direction of Philippe BEHAGLE and his successor Merou.
It is issued of a set of 6 sea harbour, after the drawings of Adrien CAMPION (Member of the St Luc Academy in1676) and of Joseph Van KERCHOVE.
This last one worked in Angers and in Nantes in 1690.
In the hierarchy of the French tapestries, we have in decreasing order: Les Gobelins, Beauvais and Aubusson. The difference liking among the number of threads in the chain:
40 to 50 for Aubusson
80 for Beauvais
more than 100 for Les Gobelins
There are nearly no Gobelins Tapestries in private collections.
We Don’t have a lot of information left on Beauvais because archives burned in the 19th century.
