Beauvais Manufactory

It was second in importance, after the Gobelins Manufactory, of French tapestry workshops that were established under the general direction of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the finance minister of Louis XIV.

He was arrested for his debts in 1684, and the workshops were refounded more successfully under Philippe Behagle, a merchant tapestry-manufacturer from Oudenarde, who had also worked in the traditional tapestry-weaving city of Tournai.

Against mustard yellow grounds vases and baskets of fruit with birds, a specialty of Monnoyer's, are contrasted with lively figures, sometimes acrobats and dancers, sometimes from the Commedia dell'arte in slender and fanciful arabesque architecture.

Under Filleul ownership Beauvais produced suites of The story of Telemachus and Ovidian Metamorphoses as well as animal combats, and a series of "Chinese" hangings that are a high point in the career of chinoiserie.

[12] A new partner, André-Charlemagne Charron, and increased royal support, with annual order for sets of hangings now with complete suites of furniture coverings, to be delivered to the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne or the foreign ministry should have launched new successes for Beauvais, but Oudry's death, 30 April 1755, and Boucher's defection to the Gobelins factory the same year, initiated a period of stagnation, while the old designs were repeated, and then decline.

At the French Revolution the workshops were temporarily closed, following a dispute between the weavers and the administration, and then were reopened, under State direction, making little but upholstery covers.