Brussels tapestry
[7] The conventions of a monumental pictorial representation with the effects of perspective that would be expected of a fresco or other wall decoration were applied for the first time in this prestigious set; the framing of the central subject within wide borders that proved able to be brought up to date in successive weavings, was also introduced in these 'Raphael' tapestries.
[8] The prominent painter and tapestry designer Bernard van Orley (who trained in Italy) transmuted the Raphaelesque monumental figures to forge a new tapestry style that combined the Italian figural style and perspective rendition with the "multiple narratives and anecdotal and decorative detail of the Netherlandish tradition," according to Thomas P.
[15] After the arrival of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau in 1532, it was to Brussels that the Italian painter was sent, with a preparatory drawing of a Story of Scipio Africanus to be rendered as a cartoon, with which he returned.
The prominent Brussels weaver Peter de Pannemaker executed for Francis that same year a suite enriched with silver and gold thread, to designs by Matteo del Nassaro of Verona, an engraver of gems.
From the later 1520s, the king's tapestry commissions reflect two marked tendencies: a selection of themes and subjects chosen as "unambiguous and pointed" propaganda, and the first appearance of the figural styles of the Italian Renaissance in England, albeit through the "distorted lens of the Brussels 'Romanist' artists.
[27] At the end of the 16th century, Spanish Habsburg persecution of Protestants in the Low Countries dispersed many weavers to the advantage of tapestry workshops in Delft and Middelburg, England and Germany, with a consequent drop in the quality of Brussels production.
Rubens' connection with tapestry design commenced in November 1611 with the contract signed in Antwerp by the Genoese merchant Franco Cattaneo, the Brussels trader-weaver Jan II Raes, and the Antwerp dealer and weaver Frans Sweerts, for a suite of the History of Decius Mus on cartoons by Rubens, carried out in 1616–18.
[33] When Louis XIV's minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert organized the royal manufactory of the Gobelins, an early suite was The Acts of the Apostles first woven at Brussels.
[34] Brussels received an influx of highly trained workers when the Gobelins was temporarily closed in 1694 and the weavers ordered to disperse, under the financial stringencies of Louis XIV's wars.
Weavers like Le Clerc, Leyniers, van den Hecke and de Vos maintained quality, but the last of the traditional Brussels tapestry ateliers closed at the time of the French Revolution, by which time tapestry was finally becoming less popular; Goya's designs for the royal factory in Spain were perhaps the last major works in the medium.
