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Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor
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Maidservant with a Basket of Fruit (detail)
From an eight-piece set of Scenes of Country Life
Design and cartoon by Jacob Jordaens and workshop, ca. 1627–28
Woven in the workshop of Conrad van der Bruggen, Brussels, ca. 1635
Wool and silk; 12 ft. 5 5/8 in. x 10 ft. 8 3/4 in. (380 x 327 cm)
Brussels mark, center of lower selvage; weaver's mark, lower right border
Kunstkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (T C 8)
See an image of the entire panel.
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The series from which this piece derives was one of Jordaens' earliest essays in the tapestry medium. Representations of peasants and courtiers engaged in daily activities had been popular in tapestry design since the Middle Ages, but they had generally been couched in terms of allegorical contexts, such as the Months or Ages of Man. Here, Jordaens has abandoned such conventions in favor of vignettes in which his subjects are caught in moments of unposed activity. The spontaneity is heightened by the way they are represented in a faux architectural setting, immediately adjacent to the viewer. The focus of the scenes on ephemeral activities and the careful observation of domestic details—some of which provide a sly commentary on the main action—combine to evoke a whimsical observation of the fleeting pleasures of life. The trompe l'oeil architectural setting and dramatic lighting were inspired by Rubens' Triumph of the Eucharist series, designed in 1626. Quite apart from the impression of immediacy that Jordaens obtained by placing life-size figures in shallow architectural settings, this formula was also advantageous for the weavers because these elements were less demanding to weave than complex landscape backgrounds. Such issues were of considerable significance for the Brussels workshops, which had no royal subsidies, and this may partly account for the commercial success of this series during the 1630s and 1640s.
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