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Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor
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The Liberation of Oriane (detail)
From a six- or seven-piece set of the Story of Amadis of Gaule
Design attributed to Karel van Mander the Elder, ca. 1590–95
Woven by François Spiering, Delft, ca. 1590–95
Wool and silk; 11 ft. 5 in. x 13 ft. (348 x 396 cm)
Brussels mark at left end of bottom selvage, weaver's mark at bottom of right selvage
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Walter and Leonore Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation Fund, 2006 (2006.36)
See an image of the entire panel.
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The Liberation of Oriane is a rare product of the Delft workshop set up in the early 1590s by François Spiering, who had relocated from Antwerp because of the religious turmoil of the era. The Spiering enterprise enjoyed success with designs by the artist Karel van Mander I (1548–1606), finding a ready clientele among the Protestant courts of northern Europe who were no longer able to buy tapestries from Brussels, the traditional source. Knowing that he was designing for a workshop that lacked the resources on which high-quality Brussels production had depended, particularly the skilled weavers who could convincingly reproduce large figure compositions, Van Mander's designs concentrated instead on small figures in elaborate costumes, with several narrative scenes from the same story in each composition. The decorative effect was heightened by the abundance of flora, fauna, and grotesque motifs in the main fields and borders. Although Spiering's workshop was in Delft, he wove the BB mark of Brussels in the borders of a number of his early products, thereby claiming the exacting standards of that center for his own products.
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