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Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor
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The Battle of the Milvian Bridge (detail)
From a six-piece set of the Story of Constantine
Design by Peter Paul Rubens, 1622
Border design attributed to Laurent Guyot, ca. 1622–23
Woven in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel workshop, Paris, ca. 1623–27
Wool, silk, and gilt-metal-wrapped thread; 15 ft. 5 in. x 23 ft. 3 1/2 in. (470 x 710 cm)
Manufactory and weaver's marks, P fleur-de-lis in lower selvage at right, HT and FM in lower right selvage
Kunstkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (T XVIII 3)
See an image of the entire panel.
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Rubens' Constantine series was probably commissioned sometime in early 1622 by François de la Planche and Marc Comans, the leading Paris tapestry merchants, with the expectation that the design would appeal to Louis XIII. The subject of the first Christian emperor was a resonant one for the young French king. His father, Henry IV, had been celebrated as a new Constantine for his conversion to Catholicism, and ties to Rome were enhanced in 1622 with the long-deferred promulgation in France of the decrees of the Council of Trent. Rubens executed the modelli of the Constantine series in oil on panel, as he had done for the Decius Mus designs. The cartoons, however, were executed by his pupils in distemper on paper, and were delivered to Paris late in that year and in January 1623. The inspection of the first batch by the king's advisors is described in a letter to Rubens from his friend, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637). They admired the historical accuracy of the cartoons, but they criticized the proportions of his figures. Nonetheless, the designs were certainly appreciated by Louis XIII himself, who ordered at least four weavings of this series in the following years. The first was given by Louis to Cardinal Francesco Barberini in 1625. The set of which this panel is a part can be identified with one listed in the posthumous inventory of François de La Planche's workshop at the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, which would mean that it was woven before 1627.
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