A Rare Berlin tapestry of the Audience of the Prince, from the story of the Emperor of China, workshop of Jean Barraband or Jean II Barraband first half 18th century

within a border containing chinoiserie motifs and arabesques on a tobacco ground, the royal entourage assembled under a portico of arches and colonettes surmounted by dragons, the Chinese Prince receiving homage from three kneeling dignitaries, to the left a table covered with Chinese porcelain, on the right a princess being wheeled forward on a chair by attendants and in the background a vista of a town with pagodas.

Mr. Haralambos Kehayaglou, Royal Purveyor for Jewellry and Antiquities to King Karol of Rumania. Thence, by descent

RELATED LITERATURE
Roger-Armand Weingert, French Tapestry, London, 1962, pp. 151-152.
P. Bertrand, D. and P. Chevalier, "Eighteenth Century German Chinoiserie Tapestries", in Apollo, October 1986, pp. 310-314.
C. Bremer-David, French Tapestries and Textiles in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1997, p. 80.

The present tapestry is derived from the cartoons of Guy-Louis de Vernansal, Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay created for Royal Manufacture at Beauvais and woven for the first time between 1685 and 1690.  The series consisted of ten tapestries representing the following subjects: the Emperor's Banquet, the Harvesting of the Pineapples, the Astronomers, the Voyage of the Prince, the Return of the Hunt, Tea on the River of China, the Voyage of the Empress, the Voyage of the Emperor and the Audience of the Prince.  This series illustrates scenes of the life of the Emperor of China, probably Kangxi, who reigned from 1661 to 1721.

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 allowed many families of weavers in the Aubusson region to immigrate to the Rhine.  They concentrated in the three weaving centers, Berlin, Erlanden and Schwabach and took with them the connoisseurship and experience acquired at Aubusson.  Abandoning the classical subjects popular with French manufacturers, the weavers began to create their own designs.

Jean Barraband, an Aubusson weaver prior to 1699, opened his own atelier in Berlin after leaving France, and his son, Jean II Barraband, succeeded him in 1709.  The present tapestry, woven in 1713, is one of that workshop’s first weavings.

The present tapestry, The Audience of the Prince, is a close representation of the design from Beauvais.  The other subjects were largely redrawn by the Berlin workshop (see D. Heinz, Europäische Tapisseriekuntz des 17 und 18 Jarhunderts, Vienna, 1995, p. 323).  The complete Berlin Emperor series had been ordered by Prince Alexander Von Donna and was delivered in 1713.  Until WWII, the tapestries were displayed at the Schloss Schlobitten, Prussia.  Five tapestries belonging to the Prince of Liechtenstein decorated the Schloss Valtice at Feldsberg in Moravia in 1935.  One Berlin tapestry representing La Collation or the Banquet of the Emperor is reproduced in Apollo, op. cit. p. 21.  One very similar tapestry, depicting the Audience of the Prince was sold Christie’s London, November 26, 1996, lot 220.