A French Exotic Chinoiserie Landscape Tapestry, Aubusson, second quarter 18th century

woven with wading bird in river landscape, with distant town and exotic foreground flowering plants, lacking border, with later blue and yellow banded selvedge

Colours crisper more vibrant and more attractivwe than in the catalogue photograph. Richer shades of green, which are not so lime green in reality. Small repairs in areas, for example see the sky top right corner. Small rewoven areas such as repairs within wall of building top right corner of composition. For exmaple small repairs to points of leaves along the lower edge, within the central pool of water, and to central trunk of tree. There is a patched irregular edged demi-lune shaped repair, bottom left corner, visible underneath the corner plant, which depicts foliage and grass stems. Tapestry is without a decorative border, and with a later blue and yellow banded selvedge. Tapestry is lined. There is white Velcro attached across the top for hanging purposes, and in the lower corners. Balanced colour and composition. Highly decorative tapestry. It has been professionally cleaned. In very good overall restored condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This tapestry belongs to a group known as French Exotic Landscape Tapestries, which distinctly incorporate wading birds within a landscape with exotic evenly spaced trees and foreground plants, and apart from the weavings which are clearly inspired by Chinoiserie with Chinese buildings and pagoda on rocky outcrops as a background, there are those which included European types of buildings, as in the offered tapestries lot 16 & 17 in this sale.   

This genre of tapestries appear in a variety of border types, some with very distinct stylised fan pattern borders in blue, red and yellow, sometimes woven in Felletin as well as Aubusson, attributed to Grellet, others with variations on floral and acanthus borders. The specific workshops working on these series are recorded and examples exist of Exotic Landscape Tapestries which have been signed in the lower selvedges of the borders by weaver's such as Bussière, Rougeron, Dorliac, Rigaudie, Corneille and Picon.

See D & P. Chevalier, and P.F Bertrand, Les Tapisseries d'Aubusson et de Felletin, Lausanne, 1988, pp.128-131, for discussion and illustrations of the Exotic Chinoiserie Landscapes.