A Flemish Feuilles de Choux large leaf tapestry, probably Geraardsbergen (Grammont) third quarter 16th century

The colours of this tapestry in reality are crisp, and attractive and softer hues in reality, and not as orange as appears in the catalogue photograph. This tapestry is in good, professionally restored and cleaned, and stable condition. It has linen lining and Velcro attached across the top for hanging purposes. Some areas of outer brown selvedge are later. There is reweaving to sections of the sky, visible as the light area. There are minor areas of horizontal reweaving to the top of the vertical borders, to the the inner section of the left border, and especially to the outer area of the right border. Small repairs to area of brown weave, commensurate with dye, see for example the bottom right hand corner, where small areas of different colours are visible. See also small areas of repair within the water. Some repair to the feathers of the birds, for example the later pink feathers, and other light areas of flowers in borders. The vertical line in the right hand section (is an old fold line from storage) and the wrinkles in the top right corner, are not permanent. This tapestry has balanced colour overall and is lively and attractive in appearance, with a highly decorative border.
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This style of verdure with the main field being the large leaves with a plant and fine foliage dominating the foreground plane, with a distinctive border overlapping evolved between 1540 and 1560. They were woven in Northern Europe with variations in the border type detailing and were from several weaving centres including the Flemish ciites of Enghien, Brussels, Oudenaarde, Bruges, St. Truiden and Geraardsbergen (Grammont), along with towns of the Marche district of France. Due to the early date and lack of weaver and town marks, they cannot always be specifically allocated to a weaving centre. A few tapestries of this group retain their city marks of either Enghien, Oudenaarde or Geraardsbergen (Grammont). The two towns are close to each other and it is therefore not surprising that there are similarities in the tapestries woven in the separate cities. There are examples in which the exuberant foliage incorporated wild and exotic fantastical animals and birds, many of which are considered to be Enghien or Grammont, and there are examples with just the brightly coloured birds and no animals.

See Edith Appleton Standen, European Post-Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum, 1985, Vol. I, pp.177-179, figs.24a-24b., for discussion and illustrations of two fragments of Verdures with giant leaves, dated to 1550-1600, which are very similar in style to the offered panel, having the top and bottom borders visible and the same use of small and large birds on the Feuilles-de-Choux ground, and one bears the Geraardsbergen (Grammont) mark in the selvedge.

There are motifs in the present panel which can be found in other verdures with the Geraardsbergen (Grammont) mark, for example two in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Cologne (Clemens Collection), two in the Austrian National Collection, one in one in the Hamburg Museum für Kunst and Gewerbe. There are two similar panels, including wild animals and within four-sided surrounds at Leeds Castle, Kent (England). One woven with the Geraardsbergen (Grammont) mark in the selvedge and an unidentified weaver's mark, the other with a different, unidentified weaver's mark.

There are others without marks, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Cinquantenaire Museum, Brussels (see Crick Kuntziger, Catalogue des Tapisseries, Musées Royaux, Brussels, 1956, no.41,pl.50b; which has a four-sided border and no wild animals). There is another similar panel with four-sided border, and no wild animals, circa 1550-1560, Grammont, discussed and illustrated in Anna Bennett, Five Centuries of Tapestry, The Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, 1992, cat.no.34.,pp.134-135. For another comparable tapestry panel, with similar beautifully detailed birds, without animals and without any border, and therefore not attributed, probably Oudenaarde or Grammont, circa 1540-50, see C. Adelson, European Tapestry in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1994,cat.10, pp.116-121, colour plate, and a comparable piece cited by Adelson, ibid.,fig.52, from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (where there are two), has the compositional type of the presently offered tapestry, with the same date and is noted to be Grammont, and is woven with the delicate stems of flowers, the large leaves, birds and the exuberant four-sided border, with leaves extending into the side selvedges.

For an example, described as a Giant-leaf Verdure with birds and snails, Southern Netherlands, circa 1550-1575, with particularly prominent and deep border with griffins in the corners, and incorporation of exotic bird, snails and the delicate lower foreground plant, see Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis and Hillie Smith, European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2004, cat.no.23, pp.83-84.

As a comparable from the nearby weaving centre of Oudenaarde, and bearing the town mark in the selvedge, see Guy Delmarcel, Flemish Tapestries, London, 1999, pg.191 for a similar example, although complete with four-sided border, from the Art Institute in Chicago.

For comparables at auction see Sotheby's London, 11th June 2003, lots 1 & 18 for two similar Flemish Feuilles de Choux fragments of this type. See also Sotheby's London, David Sylvester Collection, 26th February 2002, lot 65 which was a central section without any borders. See Sotheby's London, 26th May 1989, lot 22 and Sotheby's, New York, 1st June 1978, lot 389 for other similar tapestry fragments without borders. For more complete tapestries of this type see Sotheby's, New York, 22nd May 1979, lot 462 and 463, with borders and wild animals.