The Concert, An ‘Indian Manner’ exotic tapestry panel, after John Vanderbank, Soho, London, in 18th century style, 20th century

The series was woven in set of various numbers, different dimensions and combinations of motifs, and a variety of border designs. The scattered arrangement of motifs allowed for versatility in size for the final composition. As many as fifty variations of the compositions of combined Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and Indian characters within a landscape of small island vignettes, incorporating exotic accessories, foliage and against a distinctive dark brown ground reflect the popularity of this distinctive English series of tapestries. There are at least six border designs recorded, some being especially evocative as they incorporate ceramic motifs. The most usual border design was the variation of the floral groups along a central rod, as used on the present weaving. The designs were a confection of various motifs from distant countries, some real and others imagined. Painted miniatures and various publications, including those on flora and fauna, will have been inspirational motifs. Arbitrary titles have been given to certain combinations, and the groupings most frequently found on a panel, are called The Concert. The design style of these tapestries was identifiable as being English, although the subject was not unique to London workshops (Vanderbank, Mazarind, Chabaneix and later white ground designs by Joshua Morris), and distinctive chinoiserie tapestries with a design of overall small floating islands with imaginative Chinese inspired figures, all on a dark almost black ground, has been attributed to the Flemish workshop of Judocus de Vos, in Brussels, woven circa 1717-1734. For an example see a panel of ‘The Altar of the Three Buddha’, from a set of Chinoiserie tapestries, within a narrow bead and reel border, which shares motifs such as the figure being pushed in a carriage (Seattle Art Museum, Acc.No.2002.38.1), which were inspired directly from Chinese lacquer screens. Flemish weavings with oriental/chinoiserie scenes on islands are recorded in European Collections. They differed entirely in style from the French, Chinoiserie, Beauvais weavings after Vernansal and Boucher. The advantage of the concept was that the motifs could be arranged to form compositions of variations dimensions, which added versatility and commercial appeal.

John Vanderbank (fl. 1683 - d.1717), Yeoman Arraswork, designed the series ‘in the Indian Manner’, which at the time was a generalised term for Asian. The term ‘Chinoiserie’ used to describe items made in a broad style, only became widespread in the 19th century. It was travel, objects and the spread of printed and illustrated documents that spread the appeal and fashion for the exotic. The illustrated publications by Arnoldus Montanus, included Atlas Japannensis, published in Dutch in 1669 and English in 1670, documenting (although not first hand), the Dutch diplomatic mission to the Japanese shogun, were influential as exotic motifs. They were inspired by the earlier, 1665, publication by Johan Nieuhof, The Embassy of the Dutch East India Company to the Emperor of China. The tapestries were also inspired by the designs represented on the the lacquer panels imported from Japan and China into London. See the collection at The Vyne, Hampshire (bequeathed to the National Trust by Sir Charles Chute, 1st Baronet, 1956), for a set of six tapestries in the Indian Manner, John Vanderbank workshop, London, circa 1700-1720, (NT.719616.1-719616.6), along with examples of Chinese black ground lacquerwork incorporated into furniture, including a Cabinet, 1680 (NT.718763), and a Work Table, probably made in Guangzhou, China, 1820-1840 (NT.718.908). 

The earliest Vanderbank series was in 1690 for “4 pieces of fine Tapestry Hangings designed and workt after the Indian Manner”, for Queen Mary’s Withdrawing Room at Kensington Palace (now lost). Woven to compliment the enormous porcelain collection which the Queen had collected. Signed Vanderbank tapestries are in the Victoria and Albert Museum and Belton House (1691 series of six on a lighter ground: Acc.No.436999.1,2). Vanderbank produced two series, the first ‘tapestries after the Indian-manner’, included larger and elaborate groupings and the second series, possibly intended as a less expensive series, had smaller and less elaborate motifs from more varied design sources, including Persian and Turkish elements. Copies of the series were made from weavings, and not necessarily from the original cartoons. Motifs were altered and in reverse. The Vanderbank workshop was not responsible for all the weavings and other London based weavers, such as Michael Mazarind and Leonard Chabaneix became involved and active competitors on the market. 

The present composition has similar motifs to those seen in weavings of The Concert, for example the main island group being figures seated on a carpet in front of a pavilion with birds on the roof, being entertained, and the island with flowering plants with two figures seated in front of a tray of refreshments, both playing instruments. 

COMPARABLE TAPESTRIES

‘The Tent’, from an Indo-Chinese or Indian series, 1700/1725, workshop of John Vanderbank (d.1717), Michael Mazarind or Leonard Chabaneix (d.1708/09), London, England, within two similarly inspired narrow foliate and central rod four-sided borders (482cm by 230cm), Art Institute of Chicago (Ref.No. 1949.124)

Different weavings for the series, which are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, include a rare example of a signed Vanderbank tapestry (Acc.No. T.362-1910), within a very decorative border with baskets of flowers and other motifs and includes the motif of the figure climbing the tree, which is present on the offered weaving. There is another Vanderbank weaving, circa 1690-1710, which depicts a Procession, and is within a narrow floral border (Acc.No. 402.1906), and a rare weaving from the weaver, Michael Mazarind, circa 1690, London, bearing his name and the English mark of the shield with the cross of St George (Acc.No. T.1601.2017) and within a narrow border with small motifs of porcelain. 

Two tapestries from a set of Tapestries, ‘After the Indian Manner’, attributed to the the workshop of John Vanderbank (1863-1717), probably woven by the Great Wardrobe (Great Queen Street, Saint Giles in the fields), London, after 1690, including ‘The Concert’ (Obj.No.53.165.1), and ‘The Toilette of the Princess’, (Obj.No. 53.165.2), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, both of which have variations of a similar floral border with narrow outer twisted ribbon and bead border, and stylised corner elements.

An influential set of early English chinoiserie tapestries, were a set of four tapestries made for Elihu Yale (1648-1721), on his return from India in 1692, and before his death in 1721. He went to India in the service of the East India Company in 1672, and rose to become the Governor of Madras. His daughter married the son of Baron Guilford. The tapestry panels depicted, The Harpist, The Concert, The Toilette of the Princess, The Promenade/Palanquin (Yale University Art Gallery: Acc.No.1926.30, 31 & 32). They stayed in the possession of the family until an auction in London in 1924. Auction details: A Set of Four very important Old English Tapestry Panels, woven with Indo-Chinese Subjects, from designs by Vanderbank, for Elihu Yale, Benefactor of Yale University, Property of the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Guilford (Suffolk), Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, New Bond Street, London, 18 July 1924. Two bearing the English workshop mark of the Red Cross on a white shield. They sold for £6,800.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Bruijn, de, Emile, Borrowed Landscapes: China and Japan in the Historic Houses and Gardens of Britain and Ireland, Peter Wilson Publications, National Trust Cultural Heritage Publishing, 2023, Chp. 1, A Pattern Emerges 1600-1690, pp.17, fig.25, Tapestry in the Indian Manner, 1691-1692, from Belton House, Lincolnshire (NT 436999). The publication is a fascinating and comprehensive discussion of the influence of the East on Western art and culture.

Campbell, Thomas, Tapestry in the Baroque, Threads of Splendour, Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition, Yale University Press, 2002, Koenraad Brosens, Flemish Production - 1660-1715, pp.448-452, fig.207, and Thomas Campbell, Continuity and Change in Tapestry Use and Design - 1680-1720, pp.491-507, The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and A New Diaspora of Weavers, pp.499-501, fig.226.

Delmarcel, Guy, Nicole de Reyniès & Wendy Hefford, The Toms Collection Tapestries - 16th-17th centuries, Ed. Giselle Eberhard Cotton, Foundation Toms Pauli, Lausanne Verlag Niggli AG, Zurich, 2010, Chp. IV, The English Tapestries, pp.238-293.

Hayman, Richard, Chinoiserie, Shire Publications, 2021, The Chinese Room, pp.21-35.

Hefford, Wendy, Bread, Brushes and Brooms: Aspects of Tapestry Restoration in England 1660-1760, Acts of the Tapestry Symposium, November 1976 (San Francisco, 1979), p.70.

Marillier, H.C, English Tapestries of the Eighteenth Century, London, MCMXXX, pp.33-35.

Peck, Amelia, Editor, Interwoven Globe: Worldwide Textile Trade 1500-1800, London, 2013, Cat.no.85, pp.245-246, p.104, The Toilet of the Princess, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Standen, Edith Appleton, English Tapestries “After the Indian Manner”, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 15, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981, pp.119-142.

Standen, Edith Appleton, European Post-Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum, 1985, Vol. II, pp.717-725, for discussion of two English tapestries, The Concert and the Toilet of the Princess, Vanderbank.

Thomson, W.G, Tapestry Weaving in England, London, 1914, p.143.

Wyld, Helen, The Art of Tapestry, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2022, Art and Industry, III England, Mortlake after the Restoration, John Vanderbank, Yeoman Arras worker, pp.86-96, p.91, fig.77.