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AFTER A DESIGN BY GUY-LOUIS VERNANSAL, JEAN-BAPTISTE MONNOYER AND JEAN-BAPTISTE BELIN DU FONTENAY, CIRCA 1700-1729 Woven in wools and silks, from the ′Histoire de l’Empereur de Chine’ series, depicting ′La Collation’, with on the left side the Emperor with richly embroidered gown and peacock plumed headdress eared on a throne, the Empress seated on a stool facing him, within a draped pagoda with lambrequins and dragon-shaped gargoyles to the angles, attended by courtly dressed servants, one holding a tray with tea implements, another one carrying a cake, to the left hand side a servant attending the console fitted with ormolu-mounted blue and white porcelain vases and gilt serving dishes, below him a courtly dressed female musician playing music, a dancing dwarf and monkey performing, and to the foreground a lady tending a perfume burner before a serving table with fringed table cloth presenting a teapot, a dish with fruits and other vessels and containers in a lacquered tray, attended by a servant, with trees beyond, a Chinese house to the background and a palm tree to the right hand side with a woven basket with silver and gilt dishes and serving vessels to the lower right corner, within a scrolling foliate simulated picture frame border, ocre and green outer slip, very slightly reduced in size to the right hand side, the upper and lower horizontal borders possibly replaced, some minute restorations, minor areas of reweaving and small patches 126 in. (320 cm.) high; 149 ? in. (380 cm.) wide
From a private French collection, by family tradition acquired at the end of the 19th century.
SUBJECT
This tapestry forming part of the exotic and highly elaborate Histoire de l'Empereur de la Chine set illustrates everyday life of the Chinese Emperor, believed to be Shun Chih (reigned 1644 - 1661) and Kang Hsi (reigned 1661 - 1721) and their Empresses. Many of the images are based on Johan Nieuhof's Legatio batavica ad magnum Tartatiae chamum sungteium, modernum sinae imperatorem of 1665, which derived from the visit of a delegation of the Dutch East India Company to China from 1655 - 1657. For the botanical details Athanasius Kircher's China Monumentis qua Sacris qua Profanis of 1667 seems to have served as inspiration. As its title Roi de Chine implied, the series was meant to illustrate the Chinese Royal Court, but many influences from other Far Eastern countries are discernable. The artists were keen to incorporate as many 'documented' exotic objects as possible in these tapestries.
The series traditionally includes: 'The Audience of the Emperor', 'The Emperor Sailing', 'The Empress Sailing', 'Gathering Pineapples', 'The Astronomers', 'The Return from the Hunt', 'The Empress's Tea', 'The Emperor on a Journey', 'The Gathering of Tea' (as yet unidentified) and 'The Collation'.
THE DESIGNERS AND FIRST WEAVING
The first set of L'Histoire de l'Empereur de la Chine, consisting of nine or ten subjects, was woven when Philippe Behagle (d. 1705) was the director of the Royal Beauvais Tapestry Manufactory. In a memorandum of tapestries made during his directorship Behagle mentions this series: Chinoise faict par quatre illustre peintre. No?l-Antoine Mérou (director 1722 - 1734) further reveals in a document of 1731: Une Tenture du dessin des chinois, par les sieurs Batiste, Fontenay et Vernensal, en six pièces. The painters referred to are: Guy Vernansal (d. 1729), the flower-painter, Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay (d. 1715) and Baptiste (the name used by contemporaries for the flower-painter Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (d. 1699)) and an unidentified fourth painter. Vernansal's signature on various models implies that he was the main designer of the series while the exact dating of the first woven set is difficult to ascertain with certainty. It is probable that it was after Be