Charles Antoine Coypel (1694-1752) entered the Academy in 1715, and the next year made a series of twenty-eight designs illustrating _Don Quixote_ for the Gobelins. A second important series which he designed for the Gobelins illustrated scenes from the theatre. He was a favorite painter of Queen Marie Leczinska. He wrote several comic dramas and had an interest in an understanding of the theatre which is reflected in his tapestry designs, which are conceived always as a theatrical scene in a stage setting, with actors making the proper expressive gestures.
BACCHANTE: _A young bacchante wearing a tigerskin and holding Pan's pipes. In an oval panel._
This panel is after a portrait by Coypel. Though it does not appear on the official registers of the Gobelins, the technique would indicate that it was probably by a Gobelins weaver, who quite often worked outside of the official orders.
[Sidenote: Lent by _Jacques Seligmann & Company_.]
The delicate execution reproduces faithfully the piquant charm of the painting; even the most delicate gradations of tones are exactly reproduced.
_Wool and Silk._ H. 25 _in._ W. 21 _in._ ]
PORTRAIT OF LOUIS XV: _This portrait, after a painting by Van Loo made for the Gobelins in_ 1760, _is one of a series of the royal family. It is in the original frame_.
[Sidenote: Illustrated: _Böttiger, Svenska Statins Samling_, vol. 2, pl. XLI; _Fénaille, Etat général des Tapisseries de la Manufacture des Gobelins, Dix-huitième Siècle_, 2me Partie, p. 311; as portrait of Louis XVI, in _Migeon, Les Arts de Tissu_, p. 335.]
While tapestry is not an appropriate medium for portraiture, a portrait is the supreme test of the skill of the weaver. In this piece the effect of the painting is reproduced with remarkable fidelity. The warp is vertical.
[Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.]
The technical difficulty was the greater because almost the entire piece was woven in wool, the proper material for tapestry, silk being relied on only for a few high lights. As a portrait it has directness and conviction, carrying the essential dignity of royalty. The XVIIIth century, which first undertook to weave tapestry portraits, produced a kind of portrait that was especially ill-adapted to this material; for the likenesses depended primarily on the delicate modeling produced by a very sensitively differentiated scale of values and scarcely at all on lines. Even in Gothic tapestries there are many heads that are striking portraits, but these are entirely graphic in character and so fitted for tapestry. In rendering this portrait the weavers had literally to paint with the shuttle.