Treasure hunt
DEAR HELAINE AND JOE:
Can you tell me something about the subject matter in the tapestry shown in the picture? It is 47 by 65 inches and is about 100 years old. Is it a mythological scene and what are the people doing? Any thoughts? Because this is a cherished family heirloom, I am not interested in knowing about the value.
— A.B., Carrollton, Va.
DEAR A.B.: There are tapestries and then there are tapestries. Some tapestries are hand-woven; some are hand-embroidered. They often tell a significant historical story, or a tale taken from the Bible or Greek mythology. Other tapestries, mainly products of the 20th century, are machine-made. And in most cases, the stories those tell are much less clear because they were meant to be merely decorative.
The artist/architect Le Corbusier called tapestries “Nomadic murals” because the wealthy personages who owned them often rolled them up and moved them from residence to residence. They were colorful art to brighten the walls of what would have otherwise been rather stark interiors. And they served as insulation to cut down on icy drafts seeping through stone walls during winter months.
We are not going to explore the intricate methods employed to make a tapestry, but it did require many hours of work on a loom by skilled labor with artistic talents to make the weft-faced weaving that had all its warp thread hidden. The famous Bayeux Tapestry, which chronicles the Norman invasion of England, is really a hand-embroidered cloth, not technically a tapestry at all.
There are many famous tapestries, such as the Apocalypse Tapestry, which details the Book of Revelation, and the Swedish Overhogdal
Tapestry from the late Viking Period. Tapestries might also be cloths of state depicting symbols, mottos and coats of arms that hung above the heads and around the throne of monarchs and the like.
The piece in today’s question does not have such a lofty purpose or origin. It was mechanically made using a Jacquard loom, and the image does appear to suggest
a Greek myth mixed up with some European themes.
This was decoration, so the Continental European makers (possibly Belgian) were not all that fussy about the image and what it depicted. The closest we can come is only a suggestion. The female figure might be Penelope, the male figure Ulysses (or Odysseus), the dog might be Argos, and the two figures departing the scene might either be Penelope’s suitors or Telemachus (the son of Penelope and Ulysses) and Eumaeus, the swine herd, Ulysses’ friend and the first mortal person to see Ulysses on his return to Ithaca.
This fits the image, but it is only speculation on our part. It was probably produced in the 1920s, so yes, it is about 100 years old. At auction this would sell in the $80 to $100 range and probably retail around $150 to $175.