MUTILATED TAPESTRIES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 14

MUTILATED TAPESTRIES

VANDALS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. .'

Some fine- old tapestries in Westminster Abbey were cut down to fit spaces in the Jerusalem Chamber »uid in the little private chapel known as . St. Faith's, at a date now .difficult to decide, according.to a story in "The Times." These are described as portions of a series of Abraham tapestries, eight example of which hang in the Great Hall at Hampton Court and another pair in St. -James's Palace. Complete sets also exist in the Royal collections of Madrid and Vienna, enriched with gold and silver- threads and fitted with borders of allegorical subjects. In ■ the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminsterand the Chapel of St. Faith the nswly-discovered tapestries have been hanging for years, black with age and London dirt. One, probably English of the late seventeenth century, is a variation of one of Raphael's cartoons, "'St. Peter and St. John at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple," which ft known to have been presented by Lord John Thynne when he was Sub-Dean of the Abbey and to have come from his homo at Hayes. The others, almost black, the subjects only made out with difficulty, were supposed ,t 0 be from the New Testament, ami'of no special importance until a short time ago. The pieces of " indeterminate " subjects wore found to bo parts of two others from an Abraham series. They were cut up—and no one knows by whom—to suit the panelling. One piece was in the Jerusalem Chamber and the other part in the Chapel of St. Faith. A.l! the borders were missing. Three other pieces hanging in the Jerusalem Chamber, fitting neatly into the panelling, were portions of a tapestry showing the " Return of ' Sarah to Abraham." The left-hand border had been cut to hang between two windows. Two central Jigures of the tapestry, as well as the borders, have yet, tij ho digcovpvod. If tliny me found, the uuestry could bs