GOBELIN PRODUCTS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 16

GOBELIN PRODUCTS

ROMANCE OF THE TAPESTRIES.

The daring theft, and almost equally dramatic recovery, of two equisite examples of Gobelin tapestry from Versailles call attention to a factory which is one of the oldest as well as one of the most interesting in France. '

The odd point is that Jean Gobelin, after whom the great tapestry factory is named, was not himself a tapestry maker. He was a dyer, who founded dye works in the Faubourg Saint-Mar-cel about the end of the fifteenth century, on the banks of the little river Bievre. ■ j The men who first made Gobelin tapestry were1 Flemish weavers brought from Flanders by King Henry 111. >, France.

These men were set to work in the year 1601, in a house belonging to the Gobelin family, and quite close to their already celebrated dye works; but it was not until a good deal later—namely, in the year 1662—that Colbert gathered the various tapestry weavers together and definitely established the Gobelin manufactory. Louis XIV. himself was the moving spirit behind the scheme, which included a great Crown factory for the making of furniture and metal work, as well as tapestries and carpets. The well-known Le Brun was the first director of this royal' factory, and it was he who designed the Battles of Alexander, the Twelve Months of the Year, and other famous pieces of early Gobelin tapestry. Even at this date all the silks and other materials used were dyed on the premises, and the work was all piecework. That is, the heads of the different workshops took over such and such a^ piece of work at a fixed price from the director. Each manager m his turn Paid his weavers and other workmen. This was the golden age of the Gobelin, and the work produced was of the very .highest order.

Like everything else in Paris, the factory suffered during the Revolution. The number of hands fell from about 300 to fewer than 50. But it survived, and is to-day as active and busy as ever.

It still has its own chemical laboratory, dye works, and a department specially given over to the repair of tapestry. - . ■.

The dye works remain the most important part of the whole business, for the Gobelin colours are absolutely permanent, and while much of the fine tapestry made elsewhere has deteriorated through fading or change in its tint's, that is a misfortune that can never happen to the products of the Gobelin factory.