ARRAS TAPESTRY

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 November 1934, Page 3

ARRAS TAPESTRY

LOAN REFUSED TO EXHIBITION. Because of fears for its safety, Coventry is refusing a request from Belgium for the loan of one of the largest and most valuable pieces of fifteenth century . Arras tapestry, which is hung in St. Mary’s Hall, Coventry’s ancient guildhall. The workmanship is so fine that the organisers of the Belgium National Exhibition, to be held in Brussels next year, requested the City Council to lend it to them. After consideration, the Council Estates and Parliamentary Committee have decided that they cannot comply with the request because of the risk of damage in transit and the bareness which its absence would cruise on the wall of the Great Hall. The tapestry was specially woven to the order of the rich Coventry merchants who formed the five guilds of the city when Henry VI. and Mai\ garet of Anjou were made members of the Coventry guilds. The tapestry makers of Arras delivered it about 1480. It is woven in a single piece, 30ft long, and 10ft deep, and it has six panels. The centre panel represents Henry and Margaret in attitudes of adoration before a figure of the Virgin Mary, who, in ascending to Heaven, is resting half-way on the crescent moon.

A strange alteration was later made in the top panel of the tapestry. The Virgin Mary should be ascending towards the Holy Trinity, but during Elizabeth’s reign the Protestants objected to it. The Holy Trinity panel was cut out, and a much more crude figure of Justice inserted. The surrounding panels are filled with the 12 apostles and a score of other figures, including the -patron saints of the five guilds. The draperies, worked in soft reds and blues, represent one of tho highest achievements of Flemish art. The faces are remarkably lifelike, the perspective is true, and the whole is superior .to most contemporary work of this kind. There is an account in the records of the Coventry guilds: “Pd for repairing the tapestry in St. Mary’s Hall—l6/8.” The date is 1519. Recently the tapestry was covered with glass and floodlights arranged to show up its'beauties.