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Otago Daily Times, Issue 22053, 8 September 1933, Page 11

Designs for ten largo pieces of Gobelins tapestry which adorned the Tuilleries in Napoleon's time have been discovered in a garret in the Louvre, and sent to the famous manufactory, where the tapestries are to be made afresh. The designs, which had been rolled up for over a century, were in very bad condition, and had to be rebacked before any use could be made of them. The Gobelins artists are now at work on them, and it is expected that the tapestries will be finished in about a year. Six of the original tapestries were hung in Napoleon's study, and were taken down after his fall because they bore his emblems. The others, having no political allusion, were left undisturbed. All were destroyed during the Commune. Gobelins tapestries are now made in the same way as in the time of Louis XIV, the only difference being that chiefly through scientific selections of wool, a worker can produce nearly twice as much as in the old days. Two square metres now represent a year's work of one man, and the cost is between 22,000 and 25,000 francs per scruare metre.