Somehow, I
missed the excitement around two huge Flemish tapestries depicting Alexander
the Great!
Every year, Brussels is hosting a fair of Antique
and Fine Art Dealers and recently the event was in the news because they
contributed to the restoration of two tapestries made in the workshops of Pasquier
Grenier around 1460 in
Tournai (Belgium), and which are
presently part of the Princes Doria Pamphilj Collection in the Palazzo
del Principe in Genoa (Italy).
Alexander is being represented
here as rendered in the so-called Alexander Romance, a personage I find
rather remote from his true historical context – in as far as we are still able
to find it after two thousand five hundred years, of course.
Wool and silk,
gold and silver threads were used to weave these huge tapestries that were in
an advanced state of disintegration. The old silk threads were pulverized; most
of the brown wool was corroded by the iron components used in the original
dyeing process; and many warp threads were broken or missing due to accidents
or mishandling.
The Royal
Manufacturers De Wit in Mechelen (Belgium)
is one of the rare places capable of performing this kind of restoration job
although seldom done on pieces of such poor condition. Each tapestry (about 10 meters long) required
two years of work, cleaning them first, followed by an overall stabilization of
the material and a consolidation of the weaker areas. Finally, a sturdy lining
provided the much needed support to hold the tapestry together and camouflage
the gaps.
According to the specialists, these
tapestries are spectacular, not only because of their
composition and design, but also because of their technical aspect and color
palette, and should be ranked among the finest examples of 15th century
tapestries to survive. The Story of Alexander knew at least seven
tapestry versions, all created between 1460 and 1470, and these two examples
most likely belonged to Admiral Andrea Doria, who commanded the fleet of
Charles the Fifth at the battle of Tunis in 1535.
The first
tapestry shows young Alexander
surrounded by his mother Olympias and his father, Philip II; the
taming of Bucephalus; and his first military victories; culminating with the
crowning of Alexander by his dying
father. The second tapestry, depicts six scenes of Alexander’s conquests of Asia, including idealistic (and in my eyes
unrealistic) images where Alexander
soars the skies in a cage drawn by griffons, and later travels under water in a
glass bulb, to finally journey to the end of the world where wild men and
dragons live.
They are lively
illustrations of the Alexander Romance that was popular at the time,
embellished thanks to the ideals of the Crusaders, for whom Alexander became an example of virtue
and morality for knighthood of the late Middle Ages. Not exactly my cup of tea,
as you can imagine, but it shows how much Alexander
stimulated the imagination of mankind over the centuries. And he still does …
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