European Antique Textiles

The word tapestry is now widely used to describe a range of textiles, including needlepoint and certain mechanically woven, ribbed fabrics, but historically and technically it designates a figurative weft-faced textile woven by hand on a loom. In European practice, the loom consists of two rollers, between which plain warp threads (the load-bearing threads) are stretched. In the large-scale production of centers in France and the Low Countries (modern-day Belgium), the warps were made of wool, although linen was also used in more artisanal production in Germany. Depending on the orientation of the loom, the warps are stretched vertically on a high-warp loom or horizontally on a low-warp loom; in both cases, the weaver works on the reverse side of the tapestry. The warps are arranged so there is a small space between the even and odd warps, called the shed, through which the weaver passes the colored weft threads that are wrapped around a handheld shuttle. Alternate warps are attached to drawstrings with which the weaver can pull them forward (on the high-warp loom) or backward (on the low-warp loom) to create a second shed, through which the weft is then passed back again. By passing the weft back and forth through the two sheds, the weaver inserts the weft over one warp and under the next in one direction and then back in the opposite direction over and under the alternate warps. Periodically, the weaver beats down the developing web so that the warps are completely covered by the weft. Nowadays, the weft threads are primarily made of finely twisted wool, but in the past, finer tapestries also included silk and gilt-metal-wrapped silk. By varying the colors of the weft, the weaver creates a pattern or figurative image. Between 1400 and 1530, Flemish weavers developed the ability to reproduce an extraordinary range of surface textures and painterly effects through the use of finer and finer interlocking triangles of color (hatchings or hachures), the juxtaposition of different materials, and the use of different techniques to link the weft threads; compare.

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