A BRUSSELS HISTORICAL TAPESTRY

BY GERARD PEEMANS, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY, THE DESIGNS ATTRIBUTED TO JUSTUS VAN EGMONT

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A BRUSSELS HISTORICAL TAPESTRY
By Gerard Peemans, second half 17th Century, the designs attributed to Justus van Egmont
Woven in wools and silks, depicting The Story of Zenobia with Aurelius to the centre on a fallen horse and injured by an arrow through his left leg, to the left with a soldier on horseback beating back a further soldier with a spear and flag, to the right with a soldier supporting the general and the winged figure of Victory holding a palm-leaf and a laurel-wreath above the general's head, within elaborate borders with floral trails and martial trophies, to top and bottom with putti and the bottom with a cartouche centred by an espagnolette mask, the top with a further cartouche inscribed '.AVR;ANTE PALMIRAM TELOLAEDITVR', within a brown outer slip with the Brussels' town mark and weaver's signiture 'G.PEENAEM', reweaving and patching
158 in. x 124 in. (402 cm. x 315 cm.)

拍品專文

This tapestry belongs to a series of eight tapestries depicting The Story of Zenobia and depicts the life of Zenobia and the Emperor Aurelius. This panel shows Aurelius wounded in the battle before Palmyra.

The designs are attributable to Justus van Egmont (d. 1674), who also designed a series depicting The Life of Augustus, and are dateable to circa 1665. Van Egmont was a a pupil of Rubens and later a court painter to both Louis III and Louis XIV. He was one of the founders of the Académie de Peinture in Paris in 1648 but returned to Brussels and Antwerp in the mid-17th Century where he designed tapestry sets.

Gerard Peemans took over the workshop of van der Strecken in circa 1660 and led it until 1707. He initially employed 14 weavers on six looms but by 1683 had 33 weavers, one of the largest numbers at that time in Brussels. His importance is also evident in the quality of his oeuvre, working on the most important series of the time.

A set of eight panels from this series, but with variant borders, is in the Spanish Royal Collection (P. Junquera de Vega and C. Diaz Gallegos, Catalogo de Tapices del Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid, 1986, vol. II, cat. 62, pp. 164-172, this subject being p. 170).