17th Century English Embroidery Needlework Tapestry

Beautiful English Needlework Panel Dating from early 17th Century Circa 1620 The entire surface worked in intricate tiny silk stitches. Hard to capture the beauty on my camera...

Brussels late 17th century tapestry, "Asia" from a Four Continents series. Designed by Lodowijk van Schoor, Woven in the Workshop of J. van der Borcht I Size: 9'4 high x 18' wide. Wool, silk and metal thread pattern wefts This extremely colorful and attractive late Baroque Flemish tapestry with a popular iconography is the product of two important figures in 17th century Brussels weaving. J. van der Borcht I (circa 1650–1713) was a master weaver and tapestry entrepreneur who established a most distinguished family tapestry firm and was followed by J. van der Borcht II, Jasper van der Borcht, Pieter van der Borcht and Jan Frans van der Borcht, taking the operations into the mid18th century. Their wealthy patrons allowed the firm to engage some of the best designers and as a result the artistic quality, as well as the sheer technical execution, is always high. The Van der Borchts wove tapestry series (or single pieces) of Mythological Scenes, Months, Allegories, Armorials, Triumphs of the Gods, The Continents, as well as more down-to-earth genre scenes designed or inspired by David Teniers II or Teniers III. Their artist designers included, besides the Teniers, Jan van Orley, Augustin Coppens, Gerard Lairesse, Phillipe de Hondt, and the Antwerp-born Lodowijk van Schoor (circa 1650–1702), the designer of U-1362. Van Schoor was the successor of David Teniers III. He was the designer or co-creator of about fifteen sets of tapestries. His cartoons were utilized and copied in both the Northern and Southern Netherlands, and continued popular well into the 18th century. His style, especially in his later works, is more harmonious and refined than Teniers and he avoided genre scenes with peasants. Van Schoor sometimes collaborated with other artists, for example Lucas Aertschellinck (1620 – 1699) who specialized in landscape backgrounds as in the set of Mythological Scenes” woven circa 1700 in the Van der Borcht shop. He did not collaborate on this tapestry, Van Schoor’s figures are graceful and his color schemes vivid, in keeping with the best of contemporary Flemish tapestry. Van Schoor’s designs influenced artists working at great remove from Brussels, even so far as the Florentine workshop of Bernini and Demignot where a Van Schoor inspired “Four Continents” set was woven in the early 1720s. The “Four Continents” or “Four Parts of the World” was a popular theme in the 17th and 18th centuries for tapestry patrons. Each continent was identified by native peoples and animals: America (North and South together) by Indians and the Turkey bird...