Period – mid-19th century
Dimensions: 300 x 400 cm
Antique Savonnerie carpet (France) – 343
Description
Tappeto antico Savonnerie (Francia)
Period – mid-19th century
Dimensions: 300 x 400 cm
The Savonnerie manufactory, Europe’s most prestigious maker of knotted carpets, started life in 1626 in a disused soap factory (savonnerie in French) on Quai de Chaillot in Paris.
During the reign of Louis XIV, the Savonnerie retained its name but was incorporated into the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins in 1663, before enjoying precipitous growth, facilitated by the ban on imports of oriental carpets imposed earlier by Louis XIII.
Made of wool and silk, some of the early models broadly imitated Persian carpet design, but the Savonnerie style quickly established itself with more distinctively French designs, such as framed medallions or coats of arms, bouquets of flowers and luxuriant foliage.
The main innovation of Savonnerie carpet-making lies in its taste for figurative motifs. These carpets cast off all trace of abstract oriental design, replacing it with the typical ornamentation of tapestries. The purpose of these compositions was to exalt the glory of the sovereign, and this message transpired not only in French royal residences, but in the palaces of the foreign monarchs and illustrious figures to whom the Sun King gifted them.
This significant carpet bears witness to the fact that, in past centuries, objects such as these were produced to commission. A glance at this specimen clearly shows that it would have been commissioned for a room used for the performance of music, because of the floral medallion in the centre of the field, depicting a variety of musical instruments.
