Mortlake Tapestry
Raphael Cartoon, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (Luke 5: 1 – 11)
Opposite the church of St Mary the Virgin Mortlake a path named Tapestry Court leads to the river. Here you will find a plaque memorialising the 17th century Lower Dutch House, one of the former buildings of the Mortlake Tapestry. Parts of the building survive in Suthrey House, now grade II listed.
The tapestry works were founded in the early 17th century encouraged by King James I, for which 140 Flemish weavers and their families were brought to live on site, to produce high quality tapestries. These were textile works of art woven on a loom and during the late medieval period and early Renaissance the cities of Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges manufactured the best tapestries in Europe. Traditionally, tapestries were far more luxurious commodities than paintings, due to their cost, materials such as gold and silver thread, the number of workers involved and the long time it took to complete a piece. They were also ideally suited to keep rooms warm acting as insulation and were easy to carry, store and to arrange.
Many great works were executed in Mortlake, now found across Europe in galleries and private collections, but the Tapestry is famously linked to the Renaissance artist Raphael and his Acts of the Apostles cartoons produced in 1515 (the design drawings for tapestries). Originally these cartoons were used to make the beautiful tapestries that hang in the Sistine Chapel commissioned by Pope Leo X. More sets were produced for King Henry VIII and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, until the cartoons went missing, eventually appearing for sale in Genoa, where Charles I’s agents purchased them and brought them back to England.
Charles’s own set was donated by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell to the King of France after the abolition of the monarchy. The cartoons were finally restored to the Royal Collection in 1660, now its most precious items and can be admired in a dedicated gallery in the Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington.
Raphael Cartoon, The Healing of the Lame Man (Acts 3: 1 – 8)
With the rise in status of painting and portraiture in the late 1600s, the Mortlake Tapestry struggled financially, with many weavers moving to the City of London or abandoning the trade altogether. In 1703, during the reign of Queen Anne, the works were ingloriously closed down.
To see some of the beautiful tapestries executed in Mortlake I recommend a visit to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire where you can find a series of 5 pieces about Hero and Leander.
