The Metamorphoses. A Set of Gobelin TapestriesAuthor(s): S. G. F.Source: Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, Vol. 17, No. 99 (Feb., 1919), p. 5Published by: Museum of Fine Arts, BostonStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4169685 .

Accessed: 15/05/2014 21:37

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Museum ofFine Arts Bulletin.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.66 on Thu, 15 May 2014 21:37:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN XVII, 5

W-

Europa and the Bull Gobelin Tapestry, early eighteenth century, artist unknown

A

~~ V

- ' - * <

Acis and Galatea Gobelin Tapestry, early eighteenth century,

after a design by Charles de la Fo.se

The Metamorphoses A Set of Gobelin Tapestries

H ANGING in the Seventh Gallery in the Evans Building are a set of seven Gobelin

tapestries, lent anonymously to the Museum. This is a rare opportunity for the lovers and

students of tapestries to see and enjoy works of art from that famous French factory, as few authentic pieces are owned in Boston, and it is many years since any have been exhibited here. The subjects of these tapestries are taken from Greek and Roman mythology as related by Ovid in his Metamorphoses and Ars Amatoria, and the designs are drawn with all the grace and lightness of the best painters of the French Court in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Various artists made the paintings for the tapestries between 1 688 and 1 70 1. Though all their names are recorded in the books of the factory only two of the tapestries, " Diana's Retum from the Chase " and " Acis and Galatea," can be ascribed with certainty to their author, Charles de la Fosse. These two pieces still pre- serve in the lower selvages the signature of Jans des Gobelins, master weaver at the Gobelins from 1 691-1 731, under whose direction they were woven. The subjects of the tapestries are: "Europa and the Bull" (here reproduced), " Diana and the Sleeping Endymion," "Diana's Retum from the Chase, or the Toilet of Diana," "Narcissus and the Nymph Echo," "Acis and Galatea" (here reproduced), " Apollo and Hyacinth," and a land- scape. The last mentioned was woven to replace a missing orginal. S. G. F.

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.66 on Thu, 15 May 2014 21:37:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions