The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-09-12
Our 0liu.
TAPESTRIES.


| A Marvellous Triumph of Science and Art
Lifetime Spent in Perfecting Details of
Color and Weaving-Displays at the Paris
Exposition.
A Paris letter says: Upon the walls
surrounding the lower story and upon the
gallery encircling the upper part of the
beautiful central dome Gaping the palace
of diverse industries at the Exposition the
national manufactory of the Gobelins has
spread the marvellous production of its
splendid industry for the admiration of the
world Words fail to express the magni-
ficenee of the splendid tapestries which
cover with their generous folds hundreds
of square feet of perpendicular space and
represent with faithfulness indescribable
every line and tone of color involved in
some of the greatest masterpieces of art
which are the pride of the principal Euro
pean picture-galleries.
All this not in oil nor in fresco, but in
the laborious manipulation of 100000
colored threads which have been sewed
into the ground-fabric stitch by stitch
within the walls of the great establishment
which for centuries kings have honored
with their personal oversight and patron
age. This manufactory, which at the
present moment makes its show rooms Of
the principal hall of the Exposition, is as
one of the most important of the French
national industries considered in a measure
as part of the resent Worlds Fair itself,
and in treating of its production it will be
necessary to enter considerably into its
history, processes of manufacture, and
other important details concerning work
which has won for it name which stands
alone in the annals of human handiwork.
The appearance of the manufactory seen
from the tops Of neighboring houses Of
more modern date is not unlike that of an
old Partisan fauborg, forgotten in the in-
vading march of time, which has complete
ly metamophosed all of its ancient sur
roundings into the prosaic and unintesest-
ing avenues of to-day. The picturesque
is therefore predominating quality. Alb
solutely no character exists in the architec.
ture of the buildings which compose the
historic group. The original style has been
completely overwhelmed by the mass Of
additions and out-buildings which have
been imposed one upon another during the
lapse of the three centuries which form the
modest figure of its present age. The i'm
portance of certain buildings mark the
epochs when the manufactorys prosperity
has been the most pronounced, and the
principal edifce-a grand construction fac
ing the gardens which slope gently down
to one of the outstretched arms of the little
Bieyres- the reign of Louis XIV,
when, in spite of whose troubled admins
tration and numerous wars, the enterprise
made the most important strides which have
marked its previous OF subsequent history.
1t is in the midst of modern and prosaic
Paris bit of suburban loveliness, SOU
venir of that long-past period when light,
air, and space were not deemed ineompati-
BILE with metropolitan magniicence. The
beautiful gardens are apportioned out among
the personnel of the concern, for the most
part artists who love flowers and are not
sorry to lose such time as is required TO
make their wilderness "bloom as rose
The Bievres to which we must first turn
our attention, although of but little moment
to the present order of things, is the life
source to which the great manufactory of
the Gobelins owes its present situation.
In the middle of the fourteenth century
when Jean Gobelin, the first of his line, an
obscure dyer, came from the interior of
France to exercise his meter of dyer in
scarlet at Paris, he was attracted like many
others of his trade to the clean and limpid
streamlet, the last vestiges of which, thick
and filthy with the refuse of sewers and
neighboring tanneries, skirts the offo ot the
bit of mundane paradise just alluded to-.
The factory, thanks to modern conveniences
of filtering, has brought to its vats the
water of the once deprecated Seine, and
the little rivulet, once, the source of its
life and being, is a despised and disregarded
gutter. The nature of the water employed,
once considered the object of prime impor-
tance to the dyers' art, has become con-
sideration far secondary to the particular
qualities of the coloring matters employed.
These latter must be firm and fast, able to
resist the gnawing action of time and the
fading influences of solar light and heat
Upon their durability depends the tapes
tries to which their brilliancy adds in value
The principal care of all of the chiefs
who have successfully and with honor di-
rected the dyeing-rooms has been to strike
out from their list of colors the greatest
number of agents which time and expe-
rience demonstrated to be at all alterable
in their nature. One after another have
such been laid aside until today the num-
ber of practicable colors has been reduced
to an extremely low number. Three plants
(wood, madder, and indigo) give yellow,
carmine, and blue A single insect, the
cochinealbug, gives red. These with iron,
nutgall, and several acids form the entire
laboratory of the gobelins, but though few
in number each element can be depended
upon to play an important series of parts,
not the least of which is imperishability.
With these few fundaments it may sur
prise the reader to learn that catalogue
of nearly $4,000 distinct tints is in the pos
session Of the dyers of the Gobelins, and
that, thanks to the march of science, new
hues and applications are being produced
every day. The dyeing-rooms occupy the
self-same site once occupied by the humble
Workshop Of he who has bequeathed his
name to the industry.
Within one sees almost endless racks Of
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