New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-04-06
Tapestry Display
Echoes Splendors
Of Medieval DAYS
Rugs, Rich Hangings and
Ecclesiastical Nestments
Showp at American Gal
leries Preceding Auction
By Royal Cortissoz

The craftsmanship Of the East and
the West f'ings the glamour Of romantic
beauty over the collection of textiles
which nay De seen at the American Art
Galleries this week, prior to is dis
persia by auction. It is a collection of
tapestries, ecclesiastical vestments and
rugs. The tapestries and the vest
ments, symbols Of the palace and the
church, were brought together by NJ.
Eymonaud, Of Paris. and were then
acquired car sale here by the Messrs.
Benguigt, who add the array Of rugs.
It is little difficult to describe them.
It is always little difficult to describe
things which begin by inviting superla-
tives.
In the entrance gallery the walls are
covered With renaissance tapestries On
stands here and there are sumptuous
veivets. embroidered in gold. Above
hang several huge palace lamps. seven
teentn century Italian works n silver.
N magnificent designs in repousse floral
IN decoration, but with little figures
and heads introduced. accentuating the
impression Of sculpture. Somewhere in
one Of his essays Matthew Arnold, a
type OF classical severity if ever there
was one testihes to the appeal made by
the Church OF Rome to the philosopher
and the man Of imagination He was
thinking OF the prodigious literature
OF the Fathers. But he must have been
thinking, too, of the tremendous ns-
thetic quality in the background which
The Church long ago created. Chere is
nothing else quite Ike it in the world
Recalls Spanish Setting
Travellers in Spain who have wit
messed great religious ceremony in
the royal palace at Madrid Will recall
the setting devised for it. setting
which extends out along the walls of
the gallery IN the quadrangle approach
nv the chapel. Those walls are hung
with tapestries from the state treas
my Against them the crowd gathers,
against them the priests and coUrtiers
make their slow progress past the dif
ferent affairs, amid clouds of incense
Gorgeous garments litter momentarily,
bat then seem fused in the mellow
splendors o. the vest fabrics that hem
in the whole pageant Not painting
nor sculp lure nor architecture could
work the magic that IS worked by the
art Of the needle. It weaves form and
color into a heroic. symphonic har-
mony: and IN so doing makes just-a
background 1t is with soma such
thought that one goes through the
present exhibition.
Whistler refused to believe that
there was ever an art-lovng period,
period in which the production OF
works Of beauty was difused like
racial habit How. save on a contra
d.ction of this hypothesis. are we TO
account for the extraordinarily uni
form beauty of the Old textiles We're
thcre VULGAR weavers and embro derers
I'm the Renaissance. either in the North
or in the South 1t is hard to believe
NO doubt there IS proof in this very
exhibition that some designers were
more felicitOus than others, some
craftsmen more consummat than their
rivals, but taste, it is to be inferred
Vas curlousiy sound, everywhere
Ihere is q great sixteenth century
Spanish altar frontal here (No. 273)
on winch me catal0guer justly wreaks
himself IN enume ration OF decorative
md allegorical rninutie. We cite one
0rlef passage, yielding to the charm
which a catalogue Of textiles shares
with the catalogue of a French rose
grower: T he two hankinr panels are
demarked WITH bands. exhibiting stems
Of scrolled Gothic trifoliate leaves, IN
terrupted with single blossoms in
similar colors to the center; the panels
display broad diamond lattices, Renais-
sance in detail but distinctly Gothic in
feeling, with complex feur-de-lis al
the Intersections and central bars in
corrupted with husks; within the dia-
monds are delightfully."- inforctted pine
apple motives executed in the colors
6 the center or solid silver grounds"
These lines are written for an out
standing masrerpiece But you must
employ the same language when yen
pause before, say. No. 26e. compara-
lively simple Italian dalmatic Of ame-
thySt velvet
Spanish or Italian, the enchantnent
OF color raised to high sensuous pirc],
and vet on It's plane Of immea surable
luxury governed by a positively noble