The secret to the best 'woven paint' in Europe

For decades or even centuries, visitors have walked through museums without seeing.

There is a jewel that has built the story of Spain that very few notice: the tapestries.

National Heritage has 3,205 panels that tell chapter after chapter of the national history of Europe, its conquests, its battles or the artists admired in its time.

It was the richest decoration since the Middle Ages.

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel but the lower part is adorned with Raphael's tapestries.

Enthusiastic about them, Philip IV ordered a copy.

The oldest.

In contemporary terms it would be a second edition, the third was a request from the Dukes of Mantua.

There are 12

paintings woven

about the story of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

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The Spanish cloths of the Italian genius have their own adventure.

They were purchased by the skillful and tenacious Alonso de Cárdenas, ambassador in London, on October 11, 1650 for Philip IV.

It was the most expensive acquisition of the year, and to get them out of England he had to bribe customs agents to take the precious cargo from the city of Dover to the port of Vigo.

In May 1651 they were already resting in Madrid.

“The collection of tapestries that exists in Spain, from royal collections, is fantastic;

among the best in Europe and it is very well cared for,” reflects art historian Manuela Mena.

From the Middle Ages to the 18th century they have been a symbol of power and lineage, a pride of military successes, narrations of ancient myths, religious and devotional scenes and they have even had a practical meaning.

In those enormous and icy granite palaces made of shiny mica from Escurial, they provided comfort, heat and even muffled sound and humidity.

View of the tapestry 'Hercules holds the celestial sphere', by Georg Wezeler, from the royal collections in Madrid.Andrea Comas

It is an extraordinary world where everyone from Rubens to Goya passed through.

It required a unique skill.

The workshop started from a 1/1 scale cardboard, that is, real, from the artist.

Many fabrics exceed five meters.

And the master

lycer

was the one who drew the contours on the fabric framework.

He also added the borders.

A job of years.

The Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia commissioned Rubens

The Triumph of the Eucharist

for the

Monastery of the Royal Descalzas of Madrid.

The teacher presented him - explains Roberto Muñoz, conservator of tapestries at the National Heritage - some simple sketches to which he would approve.

The cloths took between 1628 and 1636 to complete and cost 130,000 florins.

An incredible price.

It must be taken into account that three decades earlier, in 1600, the monthly cost of maintaining troops in the campaign against the Dutch amounted to 128,700 gold florins.

The tapestries did not involve expenses, and if they incorporated gold threads, instead of wool, they were affordable to very few, even the great houses of the aristocracy.

The speed with which we contemplate them makes us lose interest in those jewels.

The Royal Collections treasure the cloths from

The Conquest of Tunisia.

Charles V commissioned the weaving of

The Conquest

to commemorate his military and naval expedition undertaken in 1535 against the famous privateer Barbarossa.

Work by Pannemaker, that “first edition”, for the Emperor, the highest quality, cost 14,975 gold florins.

In fact, for the latest acquisition of a tapestry related to Spain,

The Triumph of Time

, in 2023, the State paid one million euros (exposed).

He belongs to the circle of Isabel la Católica “And”, as Roberto Muñoz observes, “that work reveals something unknown.

The Queen was a collector.

One of the main ones of the 16th century.

She did not limit herself to acquiring religious art.”

Not far away,

the Garden of Earthly Delights

tapestry

Hieronymus Bosch, commissioned (perhaps) by Philip II.

Because in his time he had an enormous passion for the Nordic genius.

At the death of the monarch, in his inventory there were countless works attributed to Hieronymus Bosch (most of them copies, followers, workshops, imitations and also originals) but, of course, it shows his exquisite taste for that early and singular art.

Decay

Time reduced the presence of the tapestries.

The Prado, focused on painting and sculpture since its birth in 1819, only preserves about nine.

Only two (both by Pannemaker) have the category of great pieces:

The Walk of Mercury and Hermese

(1570) and

Cecrops Welcomes Mercury

(1570).

Enriched with gold, silver and silk threads.

Nevertheless.

“It is not a representative collection,” assumes Leticia Azcue, head of Conservation of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Prado, especially compared to what has pejoratively been called decorative arts, with the arrival in 1839 of the Delfin Treasure.

Although, despite being alive in Goya's time, they already show their decline.

They lose their climatic and acoustic function, the transmission of power and lineage, the palaces become smaller and the painting is a triumph.

It's cheaper.

The nobles decorate any room either with paintings or paint applied directly to the wall.

Oil painting and other techniques, such as frescoes, corner an expression that took years to create and required a lot of money.

Of course, it was produced, above all, in Dutch workshops.

A cardboard with drawings by Francisco de Goya for a tapestry. SUSANA VERA (REUTERS)

In between, the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara (created in 1720) preserves the legacy.

Its wooden looms, taken in 1774 from the pine forests of Valsaín in the Sierra del Guadarrama, continue to operate.

And from there comes a genius.

“Goya's famous tapestries, created from his cartoons [which El Prado preserves almost entirely], have immense value,” recalls Manuela Mena, a renowned specialist on the painter.

These

fabric paints

can only be exposed for a short time to prevent, for example, the silver from oxidizing from oxygen or the stress of hanging.

“At the Factory,” explains its director, Alejandro Klecker, “we restore, create, clean and provide spaces for business events.

“We have managed to reduce the debt almost to zero.”

The technique—as its manager says—is linked to the looms of Mesopotamia.

Dresden has requested

32 tapestries

that recover those lost in the Second World War.

And for four years in that historic workshop 12 specialized people have worked on the

Sabra and Chatila cloth.

About 24 meters.

His hands are there, but you can see them.

The Bank of Spain, describes its curator, Yolanda Romero, houses wonders such as the six tapestries focused on

The Months of the Year

, created by the Flemish master Gerard Peemans from cartoons by David Teniers III, at the end of the 17th century.

But there is more.

The triumph of Eros over Cronus

from Leyniers' invoice, also based on Teniers III.

The fashions of the present blur the beauty of the past.

Guadalajara is home to the masterpieces

Maybe it is one of those trips that mix culture and discovery.

The “masterpieces of the earliest tapestries”, according to the historian Manuela Mena, are in the Pastrana church.

There are four silk and wool cloths of an average size of 11 x 4 meters from the 15th century.

They describe the taking of Arcilla and Tangier by Alfonso V of Portugal in August 1471. Since the 1950s they have been exhibited in the Main Sacristy of the Collegiate Church of Guadalajara.

A shot of stitching. 

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