Franses Tapestry Archive


The Franses Tapestry Archive and Library in London is devoted to the study of European tapestries and figurative textiles. It is the world’s largest academic research resource on the subject.

History

Established in 1987, the archive was co-founded by Simon Franses, a director of the Franses Gallery and Tom Campbell, a tapestry scholar. After 7 years of full-time work Dr Campbell moved to New York to take up a curatorial post at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He went on to curate two landmark Tapestry exhibitions Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence and Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor. In 2008 he was appointed director of the museum.
The vast collection of images began to be collected by Dr Campbell with a team of research assistants, and was gathered from across Europe and America. The Archive has continued to expand over 29 years. It now holds over 240,000 visual records of European tapestries accessible by subject, date, country of manufacture and place of origin. These records have been collected and catalogued from several hundred museums, libraries, auction houses, trade and private collections, and allows precise identification of individual works.

Mission

The images are stored under almost 900 main headings from Landmark Series of European Tapestries to more modest works, altar frontal, table carpets, cushions and upholstery.
Tapestry Series TitleCenturySubjectArchive RefNotes
The Beaufort Arms14thArmorial68
Apocalypse14thReligious434/435Château d'Angers
Nine Heroes15thHistory/Religious145
Saint Piat and Saint Eleutherius15thReligious430/436Tournai Cathedral
Devonshire Hunting Tapestries15thHunting305
The Justice of Trajan and Herkenbald15thHistory131
The Ceasar Tapestries15thHistory117-
Life of Saint Peter15thReligious438-
History of Troy15thHistory260
The Hunt of the Unicorn15thAllegory4
The Lady and the Unicorn16thAllegory4
The Honours16thAllegory52
Acts of the Apostles16thReligious424Vatican Museums
The Grotesques of Leo X16thMythology82Vatican Museums
The Hunts of Maximlillien16thHunting746Louvre
The Passion16thReligious407
Scuola Nouva16thReligious400Vatican Museums
Deeds of Scipio16thHistory136-
The Story of Scipio16thHistory133
The Seven Deadly Sins16thReligious54
The Story of Joshua16thReligious368
The Story of Joseph16thReligious364-
The Story of Saint Paul16thReligious440
The Story of Abraham16thReligious351
The Jagiellonian Tapestries16thVariousVarious
The Battle of Pavia16thHistory162Museo di Capodimonte
16thHistory154
Early History of Rome16thHistory131-
Fables of Ovid "Poesia"16thMythology252
The Valois Tapestries16thCourtly279Uffizi
The Armada16th/17thHistory153
The Story of Vulcan17thMythology534
Hero and Leander17thMythology530
The Story of Queen Artemesia17thHistory675
The Triumph of the Eucharist17thReligious336
The Story of Constantine17thHistory676
Story of Achilles17thMythology231
Decius Mus17thHistory125
Stories from the Old Testament17thReligious693-
The Story of Alexander17thHistory723-
The Royal Residences17thHunting700-
The Gallery of Apollo17thPortraits727
The Elements17thAllegory697-
Histoire du Roi17thHistory726-
New Indies18thAllegory730-
Hunts of Louis XV18thHunting745-
Don Quixote18thMyth/Literature275
Fragments from the Opera18thMyth/Literature742
Holy Grail Tapestries19thMyth/LiteratureMorris

The Collection includes:

Institutions

Galleries

The Archive has undertaken a number of research projects. A joint survey with the National Trust of the Tapestries in their 200 historic houses was carried out. Assistance is given to academics and scholars and where copyright is owned, images are made available for publication.
A project with Glasgow City Art Gallery and Museum assembling documentation from the Archive on Sir William Burrell’s collection of medieval tapestries. The Burrell Collection has appointed two international tapestry scholars to catalogue this Tapestry collection. The archive assisted with the academic research and securing loans for the "History Woven in Threads" an Exhibition of Medieval and Renaissance Tapestries held in 2014 at Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Vilnius.

Surveys

Several missing or stolen pieces have been recovered through the Archive – in 1993 two Gobelins Tapestries stolen from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York, were located and returned, and a Brussels Tapestry stolen from North Mymms Park, England. In 2001 The Art Loss Register deposited images of missing or stolen tapestries and textiles.

Other uses of the documentation

The documentation is also used to provide appraisals for government indemnity in the case of inter-museum loans, grant-giving bodies and Acceptance in Lieu.

General

*