In Europe, tapestry weaving emerged as a highly developed art form in the Middle Ages, about 1000-1300. Tapestries were sought after because they conveyed pictorial content much like paintings, but unlike large-scale paintings or frescoes they could be easily rolled and stored or transported. They were also much more labor-intensive to produce and therefore more costly than paintings. This made them ideally suited to reflect the high status of their owners. Their portability also suited the lifestyles of wealthy owners who moved from estate to estate throughout the year.
All tapestries are hand-woven textiles. Like most fabrics woven on a loom, they contain warp threads – the lengthwise threads that are tightly stretched on the loom frame before weaving begins – and weft threads – the crosswise threads that pass over and under the warps. What distinguishes tapestries from other woven fabrics is that the weft threads are always inserted by hand, and they do not travel across the full width of the textile but are manipulated back and forth by the weaver so they traverse only a particular section of warp threads. The weaver “paints” an image by inserting different sections of variously colored weft threads in accordance with a design.
To produce a high-quality, large-scale tapestry like this one, the expertise of many individuals was required. First, an artist developed the design. This design was then translated into a full-size pattern called a cartoon, a task often carried out by one who specialized in this process of transference. Then several weavers would be needed to set up the loom with warp threads, sketch the outlines of the design onto the warp threads (which were typically uncolored), and then weave the tapestry using variously colored weft threads.
In Europe, two basic kinds of looms were used to create tapestries: the low-warp loom and the high-warp loom. With a high-warp loom, the warp threads were stretched vertically. As the weaver worked, he or she sat upright, face-to-face with the warp threads.
This image shows a weaver at a high-warp loom. In his right hand is a shuttle, a device used to hold a weft of a particular color. The pointed end of the shuttle ensured the weft moved accurately over and under the warp threads as the weaver worked it back and forth. Various shuttles hang from the unfinished tapestry. These held other colors required for the design. With this style of loom, the cartoon would often be placed on the wall behind the weaver. In order to reference the cartoon for details regarding color, a mirror was located behind the warp threads. The weaver would look through the warp threads into the mirror to see a reflection of the cartoon.
In low-warp weaving, the loom was oriented horizontally and the seated weaver looked down onto the warp threads. This image shows weavers side-by-side at a low-warp loom. This method had the advantage of a system of pulleys operated by foot pedals that pulled up alternating warp threads. This created spaces between the warps and facilitated the passing of the weft thread, freeing up both hands for weaving, and speeding up production. In this method, large strips of the cartoon were often cut up and inserted directly onto the loom frame, behind the warp threads, so the weaver looked not at a reflection but directly at the cartoon.
Tapestry quality depended on a number of factors. These included size, sophistication of design, complexity of weaving techniques – particularly at the borders where different colored weft threads met, and the materials used. Most tapestries were made with wool yarns, but fine examples might include silk or even threads wrapped with strips of gold. The fineness of the yarns impacted visual quality, rate of production, and ultimately price: tapestries with a higher number of threads per square inch demanded much higher prices. This tapestry includes silk yarns and has a high thread count, indicating it is very high quality. It probably took five weavers almost nine months to make.