Tapestry with scenes of the war of Troy, Tournai, Belgium, 1475-1490. Museum no.6-1887
The War of Troy tapestry is part of one of the most important sets of tapestry still surviving from the latter part of the 15th century. The Trojan War tapestries were made in Tournai between 1460 and 1490 and are the only set of Medieval tapestries for which the original designs still exist.
This tapestry is from a much larger original set which showed a medieval version of the history of the Trojan wars. The tapestry has been cut into three vertical sections, with the two left sections being again cut horizontally. It is thought that there were originally 11 tapestries, of which this example is the ninth. Some of the other tapestries survive and the original drawings are in the Louvre in Paris.
The story of the Trojan War comes from The Iliad, one of the great epic poems of ancient Greece, but the scenes here are based on much later re-tellings. The popularity of the story is largely because rulers and noblemen saw the characters and their deeds as models for their own behaviour. The sumptuous 15th-century costumes worn by the figures in the tapestry emphasise this sense of identification. The tapestry is crammed with beautifully executed and lively scenes of battle, kings, queens, princes, warriors and horses. Contemporary costume and armour, waving banners and a military tent are depicted in exquisite detail.
Detail showing Queen Penthesilea and King Priam of Troy, from a tapestry with Scenes of the War of Troy, 1475-1490. Museum no.6-1887
Detail showing Pyrrhus recieving Achilles' armour, from a tapestry with Scenes of the War of Troy, 1475-1490. Museum no.6-1887
The events unfold from left to right. On the left, the Amazon Queen Penthesilea kneels before King Priam of Troy and offers to help him repel the Greek forces that are besieging the city. Troy is depicted as a great medieval castle or walled city.
In the centre section, Queen Penthesilea's Amazon troops are ranked outside on of Troy's gates. The knights of both armies have clashed and are closely pressed together. The battle scenes reflect the arms, armour and tactics of the 15th century rather than those of the ancient Greeks.
The beardless youth on the right of the tapestry is Pyrrhus, the son of the great Greek warrior Achilles. The death of Achilles was shown in the preceding tapestry. Here Ajax presents Pyrrhus with his father's armour.
This tapestry is the ninth in a series of eleven. Woven in the Netherlands between 1475 and 1490, they portray the fall of the ancient city of Troy. This tapestry is over 4 metres, or 13 feet, high and 7 metres, or 23 feet, long. It's an incredibly detailed work, crammed with figures wearing richly decorated robes and armour.
At the base, a Latin script explains the scenes. The story is read from left to right. Although the tapestry is no longer complete, the portion displayed here shows three separate events that took place after the death of the great warrior Achilles.
On the left, the Amazon warrior queen Penthesilea kneels before King Priam of Troy to promise her aid in repelling the Greek army that is besieging the city. Penthesilea wears armour over a scarlet and gold robe ornamented with stylised flowers. On her head is a tall, cone-shaped hat of gold encrusted with precious stones. King Priam of Troy is portrayed as an elderly bearded man, in the manner of an eastern potentate. He's dressed in a sumptuous robe of deep blue and gold, worn with an ermine cape. Priam touches Penthesilea's shoulder with his right hand. Behind them Amazon soldiers and Trojan noblemen confer. The backdrop to this scene are the walls of Troy, depicted as a great fortified city.
In the central scene, battle is underway. The grim-faced women of the Amazon army pour out from the gate of Troy on the left, on foot and on horseback. They join the Trojan army to push back the attacking Greeks. The soldiers of the Greek army press in from the right and the scene is a tangled mê lé e of men and women brandishing swords and thrusting with pikes. Blood streams from wounded bodies. In the centre, Penthesilea herself is astride a horse. She has her sword upraised to smite the Greek hero Ajax, who raises his sword in response.
The third section of the tapestry portrays Achilles' young son, Pyrrhus, receiving his dead father's armour. He stands at the entrance to a blue pavilion, with Ajax on his left and King Agamemnon, leader of the besieging Greek forces, on his right. Pyrrhus is a beardless youth with jaw-length brown hair. His eyes are fixed on his father's winged golden helmet. Ajax, in a red and gold brocade robe, buckles Pyrrhus's belt for him while a servant bends to attach a spur to the young man's heel. King Agamemnon's tunic is made of chainmail and decorated with a lion's head. Both Agamemnon and Pyrrhus clutch the same tall staff with a long blue banner wound around it.
From original drawings, we know there is a further scene, now missing from this tapestry, showing Pyrrhus going into battle against the Amazons. The final fall of Troy was depicted in the eleventh tapestry in the series.
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Video: The War of Troy Tapestry
In this video Lynda Hillyer, Head of Tapestry Conservation in the V&A's Conservation Department, talks about how the tapestry was made and how it was conserved and cleaned.
Lynda Hillyer: This is one third of a very important 15th Century tapestry which measures 7.5 metres by 4 metres. It was woven in Tournai in Northern France in the 15th century. The whole set was eleven tapestries, so it was an enormous amount of wall covering.
Charles VIII of France hung the whole eleven tapestries at a reception after his marriage to Anne of Brittany in 1491. It's a fantastic idea to think of eleven of these tapestries all being hung covering the castle walls. This is part of the ninth in the series and the whole story in the tapestries is about the Trojan Wars.
How is the tapestry made?
All textiles consist of a warp and a weft. The warp, which forms the basic structure of the tapestry, runs in this direction - horizontally. The weft, which forms the colour and the pattern, comes up and over each warp. It's called a weft faced plain weave. If you look closely at this damaged area, you can see that the coloured weft goes over and under the plain warp and covers it completely.
How is the tapestry conserved and cleaned?
Because tapestries could be taken down from the walls and moved from house to house, or castle to castle probably, they were handled a lot and they often didn't fit into another castle or house, so often you might find a doorway's been cut out.
In the case of this tapestry - which is very, very wide, it's 7.5 metres wide - it was probably too big to fit into another house so it was cut into three separate tapestries.
Tapestries can suffer from moth damage, from mechanical damage, they can be torn, they've had a long life. This is 500 years old, we don't know what its history has been.
For example, here, a large piece has been torn out and been repaired with a piece of linen. You can see a patch on the back.
In very large areas they have painted the linen to try to make up the loss of the colours and the pattern. The colours in this tapestry are still remarkably good, but they are a little bit faded. If you look at the back you can see that they are more vivid.
In the 15th Century all of the dyes would have been natural dyes. The red for example could have been madder, which comes from a plant, or it may have been a dye called kermes which is made from crushed insects.
It's been thoroughly vacuumed because it was quite dusty. Tina has been taking out a lot of the old repairs and the old patches. It's then going to go to a special installation in Belgium for wet cleaning.
The installation consists of a very large room, the floor of which is perforated. The tapestry is laid on the perforated floor and water vapour mixed in with a special detergent is drawn through the tapestry and the perforated floor by means of suction. So it is a giant suction table.
It's a very safe way of cleaning a large tapestry because there is no handling involved, we don't have to move it when it's wet which is when it's much more vulnerable. You see here the whole process.
After the cleaning has been carried out the tapestry is blotted dry with this cotton sheeting and then warm air is pulled through the tapestry again by suction. So that the whole process is complete within about eight hours. And you can see how efficient it is.
These are samples of the rinse water from this tapestry which has just been washed. You can see it started out very, very dirty until it becomes much clearer and cleaner.
After it's been cleaned it's going to be completely supported. The tapestry will come back from Belgium to the textile conservation studio in the V& A. It will be put on to a tapestry repair frame. Also on the frame will be a roller of this linen scrim which is an open fine-weave linen. And the entire tapestry will be stitched on to a complete support of this linen scrim to hang completely safely.
We estimate it will take approximately 3500 hours. So that's three working years for one conservator.
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