Article No: 78J / 2888

Origin: Aubusson-France

Period: 20th century

Provenance: Private Collection

Composition: Wool and coton

Dimension: 3.70 L x 2.60 H

Jean LURCAT (1892-1966)

Signed lower right

Monogram of the licier Goubely in the lower left corner

On an ochre yellow background, a sun with red-orange rays stands out in the centre. It is divided into four parts like a coat of arms, with an amphora decorated with olive branches, oak leaves, a sheep's head and these verses: I am male but I am beautiful / Never empty of fragrant wine. The rest of the tapestry is decorated with the leaves of different fruit trees and, on the left, bunches of grapes and glasses of wine. In the upper right-hand corner are these verses: In our flowerbeds are the best fruits / New yet or already ripe that / I have kept for you the / Spikenard and the / Saffron the cinnamon and the / Cinnamon reed the myrrh & the aloe / And all the incense woods.

The sun and a motif recur in the Lurçat tapestries, symbol of life and hope. We find these two characteristics in Liberté, a famous tapestry in homage to the eponymous poem by Paul Eluard (Jean Lurçat Museum, Angers).

Biography :

Jean Lurçat is a French painter, ceramist and designer of tapestry.

He owes his fame mainly to his tapestry works, the language of which he renovated in depth.

After studying natural sciences, he decided to give up his medical career and left for Paris. There he attended the School of Fine Arts, then entered the Colarossi Academy, rue de la Grande-Chaumière, where he became a pupil of the engraver Bernard Naudin. The following year, he founded the review "Les feuilles de mai", in which Bourdelle, Elie Faure, Vildrac, Rilke collaborated ... His first tapestries were executed in point on canvas (1915-1932). It was in 1933 that his first works were produced on a low-rail loom, in Aubusson's studio for L'Orage, in high-rail at the Gobelins for Les Illusions d'Icare.

In 1937, he discovered the Apocalypse d'Angers tapestry: for him it was an aesthetic and technical revelation. He thus created cardboard in colors no longer painted but numbered and limited in number, a technical revolution which was to lead to a commercial revolution; the execution time is thus reduced, but the work of the weaver becomes purely mechanical.

The 1940 war steered her towards committed subjects: Es la Verdad (1942) and Liberté (1943, according to Eluard's poem) were woven clandestinely in Aubusson. Then he worked on monumental works for churches (Assy, 1947, Tapestry of the Apocalypse) as well as for public buildings (wine museum in Beaune, 1947).

It was in 1957 that Aubusson began working on this gigantic hanging, in ten panels, entitled Le Chant du monde. It illustrates over eighty meters long the anxieties and hopes of man in the atomic age, " L`Homme en gloire dans la paix " being the ultimate, optimistic and victorious response to the various aggressions represented essentially by L'Homme d'Hiroshima.

Our house ensures the sale of a tapestry with invoice and approved expertise, well cleaned, in good condition with its fixing system. If this should be necessary, we will tell you what work has been done. All our tapestries can be presented to you at your home in France and neighboring countries before your final decision.