Natoire, the artist who had
drawn a set of _Antony and Cleopatra_ for the Gobelins. The same idea
extended to the furniture coverings which ran to this design as well
as to the _Fables_. Thus originated a set familiar to those of us
nowadays who covet and who buy the rare old bits that the niggard hand
of the past accords to the seeker after the ancient.

Exquisite indeed are the hangings by the great interpreter of the
spirit of his time, Francois Boucher. His designs broke from the limit
of the Gobelins, and were woven at Beauvais with the care and skill
required for proper interpretation of his land of mythology. Such
flushed skies of light, such clean, soft trees waving against them and
such human elegance and beauty grouped beneath, have seldom been
reproduced in tapestry, and almost make one wonder if, after all, the
weavers of the Eighteenth Century were not right in copying a finished
painting rather than in interpreting a decorative cartoon. But such
thoughts border on heresy and schism; away with them.

Casanova, Leprince, and a host of others are tacked onto the list of
artists who painted models. We can no longer call them cartoons, so
changed is the mode for Beauvais. But Oudry and Boucher are
pre-eminent.

To the former, who was director as well as artist, is attributed the
fame of the factory and the resulting commercial success. The factory
had a house for selling its wares under the very nose of the Gobelins;
had another in the enemy's country, Leipzig. And kings were the
patrons of these, as we know through the royal collections in Italy,
and Stockholm, where the King of Sweden was an important collector.

It was in 1755 that Beauvais found itself without the support of its
leaders. Both Oudry and his partner in business matters, Besnier, had
died. And we are well on toward the time when kingly support was a
feeble and uncertain quantity. The factory lacked the inspiration and
patronage to continue its importance.

In a few years more fell the blight of the Revolution. The factory was
closed.

It re-opened again under new conditions, but its brilliant period was
past. Will the conditions recur that can again elevate to its former
state of perfection this factory that has given such keen delight,
whose ancient works are so prized by the amateur? It has given us
thrilling examples of the highly developed taste of tapestry weaving
of the Eighteenth Century, it has left us lovable designs in
minia