At any rate, this pretty wool velvet found such favour with kings that
even Louis XIV encouraged its continuance, gathering it under the roof
of the all-embracing Gobelins.

A large royal order embraced ninety-two pieces, intended to cover the
Grand Galerie of the Louvre. Many of these pieces are preserved to-day
and are conserved by the State.

If Savonnerie has never produced much that is noteworthy in the line
of art, at least it has given us many pretty bits of an endearing
softness, bits which cover a chair or panel a screen, to the delight
of both eye and touch. The softness of the weave makes it especially
appropriate to furniture of the age of luxurious interiors which is
represented by the styles of Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Portraits in this style of weave were executed at a time when
portraits were considered improved by translation into wool, but
except as curiosities they are scarcely successful. An example hangs
in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Plate facing page 162.)
In the Gobelins factory of to-day are four looms for the manufacture
of Savonnerie.

[Illustration: SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

[Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE

Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York]

CHAPTER XVII

MORTLAKE

1619-1703

The three great epochs of tapestry weaving, with their three
localities which are roughly classed as Arras in the Fifteenth
Century, Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, and Paris in the
Seventeenth, had, as a matter of course, many tributary looms. It is
not supposable that a craft so simple, when it is limited to
unambitious productions, should not be followed by hundreds of modest
people whose highest wish was to earn a living by providing the market
with what was then considered as much a necessity as chairs and
tables.

To take a little retrospective journey through Europe and linger among
these obscurer weavers would be delectable pastime for the leisurely,
and for the enthusiast. But we are all more or less in a hurry, and
incline toward a courier who will point out the important spots
without having to hunt for them. Artois had not only Arras; Flanders
had not only Brussels; France had not only the State ateliers of Paris
and Beauvais; but all these countries had smaller centres of
production. The tapestries from some of these we are able to identify,
even to weave a little histo