s_ of Raphael, the first set, was woven by
Peter van Aelst without a mark, but the set at Madrid bears the marks
of several Brussels weavers, some attributed to Nicolas Leyniers.

The desirability of distinguishing tapestries by marks in the galloon
appealed to other weaving centres, and the method of Brussels found
favour outside that town. Presently Bruges adopted a sign similar to
that of her neighbour, by adding to the double B and shield a small b
traversed by a crown.

[Illustration: JACQUES GEUBELS]

[Illustration: NICOLAS LEYNIERS]

[Illustration: BRUGES]

In Oudenarde, that town of wonderful verdures, the weavers, as though
by trick of modesty, often avoided such clues to identity as a woven
letter might be, and adopted signs. However significant and famous
they may have been in the Sixteenth Century, they mean little now. The
town mark with which these were combined was distinctly a striped
shield with decoration like antennae.

[Illustration: OUDENARDE]

Enghien is one of the tapestry towns of which we are gradually
becoming aware. Its products have not always been recognised, but of
late more interest is taken in this tributary to the great stream of
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

The famous Peter or Pierre van Aelst, selected from all of Flanders'
able craftsmen to work for Raphael and the Pope, was born in this
little town, wove here and, more yet, was known as Pierre of Enghien.
Yet it is the larger town of Brussels which wore his laurels.

[Illustration: ENGHIEN]

The Enghien town marks are an easy adaptation of the arms of the
place, and the weavers' marks are generally monograms.

Weavers' marks, after playing about the eccentricities of cipher,
changed in the Seventeenth Century to easily read initials, sometimes
interlaced, sometimes apart. Later on it became the mode to weave the
entire name. An example of these is the two letters C of Charles de
Comans on the galloon of _Meleager and Atalanta_ (plate facing page
68); and the name G. V. D. Strecken in the _Antony and Cleopatra_
(plate facing page 79).

Other countries than Flanders were wise in their generation, and
placed the marks that are so welcome to the eye of the modern who
seeks to know all the secrets of the tapestry before him. In the
Seventeenth Century, when Paris was gathering her scattered decorative
force for later demonstration at the Gobelins, the city had a pretty
mark for its own, a simple fleu