Item Description
Unique midcentury tapestry designed by Jean Lurcat (1892-1966) and woven at Atelier Suzanne Goubely-Gatien in Aubusson, France. Handwoven in wool, they date to circa 1950. The reverse “Carte B” is hand signed by Jean Lurcat. Dimensions: 65 x 90 cm. Inspired by an encounter with one of the largest surviving tapestries from the Middle Ages, the Apocalypse d’Angers, Jean Lurcat stirred his French colleagues to Revive the spirit of tapestry weaving as an art form during the late 1930s. By 1939, with a new and bold visual vocabulary, Lurcat was making cartoons solely meant for the production of tapestry on hand-operated looms in tradition techniques. His single-handed reform of tapestry production during this time centered on bringing the art back to its medieval traditions by drawing on tapestry as a medium in and of itself. Lurcat did not strive to paint with wool, but rather incorporated the limited palette and strong compositional lines of tapestry weaving into his pictures. His voyage to Brazil in 1954 would be a regular source of inspiration for Lurçat, and it is here that the butterfly motif finds its source: “That which I find interesting in the butterfly is not the objective reality of this insect but rather the extraordinary invention which one finds in the overlapping shapes, the effervescent colors, the gratuitous aspect of their coloration”.
