Holy Grail tapestries

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The Arming and Departure of the Knights, one of the Holy Grail tapestries. Holy Grail Tapestry -The Arming and Departure of the Kniights.jpg
The Arming and Departure of the Knights, one of the Holy Grail tapestries.

The Holy Grail or San Graal tapestries are a set of six tapestries depicting scenes from the legend of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail. The tapestries were commissioned from Morris & Co. by William Knox D'Arcy in 1890 for his dining room at Stanmore Hall, [1] outside London. [2] [3] Additional versions of the tapestries with minor variations were woven on commission by Morris & Co. over the next decade.

Tapestry form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically discontinuous; the artisan interlaces each coloured weft back and forth in its own small pattern area. It is a plain weft-faced weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the warp to form the design.

King Arthur legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries

King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.

Holy Grail dish, plate, stone, or cup that is part of an important theme of Arthurian literature

The Holy Grail is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Different traditions describe it as a cup, dish or stone with miraculous powers that provide happiness, eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often in the custody of the Fisher King. The term "holy grail" is often used to denote an elusive object or goal that is sought after for its great significance.

Contents

The series

The six original tapestries illustrate the story of the Grail quest as told in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur . Like other Morris & Co. tapestries, the Holy Grail sequence was a group effort, with overall composition and figures designed by Edward Burne-Jones, heraldry by William Morris, and foreground florals and backgrounds by John Henry Dearle. [2] [3] The narrative panels were accompanied by smaller verdure or woodland panels featuring deer, the knights' shields hung on trees, and text telling the story of the panel hung above. The sequence was worked over a period of five years, from 1891 to 1894, at Merton Abbey. The Attainment was the first of the series to be completed, and was shown at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1893. [2]

Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. Since the late 19th century, he has generally been identified as Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. Occasionally, other candidates are put forward for authorship of Le Morte d'Arthur.

Edward Burne-Jones 19th-century English artist

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was an English artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Burne-Jones was closely involved in the rejuvenation of the tradition of stained glass art in Britain; his stained-glass include windows in St. Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham, St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, Chelsea, St Peter and St Paul parish church in Cromer, St Martin's Church in Brampton, Cumbria, St Michael's Church, Brighton, All Saints, Jesus Lane, Cambridge, St Edmund Hall and Christ Church, two colleges of the University of Oxford. His stained glass works also feature in St. Anne's Church, Brown Edge, Staffordshire Moorlands and St.Edward the Confessor church at Cheddleton Staffordshire. Burne-Jones's early paintings show the heavy inspiration of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but by the 1860s Burne-Jones was discovering his own artistic "voice". In 1877, he was persuaded to show eight oil paintings at the Grosvenor Gallery. These included The Beguiling of Merlin. The timing was right, and he was taken up as a herald and star of the new Aesthetic Movement.

Heraldry profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol

Heraldry is a broad term, encompassing the design, display, and study of armorial bearings, as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank, and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch of heraldry, concerns the design and transmission of the heraldic achievement. The achievement, or armorial bearings usually includes a coat of arms on an shield, helmet, and crest, together with any accompanying devices, such as supporters, badges, heraldic banners, and mottoes.

The six tapestries are:

Lancelot Arthurian legend character

Sir Lancelot du Lac, alternatively also written as Launcelot and other spellings, is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He typically features as King Arthur's greatest companion, the lord of Joyous Gard and the greatest swordsman and jouster of the age – until his adulterous affair with Queen Guinevere is discovered, causing a civil war which was exploited by Mordred and brings about the end of Arthur's kingdom.

Gawain King Arthurs nephew and a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend

Gawain, also known as Gawaine or Gauwaine, among various other forms and spellings, is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. Under the name Gwalchmei, he appears very early in the legend's development, being mentioned in some of the earliest Welsh Arthurian sources. As Gawain, he appears in Latin, French, English, Dutch, German and Italian literature, notably as the protagonist of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Other tales of Gawain include Historia Regum Britanniae, Roman de Brut, De Ortu Waluuanii, Diu Crône, The Awntyrs off Arthure, Le Chevalier à l'épée, and The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell, as well as the works of Chrétien de Troyes and the prose cycle Lancelot-Grail.

Galahad knight of the round table

Sir Galahad among other versions of his name, is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity as the most perfect of all knights. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, Sir Galahad first appears in the Lancelot–Grail cycle, and his story is taken up in later works such as the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. His name should not be mistaken with Galehaut, a different knight from Arthurian legend.

Textile historian Linda Parry wrote of the series "their design, decoration and weaving establish them, beyond doubt, as the most significant tapestry series woven in the nineteenth century." [2]

The original set of tapestries remained at Stanmore Hall until D'Arcy's death in 1920. They were subsequently sold and dispersed. Morris & Co. wove a second subset of the narrative panels in 1895 and 1896 for the drawing room at Compton Hall, Lawrence Hodson's seat near Wolverhampton. A third complete set was woven for George McCulloch in 1898 and 1899. Some hangings from these subsequent weavings are in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. [2] [5] Others are in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber. [6] The Stanmore Hall weaving of The Attainment was purchased by guitarist Jimmy Page in 1978; the piece failed to meet its reserve at auction in 2008 and remains in Page's collection. [7] [8]

Wolverhampton City and Metropolitan borough in England

Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 249,470. The demonym for people from the city is 'Wulfrunian'.

George McCulloch (mine owner) British businessman

George McCulloch was a British businessman and art collector who was the mastermind behind the formation of the Broken Hill Mining Company, a precursor of BHP Billiton. He was the son of James McCulloch, a contractor, and Isabella Robertson, a farmer's daughter. George's father died of cholera in January 1849 when George was one year old, and he was brought up by his mother, who was assisted by his uncle John Robertson, a farmer.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local history and industrial history.

Notes

  1. ↑ Stanmore Hall, a Gothic Revival house of the 1840s, stood in Stanmore, Middlesex, northwest of London; commissions at Stanmore are discussed by Susan Moore, "The Marxist and the Oilman: Morris & Co. at Stanmore Hall", Country Life , 178, no. 4604 (14 November 1985:1494-96).
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Parry (1983), pp. 116–17
  3. 1 2 3 Wood (1997), pp. 116–18
  4. ↑ Wildman (1993), p. 308
  5. ↑ Fairchild and Leary (1981), p. 107-109
  6. ↑ Guardian accessed May 17, 2010
  7. ↑ Guardian accessed May 17, 2010
  8. ↑ The Earthly Paradise accessed May 17, 2010

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References

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