Tapestry

I

Introduction

Tapestry, historically, a handwoven textile or cloth weave, commonly figured, and used as a wall hanging, curtain, carpet, or furniture covering. The term “tapestry” has also been used to identify any pictorial weaving. Since the 18th century, the technical definition of tapestry has been narrowed to include only heavy, reversible, patterned or figured handwoven textiles.

II

Techniques and Materials

Tapestry is also a technique that differs from other forms of weaving in having no weft, or horizontal threads, carried the full width of the fabric. Discontinuous coloured wefts are used in limited areas to produce patterns. The construction of tapestry weave is such that the wefts are much more numerous than the warps, or vertical threads, which are not visible in the finished tapestry.

As in plain cloth weaving, the weft threads pass over and under alternate warp threads with each passage, or pick. After each pick the wefts are beaten tightly together with a batten, reed, comb, or other implement. The thickness of the warp determines the thickness of the fabric. In 14th-century Europe tapestries were woven with about 5 threads per cm (about 12 threads per in). By the 19th century the royal French factory at Beauvais produced tapestries with as many as 10 to 16 threads per cm (25 to 40 per in). Silk tapestries of China commonly have as many as 24 threads per cm (60 per in). The grain of tapestries is also determined by the materials used, usually silk or wool, but also linen, cotton, and metallic threads.

A

Weaves

In tapestry the discontinuous wefts can meet or join in several ways. By the simplest method two wefts coming from opposite directions wrap and turn around adjacent warps, leaving a slit, or open space. This slit may be left open, as in the Chinese k'o-ssu or the kilims of the Middle East, or it may be sewn up after the tapestry is removed from the loom. By another method, called dovetailing, the wefts turn around a common warp thread. Dovetailing is easily recognized by the blurred or saw-toothed outline that makes the fabric heavier at this joining; it is found in 16th-century Persian tapestry rugs, Pre-Columbian Peruvian tapestries, and contemporary Navajo blankets and rugs. Interlocking, introduced in the French Gobelins factory in the 18th century, involves adjacent wefts looped through each other between two warps, giving a more continuous surface much prized by French weavers. Yet another technique is twill, in which the weft is floated over two or more warps, then under one or more warps to form a diagonal ribbing; introduced into Kashmir from Iran in the 16th century, it was used to make the famed Kashmir shawls. In contemporary tapestries eccentric wefts are beaten into curved shapes and packed more tightly in some areas.

B

Looms

Traditional European tapestry may be woven either on a vertical loom (high warp, or haute-lisse) or a horizontal loom (low warp, or basse-lisse). A vertical loom has two horizontal rollers, top and bottom, between which the warps are stretched. Each warp is caught in a loop (heddle or lisse), which is fastened to one of two bars, one attached to the even-numbered threads and the other to odd-numbered threads. The weaver pulls the bars forwards alternately to pass the wefts between the warps. The more commonly used low-warp loom has rollers that stretch the warp horizontally. Odd- and even-numbered warps are attached to poles connected to treadles that are depressed by foot to open the warp. No matter which loom is used, the weaver always works from the back, or “wrong”, side.