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The Royal Windsor Tapestry Manufactory, 1876-1890

The Tapestry Descriptions

Introduction to The Royal Windsor Tapestry Works

Index to the Tapestries

3. THE QUEEN'S SOFA

Cartoon for Queen's Sofa

The Cartoon for the Queen's Sofa

Date: 1877-78
Artist: T. W. Hay
Subject: A gilt Louis XVI Sofa in the Beauvais style, made by order of Queen Victoria.
Cartoon: Two full size cartoons for this sofa are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Prints Drawings and Paintings section, Textiles Anon. Catalogue E. 1030-1031-1925: "Sofa-covering with arabesques, flowers and ribbon design". Tempera.
Size: 214 by 68 cm. and 333 by 772 cm.
Warps: Not known
Colours: Cream ground, silver greys and light greens. The back has a medallion of light blue bearing the Queen's monogram "VR" in silver with the crown above in gold on red. The seat is similar without the monogram, and with a centre of wild roses wreathed around a shallow Grecian urn. The wild rose or eglantine occurs in several Windsor tapestry designs and as a motif in Royal Windsor Stained Glass borders.
Border: As furniture pieces there is no border as such, but two rows of leaf and line chains encircle each piece.
Marks: The cartoons are marked "Sofa for H.M. The Queen" in red Roman capitals, with "Royal Windsor Tapestry" under. (This was added after 1878, when the tapestry was woven, because the designation "Royal" was not granted by the Queen until December 1880).
Sale prices: Not known to be offered for sale
Exhibited: Bassano Galleries Exhibition, 1881;
Guildhall Windsor, 1878;
Chicago World's Fair, 1893
Ownership: Possibly in the Royal Collection at Windsor.


References:
Queen Victoria's Journal. 5 March, 1878
Furniture Gazette, 26 January, 1877 and 14 December, 1878, p.397
Royal Windsor Tapestries, Walter Henry Harris, 1893. Privately printed.
The Art Journal, 1878, p.106, and 1879, p.64
WE, 7 December, 1878
Bassano, no. 13
VAMC, E. 1030-1031, 1925
Harris
Brignolas
WT

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