649 - Tapestry with "La Marche II" from the so-called New Series of Military Art

Tapestry with "La Marche II" from the so-called New Series of Military Art Polychrome wool and silk weaving mounted on linen. Picture panel cut from the original frame and border, with a strip of approximately 20 cm lost along both the upper and lower edges. A bullet hole from a pistol shot visible in the full-bottomed wig of the rider in the right foreground. Edges damaged all around; old blue retouching of the sky appears to have run during cleaning and restoration in 2011/2012. Height with backing fabric 320, width 551 cm. Judocus de Vos, Brussels, 1712 - 1724, after designs by Lambert de Hondt (II). The production of tapestries commemorating military victories has a long tradition. For Renaissance audiences, battles were often depicted with considerable violence, whereas in the 17th century there was an increasing tendency to glorify the victorious military commander. The series from which the present tapestry originates was executed after cartoons by the Flemish artist Lambert de Hondt. As early as the 1690s, his predecessor of the same name had supplied designs for the so-called First Series of Military Art, which were revised and adapted to Baroque taste some ten years later. Elements from the Victories series, commissioned by John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, for his Blenheim Palace, were incorporated into the designs. In contrast to the First Series of Military Art, which was also owned by Marlborough, the Victories series depicted not only scenes of military life but specifically his military triumphs. He commissioned the workshop of Judocus de Vos in Brussels. Following the victory in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria ordered a second version from the same workshop, that of Judocus de Vos. Maximilian Emanuel acquired this tapestry series for his new palace at Schleissheim after the Peace of Baden in 1714 had restored his electoral dignity and territories. It is the most extensive known version of the New Series of Military Art and comprises 14 tapestries of varying formats. According to documentary sources, another series was owned by his son, Clemens August of Bavaria, Elector and Archbishop of Cologne. This appears to have comprised eight tapestries, which are now lost. In Dresden, five tapestries from the New Series of Military Art were documented until the First World War; they were presumably once owned by Augustus the Strong. Today, they form part of the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Alan Wace, who published his study of the military tapestries at Blenheim Palace in 1968, also traced individual tapestries and fragmentary series of the New Series of Military Art to Ivenack Castle in Mecklenburg, Neudeck Castle in Upper Silesia and other collections worldwide. Our tapestry, La Marche II, differs in minor details from the Schleissheim version, but is identical to the La Marche II tapestry in the V&A. As the border of the present tapestry has been lost, its original commissioner can no longer be identified; the patron's coat of arms might otherwise have been placed centrally in the upper border. It is likewise no longer possible to compare the border design with those of other tapestries. Although it has not been established whether historical figures are depicted in the tapestry, the colour of the clothing and the close resemblance to a portrait by Charles Parrocel suggest that the nobleman in the blue justaucorps at the centre of the composition may be the Sun King, Louis XIV. If so, the commissioner was presumably either himself a member of the Bourbon alliance or sympathetic to it. The presale viewing of this lot will take place exclusively at our Brussels premises, Rue du Grand Cerf 6, from 29 October to 20 November. Provenance Franz A. Menna, Cologne, auction on 11/12 July 1950, lot 631. From 1950, Steigenberger Hotel Frankfurter Hof, Frankfurt am Main. Nagel, Stuttgart, auction on 9 June 2010, lot 167. Private collection, Munich, since 2010. Literature Cf. Wace, The Marlborough Tapestries at Blenheim Palace and their Relation to Other Military Tapestries of the War of the Spanish Succession, London–New York 1968.