I feel it incumbent on me to mention that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is holding a Tapestry Show, Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor, on until Jan. 6, 2007. There are about 45 Tapestries, from all over the world, only two from our collection. It is a spectacular exhibit. Several of the pieces have never left their homes before. It is extremely rare for a museum to have the wall space, man power and persuasive ability that it takes to mount such a beautiful show and it is unlikely that we will see many such in our life times. You can visit the website _www.metmuseum.org_ (http://www.metmuseum.org) to find out more about it and even see quite a few images. Vis a vis lace content in this message. The exhibit is interesting from a lace standpoint for two reasons. Some of the characters so meticulously woven are wearing lace, rendered in tapestry technique. Particularly delightful is one tapestry depicting Louis XIV and his court where everyone is decked out in lace and ribbons. But on a deeper level, the relation to lace is that the theme of this show is pretty much about how after the sack of Antwerp and the arrival of the Duke of Alba, the fine tapestry weavers of Flanders scattered all over Europe setting up tapestry workshops in other foreign seats where there were wealthy royal patrons. An example is the Gobelins tapestry workshop in France. The story of the movement of the Flemish craftworkers in the face of religious persecution and civil unrest is related to the movement of the Flemish lacemakers around Europe. In fact, Louis XIV imported, very secretly, due to possible repercussions against their relatives, Flemish tapestry weavers to start the Gobelins tapestry works under the same Colbert backed initiative that also brought lacemakers to France for the French lacemaking industries. I think anyone interested in fiber would find this a stunning show. Devon
************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
