TH€ NINE H6R06S TAP6STR16S ATTH6 C*\ niCTf D C TH€ METROPOLITAN LLUI J I Cl\J MUS6UM OF ART 4* Ax THE CLOISTERS in Fort Tryon Park notable objects from the Middle Ages are shown in relation to their original use. Stonework doorways, windows, and stained glass are incorporated functionalh in the building erected for that purpose in 1938. Here, too, furniture metalwork, paintings, and tapestries such as two magnificent sets the Hunt of the Unicorn and the Nine Heroes, are exhibited tc their best advantage. Since 1938 the Unicorn tapestries have been accessible to a public far wider than that of all the rest of their long history. In 1949 an other series of medieval tapestries of comparable importance wa: placed on exhibition in an adjacent gallery. When the Unicori tapestries were commissioned for Anne of Brittany the Nine Heroe: set had already seen more than a century of use. Judging from the account books of Charles VI, mentioned on page 18, such hanging: would have needed repairs within a decade or so of their purchase and, we may presume, constantly thereafter. What seems to have been a companion set to our tapestries was as told later, "very old and worn" when they passed into the collec tion of the Duke of Bedford hardly a generation after they wen woven. We are reminded elsewhere that Bedford and the Duke o Berry, for whom our Nine Heroes set was made, would meet in oni another's tents under a flag of truce to compare their newly acquirec treasures, only to return to battle the following morning. That such a large part of the original set as now hangs in The Cloisters has survived five and a half centuries is one of the happ'* accidents of history. Probably the most extensive repairs of all wen undertaken by the Museum when the ninety-one fragments of th< original set were acquired in 1947. Actually, this gigantic jigsav operation extended back over the previous dozen years when photo graphs of the pieces as they were then haphazardly sewn togethe were cut up and reassembled in experimental pasteups. When thi tapestries themselves were acquired restorations were started with in an hour. To commandeer in this country the expert talent necessary t< complete the operation with competence and within a reasonable time was a major problem. At one point work was delayed when th cares of maternity overtook one of the skilled restorers. In due course however, a play pen and baby carriage were installed in the tapestr workroom and the mother returned to her needlework with he baby at her side. All in all, according to the Museum records, abou ten thousand needlewoman hours of skilled effort have been spen on cutting apart, reassembling, piecing, and refining. M.B.L A Picture Book THE NINE HEROES TAPESTRIES AT THE CLOISTERS by James J. Rorimer and Margaret B. Freeman The Metropolitan Museum of Art NEW YORK, 1960 ON THE COVER: Alexander the Great (or Hector) and courtiers, a detail from one of the Nine Heroes tapestries (ill. p. 10) FACING TITLE PAGE: Lady playing a rebec. Detail from the tapestry of the Hebrew Heroes, one of the Nine Heroes tapestries (ill. p. 12). At the right is a banner with the Duke of Berry's coat of arms. COPYRIGHT BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART I 953 The text and many of the illustrations for this book were first published in the Metropolitan Museum Bulletin for May ig49, together with an article on the re-installation of the Unicorn tapestries. This issue of the Bulletin was re­ printed in August ig4g in an edition of 5.000 copies under the title Medieval Tapestries at The Cloisters. The present publication has been confined to the Nine Heroes tapestries. The text has been slightly revised, and ten illustrations have been added. 1 he book was printed in an edition of 5,000 copies in April rgjj and. with minor changes in design, reprinted in an edition of 5,000 copies in February ig6o. 3o RARE are surviving fourteenth-century shown in the Retrospective Exhibition held at tapestries that the acquisition for The Cloisters Lyons in France. of The Nine Heroes made for Jean, Duke of Although there are no written records to Berry, is an event of historic importance in the confirm the story, it has been said that the annals of the Museum. The famous Angers Arthur was sold by J. J. Duveen, the father of Apocalypse tapestries are the only other set of the late Lord Duveen, to Monsieur Chabrieres- which substantial portions have survived; and Arles, who lent it to the Lyons exhibition. The there are but a few other single pieces of the tapestry fragments in the curtains were sold by period in existence. The Cloisters set has been the Duveen firm to Baron Arthur Schickler assembled from ninety-four fragments of vari­ just after the Franco-Prussian War. His daugh­ ous sizes. Originally it consisted of three tapes­ ter, Countess Hubert de Pourtales, recalls see­ tries, each more than twenty-one feet wide and ing the fragments lying in a bundle on the floor about sixteen feet high and each representing of her father's castle at Martinvast, five miles three Heroes surrounded by smaller figures in from Cherbourg, about 1872. From about 1876 an architectural setting. The recovery of five of until recent times the curtains made from these the nine Heroes and almost all of the accom­ precious fourteenth-century hangings and lined panying smaller figures has made possible the with a heavy red material were used in the reconstruction of one almost complete tapestry castle windows. Fortunately the curtains were (ill. pp. 12, 13) and major portions of the other no longer at Martinvast during the German two (ill. pp. 9-11). invasion of France, for the aerial bombing of In 1932, when, with funds from the Munsey January 14, 1944, virtually destroyed the room Bequest, the King Arthur tapestry (ill. p. 8) in which they had hung. One old tapestry that was purchased from the Clarence Mackay col­ remained there was consumed by the resulting lection, it was believed that this was the only fire; others were saved by German soldiers who large fourteenth-century piece the Museum had been using the castle and outlying build­ would ever be able to acquire. Yet only four ings for a headquarters. years later Joseph Brummer, New York collec­ Encouraged by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the tor and antiquarian, opened packing cases in Museum tried for more than ten years to ob­ which he pointed proudly to five pairs of win­ tain the fragments for The Cloisters, and when dow curtains made up of ninety-one pieces of the protracted and difficult negotiations were fourteenth-century tapestries. The fragments, concluded, Mr. Rockefeller gave the funds for ranging from mere scraps to pieces eight feet the acquisition and proper rehabilitation of high, were haphazardly sewn together with the tapestries. To help complete the series, a bands of modern blue cloth decorated with fragment showing a knight holding a banner fleurs-de-lis. These tapestries, like the Angers displaying a crescent and three balls (see ill. Apocalypse series, had been cut up in the course p. 13) was presented by Mr. and Mrs. George of centuries. We recognized them at once as A. Douglass. part and parcel of the series to which the King The tapestries have been pieced together in Arthur belonged. In fact, three cardinals that temporary workrooms at The Cloisters. It has originally surmounted the figure of the king taken two years of enthusiastic effort on the were among the fragments in the curtains, and part of expert needleworkers to complete the two figures cut from the right of the Hebrew painstaking task. In assembling the fragments Heroes were sewn to the left side of the Arthur every effort has been made to preserve each —an association dating back at least as far as and every thread. The individual pieces were 1877, the year the Arthur, thus composed, was detached from the modern fabric on which E3J 168183 they had been mounted, and were separated made with a sharp instrument, it was com­ from one another where they had been sewn paratively easy to reweave the fragments once together without rhyme or reason. The pieces their positions had been determined. Most of were then washed individually with soap and the earlier restorations, including the letters at water on specially prepared stretchers. Fitting the top of the Hebrew Heroes, have not been removed. Patching has been kept to a mini­ mum, and where the design is entirely missing, no effort has been made to reconstruct it. Plain tapestry material woven at the National Manu­ factory of the Gobelins in Paris has been used to replace the missing areas. Our Heroes tapestries illustrate a theme of chivalry well loved by noblemen and towns­ men alike, especially in the fourteenth century. The Nine Heroes, called in medieval English the Nine Worthies (in French the Neuf Preux), were first systematized and made popular about 1310 by a jongleur named Jacques de Lon- guyon in his "Vows of the Peacock" (Voeux du Paon), which he added to the older "Romance of Alexander." In this courtly poem of vows and daring deeds he told how his hero, Porus, fought as "never man had fought" before; he fought more bravely than even the nine great heroes of yore. With the medieval poet's aware­ ness of the value of three and three times three, Jacques chose for his roster of heroes three pagans, three Hebrews, and three Christians.