Wallflowers: Tapestry, Painting, and the Nabis in Fin-de-siècle France by Cindy Kang A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Institute of Fine Arts New York University May 2014 ———————————— Linda Nochlin © Cindy Kang All Rights Reserved, 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of many individuals and institutions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Wellesley College funded a wonderfully prolific year of research and travel in Europe, during which I was based in Paris. The bulk of my archival work, as well as study of objects in museum galleries and store rooms, was conducted during this seminal year. The Getty Research Institute hosted me for another crucial year in which I wrote the majority of this dissertation. I am indebted to the GRI for providing me with the invaluable “room of one’s own” to gather my thoughts and write in such a tranquil setting. I am even more grateful, however, for its generous support and accommodation of a new working mother; their efforts count as nothing short of heroic in this country. The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU also supported this project in its beginning stages and I would especially like to thank my committee for their unflagging encouragement and confidence in me: my advisor, Linda Nochlin, remained an enthusiastic reader and advocate of this project from its conception to its completion; Robert Lubar was an equally supportive mentor and intellectual guide; and Thomas Crow, who reminded me to maintain balance in my life amidst the rigor of working on a dissertation. The staff at all the institutions I visited to conduct research deserve many thanks for giving me access to the works of art and primary sources that form the foundation of this dissertation: Isabelle Collet, chief curator, and the staff at the Documentation Center, Musée du Petit Palais; Jean Vittet and Liliane Lerable, archivists, Mobilier national, as well as Barbara Caen for inviting me to join her viewing appointments at the MN; Philippe Thiébaut, curator, iii and the staff of the Documentation Center, Musée d’Orsay; Nathalie Houzé, archivist, and Bertrand Lorquin, director, Musée Maillol; the staff of the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France; Anne Robbins, assistant curator, National Gallery, London; Kirsten Toftegaard, curator, Designmuseum, Copenhagen; Line Clausen Pedersen, curator, and Flemming Friborg, director, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek; Gloria Groom, curator, Art Institute of Chicago; Emese Pásztor, curator, the conservators in the Textile and Costume Department, and Dóra Reichart, archivist, Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest; Eszter Földi, curator, Hungarian National Gallery; Mónika Lackner and Hajnalka Fülöp, curators, Museum of Ethnography, Budapest; Judit Geskó, chief curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest; Kimberly Jones, associate curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Marie El-Caidi, Documentation Center, Musée Maurice Denis; Tom Norris, curatorial associate, Norton-Simon Museum. I have benefitted from discussions with numerous scholars, many of whom were mentioned above, and to this list I would like to add Laura Morowitz, Charissa Bremer-David, Elizabeth Cleland, and Rossella Froissart. I would also like to extend deepest thanks to the friends/emerging scholars who tirelessly read and commented on my chapters: Brendan Sullivan, Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch, and Katharine L. H. Wells. Their intellectual and moral support carried me through this long and arduous process. My final and most heartfelt debt of gratitude goes to my family: my parents, who unquestioningly supported my foolhardy desire to pursue a Ph.D. in art history; my husband, Jeremy, who gamely and devotedly came with me wherever my research took us, and made this journey a joint adventure; and our son, Jay Xinlong, whose wondrous appearance in our lives put this project into perspective. iv ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the dialogue between painting and tapestry that developed in late nineteenth-century France, specifically at the Manufacture nationale des Gobelins, and in the work of the avant-garde artists known as the Nabis. Nineteenth-century tapestry remains an obscure subject in scholarship and its influence on painting is thus not well-known or understood. This study aims to recover the symbiotic relationship that existed between tapestry and painting, and demonstrate the importance of studying the fine and decorative arts in tandem. It furthermore presents an evaluation of tapestry’s place in the history of modern art, as well as a study of the socio-cultural anxieties that accompanied rapid industrialization and technological progress in the late nineteenth century, examined through the luxury craft of tapestry. Part I outlines a history of the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins, the state tapestry manufactory, from the birth of the Third Republic in 1871, to the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris. It is divided into three chapters following the tenure of three directors: Alfred Darcel, Édouard Gerspach, and Jules Guiffrey. Part II examines the needlepoint hangings of the Nabi circle in the 1890s. With a chapter each on Aristide Maillol, Paul Ranson, and József Rippl- Rónai, this section compares and contrasts the approaches of these three artists to needlepoint “tapestry,” in order to elucidate the issues of art’s relationship to industry, nationalism, ideals of patronage, and gendered labor. With regard to the last issue, it was the artists’ wives/ companions—Clotilde Narcisse, France Ranson, and Lazarine Boudrion— who executed the majority of their designs. Part III analyzes how Édouard Vuillard drew from tapestry to re- conceptualize modern painting through two monumental decorative commissions: The Album (1895), and the Vaquez panels (1896). These are exemplary of his so-called “tapestry aesthetic.” v I go beyond the general scholarly assessment that his paintings resemble tapestry to argue that tapestry provided him a haptic model for painting, and explore how his painting engaged with tapestry in the wider circulation of material culture of the fin-de-siècle. An epilogue follows Vuillard’s tapestry aesthetic into the twentieth century and examines how it was buried and replaced by Henri Matisse’s re-definition of the decorative in modernist painting. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT v LIST OF PLATES viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xv INTRODUCTION 1 PART I. Looming Change: The Gobelins at the End of the Nineteenth Century 14 Chapter 1. Alfred Darcel: Reconstruction and Experimentation 16 Chapter 2. Édouard Gerspach: The Gobelins under Siege 38 Chapter 3. Jules Guiffrey: Towards Modern Tapestry 58 PART II. Brotherhood of the Wool: Needlework and the Nabis 87 Chapter 4. Aristide Maillol and the Ethics of Handcraft 92 Chapter 5. Paul Ranson: Tapestry and Collectivity 116 Chapter 6. József Rippl-Rónai: Between Paris and Budapest 131 Part II Conclusion 155 PART III. Faire tapisserie : Édouard Vuillard’s Tapestry Aesthetic 157 Chapter 7. The Album : Exploring Paradigms of Tapestry 162 Chapter 8. The Vaquez Panels: Tapestry and Bourgeois Modernism 185 EPILOGUE 214 BIBLIOGRAPHY 233 PLATES LIST OF PLATES Plates 1a-d: Alexis-Joseph Mazerolle, cartoons for Wine, Fruits, Tea , and Coffee , oil on canvas, 1872-73, Mobilier national, Paris Plates 2a-b: Mazerolle’s Hunting and Fishing installed in the Rotonde du Glacier, Palais Garnier, Paris. Author’s photographs. Plate 3: Gobelins Manufactory, Penelope at Her Loom , designed by Diogène Ulysse Maillart, woven 1873-75, wool and silk, Mobilier national, Paris Plate 4: Detail of Penelope at Her Loom Plate 5: Gobelins Manufactory, Saint Agnes , designed by Louis-Auguste-Charles Steinheil, woven by Emile Maloisel 1875-76, wool, Mobilier national, Paris Plate 6: Detail of Saint Agnes Plate 7: Gobelins Manufactory, The Heron , designed by Jean-Joseph Bellel, woven 1879-84, Luxembourg Palace Plate 8: Gobelins Manufactory, The Roe Deer , designed by Alexandre Rapin, woven 1888-89, Luxembourg Palace Plate 9: Gobelins Manufactory, The Siren and the Poet , designed by Gustave Moreau, woven 1896-99, wool and silk, Mobilier national, Paris Plate 10: Gobelins Manufactory, A Tournament Scene from the End of the Fourteenth Century , designed by Jean-Paul Laurens, woven 1895-99, wool and silk, Mobilier national, Paris Plate 11: Gobelins Manufactory, The Conquest of Africa , designed by Georges Rochegrosse, woven 1896-99, wool and silk, Mobilier national, Paris Plate 12: Detail of The Siren and the Poet Plate 13: Magnification of The Siren and the Poet showing the crapaud technique Plates 14a-b: Maison Leclercq, The Festival of Spring , designed by Eugène Grasset, 1900, Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy Plate 15: Gobelins Manufactory, trial study for A Tournament Scene, designed by Laurens, woven 1893, present location unknown, reproduced in Art et Décoration , vol. 2, no. 8 (August 1897): opp. p. 42 viii Plate 16: Magnification of A Tournament Scene showing chiné technique Plate 17: French, Armorial of the Golden Fleece , ca. 1430-61, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 4790, fol. 71 Plate 18: French, Armorial of the Golden Fleece , ca. 1430-61, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 4790, fol. 154v Plate 19: Jean-Paul Laurens, model for A Tournament Scene , 1894, watercolor, gouache, pencil, pen and brown ink on paper, Mobilier national, Paris Plate 20: Detail of A Tournament Scene (author’s photograph taken at an oblique angle) Plate 21: Attributed to Barthélemy d’Eyck, The Tournament