TAPESTRY TALES: THE APOCALYPSE TAPESTRY, ANGERS
Image: The Apocalypse Tapestry on display in the Château d’Angers.
An extraordinary tapestry, commissioned c.1375 by Louis I, Duke of Anjou, that once measured 140 metres in length of which 100 metres survive, is displayed at the Château d’Angers in the Loire valley. Divided into six sections, it illustrates the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation by Saint John in 84 scenes (originally, 90) to the design of Jean de Bruges, a painter who took inspiration from the illuminated bibles of the medieval age. Woven in Paris, it is an example of a tapestry ‘without a reverse’ (sans envers) because both front and back are equally legible – the ends of wool having been meticulously tidied up. This means it’s possible to know what the original colours - unfaded by sunlight or time – were like. Such is the size of the tapestry that we can’t be sure where it was displayed in its entirety. It was certainly shown outdoors in Arles during the marriage of Louis II of Anjou and Yolande d’Aragon in 1400, and eighty years later it was donated to Angers Cathedral. There it remained until the French Revolution, when many luxurious items like this were destroyed. The Apocalypse Tapestry endured its own apocalypse, as it was cut into pieces and used as door mats, insulation for orange trees and horse stables, and to plug holes in buildings. In 1848 the remains were found, restored and returned to the cathedral where it was kept until 1954 when it was moved to the chateau. When the artist Jean Lurçat saw the Apocalypse Tapestry in 1938 he created his own monumental tapestry Le Chant du Monde (The Song of the World), a reimagining of the apocalypse as nuclear war.
Image: ‘The New Jerusalem’ scene from the Apocalypse Tapestry.
The scenes of the Apocalypse tapestry are depicted with red or blue backgrounds and its two-metre height means that angels and monsters are larger than life size. The figure of St John appears in each of the examples shown here. In the first, the new city of Jerusalem is built from veined pink marble with the Lord contained in a scallop-edged cloud that finds its echo in the waved waters below. In ‘The Fourth Trumpet: The Eagle of Misfortune’, the bird appears to cry its warning to the inhabitants of the earth that three more trumpets will sound. In ‘The Seven-headed Beast from the Sea receiving the Homage of Men’ two monsters are allies: the seven-headed beast of the sea, with its leopard-like heads, lion’s snout and ten horns holds the royal sceptre with its fleur-de-lys, a symbol of authority given to it by the winged seven-headed dragon. 
Image: ‘The Fourth Trumpet: The Eagle of Misfortune’ scene from the Apocalypse Tapestry.
Image: ‘The Seven-headed Beast from the Sea receiving the Homage of Men’ scene from the Apocalypse Tapestry.
2 comments
I would very much like to have a guide book, magazine CD in which to see this magnificent art work. Respectfully, Nany Kobs
Yesterday, I had no idea what I would experience when I visited the Chateau Angers. I thought it would be the surviving structure of a once formidable medieval castle-come-palace, but to my utter amazment a greater treasure was housed in a specifially constructed humidity controlled gallery, containg the Apocalypse Tapestries. I have since spent hours studying the pictures contained in a guide book I bought in the castle bookshop during my return to my home in the UK, and I have been left astounded by the pure artistry and construction of this magnificent work. To think it was created nearly 700 years ago, leaves me humbled as a mere observer.
P.H.