The Art of Tapestry, Helen Wyld

The author and scholar Helen Wyld invites the reader into the sumptuous world of woven image, exploring how tapestry rose from medieval walls to become one of Europe’s grand art-forms. Drawing on the vast collection of the National Trust — over 600 historic examples housed in English and Welsh country houses — the book presents not only dazzling colour plates of mythological, natural-world and historical scenes, but also a clear and engaging narrative of technique, patronage, production and revival.  In the manner of a Selvedge-style piece, the volume treats the tapestry as a textured object: you are encouraged to see the warp and weft, to sense the craft and labour, to connect the stitched figure of Diana or the hunting scene with the loom, the workshop, and the political power of display.

Wyld divides the book into accessible but rich thematic sections—“Art and Industry”, “Ritual and Presence”, “The Woven Image”, “Tapestry and History”—while an early chapter on technique situates tapestry as both industrially-organised craft and high art. The book emphasises how these large woven works were once among the highest-status forms of decoration in Europe, occupying rooms of power and influence, and how their revival in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries renews their relevance in a world that too often sees textile as domestic rather than monumental.

About the Author
Helen Wyld studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art and spent four years researching the National Trust’s tapestry collection, generously supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. She has held curatorial roles—including for the National Museum of Scotland, where she is Senior Curator of Historic Textiles, overseeing Scottish and European textiles from the medieval period to 1850. Wyld’s scholarship bridges the gap between material craft and visual art, making the tapestry’s textures visible and meaningful.

Publication date: 2022
Publisher:  Bloomsbury
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781781301128