Asia from a set of The Four Continents designed ca. 1786, woven 1790–91 Jean Jacques François Le Barbier French This suite of four tapestries and its coordinating upholstery (MMA –.18a–c) were commissioned from the Beauvais manufactory in 1786 and woven between 1790 and 1791.¹ As has been noted, "The attractive and not impossible suggestion that the set was intended to be a gift from King Louis XVI to George Washington was made by the first scholar to publish the but it is not supported by any contemporary evidence."² Regardless of whether the suite was intended as a gift t
Asia from a set of The Four Continents designed ca. 1786, woven 1790–91 Jean Jacques François Le Barbier French This suite of four tapestries and its coordinating upholstery (MMA –.18a–c) were commissioned from the Beauvais manufactory in 1786 and woven between 1790 and 1791.¹ As has been noted, "The attractive and not impossible suggestion that the set was intended to be a gift from King Louis XVI to George Washington was made by the first scholar to publish the but it is not supported by any contemporary evidence."² Regardless of whether the suite was intended as a gift to President Washington, the French Revolution intervened, and it is perhaps miraculous that the tapestries were woven at all. By the time they were complete, the French king was in no position to bestow diplomatic gifts on anyone. It is the representation of America as a rather demure-looking young woman that sets this iconographic scheme apart from other groupings of the Four Continents. In the Beauvais tapestry set, America has evolved from the scantily clad, spear-toting, armadillo-riding, cannibalistic warrior princess seen in sixteenth century representations to the woman dependent on the protection of the female personifications of Liberty and Minerva (whose shield carries the fleur-de-lis of France).³ In addition to this representational shift, the Indian princess who had originally stood for the entire Western Hemisphere here represents only the United States. The concept for this view of America defended by France in the guise of Minerva was suggested by none other than Benjamin Franklin, and a medal based on his suggestion was designed by Augustin Dupre and struck in France in 1782.⁴The production of these tapestries is thus a vivid example of the Gallic enthusiasm for the American colonists’ struggle for independence from Great Britain, France’s longtime foe, which existed at the highest levels of society. This was not the first American subject for t
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