A late Louis XIV Savonnerie carpet fragment

late 17th century woven with an oval medallion of summer flowers enclosed within a wreath of golden oak leaves with blue ribbon ties surrounded by garlands of flowers with red and yellow foliage, all on a sable ground; central part of a larger carpet 238cm. high, 150cm. wide; 7ft. 9in., 4ft. 11in. Comparative Literature: Pierre Verlet, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: The Savonnerie, 1982, p.82, for a comparable carpet in the Metropolitan Museum. In 1608 Pierre Dupont (1577-1640) obtained a licence to manufacture carpets in the Turkish manner in a workshop in the Galeries du Louvre. In 1627 Dupont and his former apprentice Simon Lourdet (d.1671) became partners and were granted a concession for the making of carpets in a disused soap factory (savonnerie) at Chaillot in Paris. In 1663 a new constitution was conferred by Colbert on the Savonnerie, under the direction of Charles Le Brun, Premier Peintre du Roy. Under royal patronage the Savonnerie became perhaps the greatest carpet workshop in Europe producing carpets exclusively for the king. Its most important commission was a series of nearly one hundred carpets made between 1664 and 1683 for the Galerie d'Apollon and the Grande Galerie. They were probably the finest ever made in Europe, having a fine, loose woollen pile tied with ninety knots to the square inch woven on upright looms similar to those used for high-warp tapestries. In 1825 the Savonnerie was amalgamated with the Gobelins tapestry manufactory.