The Wawel Tapestries: Woven Treasures of Renaissance Art
These masterpieces of 16th-century weaving survived being looted by the Russian Empire and being evacuated to Canada in World War II. They masterfully portray things like the Garden of Eden or… a unicorn purifying water. They’re cherished exhibits which continue to draw the public’s attention. They’re the Wawel Tapestries!
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Wawel Castle in Kraków, photo: promo materials
The historical Wawel Castle in Kraków is one of Poland’s most famous royal residences . In the 16th century, this impressive edifice was given a Renaissance look and served as the seat of Poland’s king Zygmunt August (1520-1572).
In order to decorate the interiors of his residence the king ordered a large collection of tapestries, which nowadays are known as the Wawel Tapestries or Zygmunt Tapestries. The collection consists of 137 decorative textiles, and due to its great historical and artistic value is considered a ‘national treasure’.
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King Zygmunt August’s tapestries, the jewel of the Wawel collection and a symbol of the grandeur of old Poland, have been constituting a magnificent testimony to Renaissance art on Polish soil [..] for centuries. The royal textiles are among the few remnants of the original furnishings of the monarch’s residence which was plundered [...] after the third partition of Poland . Thanks to its unique artistic qualities, legendary financial value, and also its exceptionally turbulent history [this] collection continues to draw plenty of attention.
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From the 2007 album ‘Arrasy Zygmunta Augusta’ by Magdalena Piwocka, trans. MK
The Wawel Tapestries were made in the years 1550-1560 in Brussels, which at the time was an important weaving centre. They were woven by expert artisans from wool, silk, and plenty of golden and silver threads. The collection originally comprised 160 objects and was the biggest set of Renaissance tapestries ever made for a single customer. Unfortunately, some of the textiles went missing over the ages.
The exact cost of the collection is unknown since none of the documents describing this sum have made it to our times. Still, based on the average price of 16th century Brussels tapestries, it’s safe to say the Wawel cloths cost a fortune. Their immense monetary value can be illustrated by a historical anecdote: in the 17th century the Polish parliament considered selling them in order to obtain enough money to fund a military conflict with the Ottoman Empire . Fortunately, this plan never came to fruition.
Scenes from the Garden of Eden
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The tapestry 'Paradise Bliss', photo: Tomasz Śliwiński / the collection of the Wawel Castle
The Zygmunt Tapestries were designed to decorate specific places at Wawel Castle. Therefore, the collection includes both large cloths meant for walls as well as smaller pieces that were to adorn, for example, window niches or areas beneath windowsills. Also, a certain number of furniture tapestries were made for the king .
The collection consists of three main parts: biblical scenes; verdures depicting animals; as well as armorial and monogram tapestries. The biblical series illustrates episodes from the Book of Genesis and is made up of seven textiles showing the beginnings of mankind, eight cloths about Noah’s life, and four tapestries showing the story of the Tower of Babel. Each of these pieces includes in its top part a verse from the Bible pertaining to the scene depicted.
Thanks to comparative research, art historians have established that the biblical series was designed by the Flemish artist Michiel Coxcie, also known as the ‘Flemish Raphael’. Before Coxcie worked on this series he spent a number of years in Rome familiarizing himself with local art, especially works by Raphael and Michelangelo. In his design of the Wawel biblical tapestries he included plenty of references to the styles of those two exceptional artists:
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Stylistically these compositions belong to the mature phase of northern Renaissance, which was strongly inspired by Italian art, mainly of Roman provenance, from the first half of the 16th century.
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From the 2007 album ‘Arrasy Zygmunta Augusta’ by Magdalena Piwocka, trans. MK
Within the biblical series you can find the biggest tapestries in the Wawel collection; the textiles depicting Noe’s life reach up to 45 square metres! Meanwhile, the smallest Wawel tapestries were used, for example, as covers for the backrests of chairs.
A particularly interesting biblical tapestry, one that’s part of the set referencing the beginnings of mankind, is Paradise Bliss , a large piece showing seven scenes from the Garden of Eden. In the centre of this textile you can see God forbidding Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, and in the background there are other episodes such as the creation of Adam and Eve and their banishment from paradise. This tapestry catches the eye with its masterful portrayals of human bodies and representations of exuberant plant life and animals.
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The tapestry 'Noah’s Conversation with God', photo: Tomasz Śliwiński / the collection of the Wawel Castle
The textiles about Noah’s life also include some outstanding figurative depictions:
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Highly noteworthy are the sculpturesque depictions of characters , especially the monumental figures in Noah’s Conversation with God . On the other hand, Deluge shows a very expressive scene and Noah’s Drunkenness stands out due to its lively gesticulating figures and motion highlighted by the arrangements of draperies.
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From niezlasztuka.net, trans. MK
Among the tapestries about the Tower of Babel, the one depicting its building is considered the most notable. In The Building of the Tower of Babel you can see realistic depictions of old stonemasonry techniques and building machines which makes this piece highly interesting from a historical standpoint.
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The tapestry 'The Deer and a Unicorn', photo: Tomasz Śliwiński / the collection of the Wawel Castle
The Wawel collection includes 44 verdures depicting various animals such as a Peruvian llama, wolves, and moose. They also portray smaller creatures like lizards, snails, and butterflies, as well as birds; for example, storks and herons. One could say that these curious textiles, which also feature fantastic beasts, constitute a sort of 16th century zoological album. Additionally, the tapestries in question include plenty of representations of plant life.
The authorship of the Wawel verdures is unknown. Art historians attribute their design either to a single anonymous artist with ties to the Flemish painter and sculptor Pieter Coeck van Aelst or to a group of unknown authors.
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The set […] has diverse formats and can be considered a masterpiece in the genre. The portrayals of animals, taken from current zoological textbooks or drawn from nature, were situated in deep landscapes , which proved to be a truly novel setting. The tapestries present views of a forest or its edge, with a few clearances showing the background – faraway mountains, miniature silhouettes of buildings or a sunny horizon.
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From ‘Wielki Teatr Natury’, in Tygodnik Powszechny, trans. MK
Interestingly, the Wawel verdures not only portray animals but also convey certain meanings. For example, the tapestry The Fight of a Dragon with a Panther symbolically shows the fight of good and evil. In this piece the dragon represents malevolent forces whereas the panther, an animal which in mediaeval manuscripts symbolized Christ, embodies divine good.
Another example worth mentioning is the textile The Deer and a Unicorn , in which you can see the titular fantastic being as it’s purifying water! Apparently, in the olden days people believed that unicorns could do that, and the mythical creature shown in the Wawel tapestry is cleansing what appears to be a river or lake just by drinking from it.
Official businesses and audiences
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The tapestry 'Grotesque with the SA Monogram and a Globe', photo: Tomasz Śliwiński / the collection of the Wawel Castle
The third main group among the Wawel tapestries are the armorial and monogram textiles. The 29 armorial tapestries present the coats of arms of Poland and Lithuania (Crowned Eagle and Pahonia, the mounted knight, respectively), as well as countries which under the reign of Zygmunt August merged into a single state known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth . The monogram textiles, of which there are 13, show the monogram of the king. This monogram, the intertwined letter ‘S’ and ‘A’, was derived from the Latin version of the monarch’s name - Sigismundus Augustus .
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[This] group of cloths – according to the rules of courtly representation – presents symbols of state governance and the ruler. […] The armorial and monogram tapestries highlighted the specific character of a room meant for official business or audiences.
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From the 2007 album ‘Arrasy Zygmunta Augusta’ by Magdalena Piwocka, trans. MK
A characteristic feature of these tapestries is that they make use of an elaborate ornament known as Flemish grotesque . It consists of various figures such as satyrs and nymphs, as well as representations of animals surrounded by a delicate framework composed of slats and arched bars. Based on the style of the grotesques present in the armorial and monogram tapestries, it’s believed these ornaments were designed by Flemish artists Cornelius Floris and Cornelius Bos, as well as their co-workers.
Among the monogram textiles a particularly intriguing piece is Grotesque with the SA Monogram and a Globe . In this richly decorated cloth, below the king’s monogram you can find a globe showing a map of Africa. The juxtaposition of the globe with the king’s initials accentuates the splendour of the monarch. Also, in this tapestry you might notice a… pineapple, a fruit that was a novelty in Europe in the times of Zygmunt August.
As for the armorial tapestries, you can find in them, among other things, representations of the goddess Victoria holding a broken javelin and a laurel wreath – attributes of both victory and peace. Such a portrayal of this deity can be found, for example, between the coats of arms of Poland and Lithuania in the textile Grotesque with the Coats of Arms of Poland and Lithuania and the Figure of Victoria .
As mentioned, the Wawel collection also includes plenty of lesser tapestries that were of a purely decorative character.
The tapestry 'The Fight of a Dragon with a Panther', showing a dragon biting a panther in a forest, photo: Tomasz Śliwiński / the collection of the Wawel Castle After the death of Zygmunt August in 1572, the Wawel Tapestries came into the possession of his sisters Anna, Zofia, and Katarzyna. However, about a decade later the textiles were passed on to the Royal Treasury. In later years they were used as decorations at important events such as the 1592 wedding of Poland’s king Zygmunt III Waza with Anne of Austria in Kraków or the wedding of his successor Władysław IV Waza with Cecilia Renata in Warsaw in 1637.
A somewhat troubling episode in the history of the tapestries was caused by Poland’s King Jan III Kazimierz. After he abdicated in 1668, he pawned the textiles with a Gdańsk banker by the name of Franciszek de Gratta in order to obtain funds for private needs; namely a comfortable life in France. The tapestries were only bought back in 1724, after which they were deposited at the Discalced Carmelites convent in Warsaw. In 1764 they were used as decorations during the coronation of the last king of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski.
In the years 1772–1795, Poland was partitioned by Prussia, Russia and Austria and lost its independence . After the final partition, in November 1795, the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, ordered that the Wawel tapestries be taken away from Warsaw to Petersburg.
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The complete collection was split up between the Winter Palace, the Great Gatchina Palace, the Academy of Fine Arts, and the Court Stables Museum, and individual tapestries were altered to fit current needs and serve, for example, as sofa upholsteries.
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From niezlasztuka.net, trans. MK
The tapestries remained in Russia for over a century, until Poland’s victory in the Polish-Soviet War , which took place in the years 1919–1921. According to the peace treaty signed after this conflict, Soviet Russia agreed to return to Poland a number of looted artworks, including the Wawel textiles. Unfortunately, the collection of tapestries which was returned in the years 1921-1924 was incomplete – some of them were lost without a trace in Russia.
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The tapestry 'Deluge', photo: Tomasz Śliwiński / the collection of the Wawel Castle
Back in Poland, the Zygmunt Tapestries were deposited at the Wawel Castle. They remained there until the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Anticipating the risk of the tapestries falling into Nazi hands during the German invasion of Poland, the textiles were evacuated to Canada via Romania, France, and England. After the war, the Canadian authorities were reluctant to return the Wawel collection, as they saw the Soviet-imposed communist regime in Poland as untrustworthy. It took a substantial diplomatic effort to change this situation, and finally in 1959 some of the textiles were returned. The remaining Wawel tapestries came back to Poland in 1961, much to the excitement of the general public:
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The entire journey of the tapestries was described in the media and their triumphant arrival at the train station in Kraków, graced by an orchestra and the presence of authorities, attracted a huge crowd.
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From niezlasztuka.net, trans. MK
Since their return to Poland the Zygmunt Tapestries have been stored and exhibited at the Wawel Castle.
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The tapestry 'The Building of the Tower of Babel', photo: Tomasz Śliwiński / the collection of the Wawel Castle
The exhibition of the Wawel tapestries poses substantial conservation problems as the textiles are sensitive to light , dust, and moisture. Therefore, typically only a portion of them are carefully displayed. This year, however, is special, as 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the tapestries’ return from Russia and the 60th anniversary of their return from Canada. On this occasion, the Wawel Castle organised a unique exhibition called All the King’s Tapestries: Homecomings 2021-1961-1921 , which opened on 5th May and will last until 31st October:
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All of Zygmunt August’s tapestries that have been preserved in Poland can be seen at the Wawel Castle. In the history of the royal residence this is the only exhibition of the entire remaining collection of textiles, held in the interiors for which they were originally designed.
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From wawel.krakow.pl, trans. MK
It’s worth adding that many of the tapestries included in this exhibit have never before been put on public display. Additionally, the exhibition features three contemporary artworks that reference the Wawel tapestries: two installations by the acclaimed sculptor Mirosław Bałka and a painting by the noted painter Maciej Maciejowski. If you happen to be in Kraków before 31st October you should definitely consider seeing this exceptional exhibition!
Written by Marek Kępa, Oct 2021
Sources: ‘Arrasy Zygmunta Augusta’ by Magdalena Piwocka, 2007
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