Louis XIV Visiting the Gobelins Factory
by LE BRUN, Charles, Tapestry, 370 x 576 cm
The age of Louis XIV saw the founding and success of various factory workshops, not only for tapestry and furniture (Gobelins), but also for ceramics (Rouen, Nevers), silk (Lyon), crystal (Faubourg Saint-Antoine, then La Grenouilli�re), and a range of other crafts. Never had the applied arts undergone such widespread and successful expansion. Charles Le Brun, named director of the Gobelins factory in 1663, centralized all royal tapestry workshops there. The famous tapestry showing the king’s visit in 1667 was prepared by Le Brun and Pierre de S�ve the Younger in 1673 as part of a series of fourteen tapestries on the life the King which were regularly reproduced until 1741.