{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O70005"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70005/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AR9955/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AR9955/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AR9955","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AW3438","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AW3437","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AW3436","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AW3435","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AW3434","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AW3433","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O70005/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O70005","accessionNumber":"T.78-1982","objectType":"Boys with Baskets","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"<b>Object Type</b><br>The unusual design of this tapestry, in particular the positions of the figures, suggesting two side flaps, and the directional effects of the shadows, makes it probable that it was designed as a sumpter cloth. Sumpter cloths were used to cover bales of goods moved by packhorses, in the case of wealthy property owners between their houses. The cloths were often richly embroidered or made of tapestry, sometimes with their owner's arms. When not in use on journeys they could be hung as decorative wall hangings.<br><br><b>Place</b><br>This tapestry may have come from Drayton House in Northamptonshire. Drayton had a set listed in an inventory drawn up under Sir John Germaine (died 1718), described as 'four pieces of tapestry gold colour'd hangings with boys and flowers', in a drawing room. <br><br><b>Design & Designing</b><br>The border design here is a simplified version of a wider border with coats of arms on a set of tapestries made for Ralph Montagu, later Earl of Montagu, between 1673 and 1684. During that period Montagu owned the premises of the Mortlake workshop, where those tapestries are likely to have been made. The design for the border would have been kept in the workshop, available to be copied for this sumpter cloth.","physicalDescription":"Boys with baskets, scattered flowers and fruit and decorative polychrome acanthus arabesques cover the once bright yellow ground, all but the acanthus casting red shadows. In the centre two naked boys with wings sit flanking a basket of fruit. Four larger baskets, two filled with fruit, two with flowers, are tilted into the corners of the tapestry, each with two boys to attend them. Of these, the boys above and below those in the centre are orientated the same way: heads towards the top, feet towards the bottom as the tapestry hangs; but pairs of boys between the angled baskets at the sides have their feet towards those sides. The tapestry was therefore designed to be seen as one long ‘upright’ section in the centre which, when laid flat and viewed from one end only, had a hanging flap to either side. Only in this way are all the boys the right way up, the baskets in the corners simply tilted rather than upside down, and all the shadows correctly placed beneath boys and baskets.\r\n\r\n<b>Function</b>\r\n\r\nThe almost square shape of this tapestry and its unusual design, makes it probable that it was designed as a sumpter cloth. They were used to cover sumpter chests on packhorses, in the case of wealthy property owners moving between their houses. The cloths were often richly embroidered or made of tapestry, sometimes with their owner's arms. When not in use on journeys they could be hung as decorative wall hangings. This is also suggested by its unusual design, in particular the positions of the figures, suggesting two side flaps, and the directional effects of the shadows. Earlier suggestions that these were bed covers, many tapestry counterpoints having been woven in the seventeenth century, seem less likely in that they would then have been uniform in size, whereas the set at Drayton House has one wider piece, agreeing with royal orders for sumpter cloths with one wider ‘bed sumpter’.\r\n\r\n<b>Border</b> \r\n\r\nThis faces outwards on all four sides. Small eagles with spread wings in the corners are superimposed on blue acanthus leaves that scroll over the whole faded stone-colour border. At the centre of each side thin polychrome garlands are held in the beaks of pairs of half-griffins with foliate tails.\r\n\r\nThe border design here is a simplified adaptation of one on armorial sumpter cloth hangings at Boughton House made for Ralph Montagu, later Earl of Montagu, between 1673 and 1684. Eagles in the corners and griffins with garlands were copied on a reduced scale, having to supply foliate tails where Montagu’s griffins were half hidden by his coat-of-arms. During that period Montagu owned the premises of the Mortlake workshop, where those tapestries are likely to have been made. The design for the border would have been kept in the workshop, available to be copied for this sumpter cloth.\r\n","artistMakerPerson":[],"artistMakerOrganisations":[{"name":{"text":"Mortlake Tapestry Factory","id":"A9184"},"association":{"text":"weavers","id":"AAT25367"},"note":""}],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"wool (hair)","id":"AAT14074"},{"text":"silk (fiber)","id":"AAT14072"},{"text":"","id":""},{"text":"silk (fiber)","id":"AAT14072"},{"text":"worsted","id":"AAT227943"}],"techniques":[{"text":"woven","id":"AAT53642"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Woven in wool and silk on a woollen warp","categories":[{"text":"Images Online","id":"THES48937"},{"text":"British Galleries","id":"THES48985"},{"text":"Textiles","id":"THES48885"},{"text":"Tapestry","id":"THES48887"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&F","id":"THES48601"},"images":["2006AR9955","2006AW3438","2006AW3437","2006AW3436","2006AW3435","2006AW3434","2006AW3433"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"54B (VA)","id":"THES49248"},"free":"","case":"WW","shelf":"","box":"3"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Tapestry","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"No","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Mortlake","id":"x34983"},"association":{"text":"woven","id":"AAT53642"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1675-1700","earliest":"1675-01-01","latest":"1700-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"The related tapestries date the weaving of this piece to after Montagu’s armorials, made some time between 1673 and 1684; and to before 1710 if it did come from Drayton House. Designs with large-scale putti and acanthus were particularly popular in the 1670s and 1680s, suggesting that the design may date from those decades. Manufacture of the main design could well have continued up to, or even beyond the closing of the official Mortlake manufactory. A Mortlake provenance seems probable in the absence of any contrary evidence, given the borrowed border design which most likely originated in the Mortlake workshop."}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Purchase (£900) Vigo-Sternberg Galleries, London","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"257.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"250.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"101","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"left","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"99","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"right","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"98.5","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"top","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"98.5","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"bottom","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Dimensions checked: Measured; 11/01/1999 by LH","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Possibly made for Lady Betty Germain (died in 1705).","historicalContext":"This object record is based on the manuscript for the book <i>From Mortlake to Soho: English Tapestry 1619-1782</i>. <i>Including a Catalogue of Tapestries in the Victoria and Albert Museum</i> by Wendy Hefford (1938-2022)","briefDescription":"Sumpter tapestry hanging woven in wool and silk on a woollen warp, woven in Mortlake Tapestry Factory, Mortlake, 1675-1690","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"H.C. Marillier, English Tapestries of the Eighteenth Century.  A Handbook to the Post-Mortlake Productions of English Weavers, London, 1930, p.11. \r\n\r\nWendy Hefford, ‘A tapestry of Boys with Baskets’, in ‘Recent textile acquisitions at the V&A’, in The Burlington Magazine, no. 962 vol.CXXV, May 1983, p.294. \r\n\r\nWendy Hefford,  ‘Ralph Montagu’s Tapestries’, in Tessa Murdoch (ed) Boughton House: the English Versailles, London, 1992, pl.7, pp. 102-3, 214. \r\n"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"basket","id":"AAT194498"},{"text":"floral patterns","id":"AAT10135"},{"text":"figures","id":"AAT189808"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"British Galleries:\nSumpter cloths were used as decorative hangings but originally they were designed to cover goods being carried by packhorses. The design would have been visible either side of the animal. Each of the winged boys adopts a different pose against Baroque acanthus scrollwork.","date":{"text":"27/03/2003","earliest":"2003-03-27","latest":"2003-03-27"}}],"partNumbers":["T.78-1982"],"accessionNumberNum":"78","accessionNumberPrefix":"T","accessionYear":1982,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LP7031","2019LP3936","2019LV4792"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-12-04","recordCreationDate":"2002-11-12","availableToBook":false}}