"The Smoking Party"

c. 1738

One in a pair of French Lille Louis XV Genre tapestries after a design by David Teniers the Younger (Flemish, 1610-1690) produced by the workshop of Guillaume Werniers and the Widow Guillaume Werniers. The foreground depicts six men wearing brightly colored clothes on a grassy knoll. Three of the men are gathered around a circular table, seated on stools and partaking in a smoke, two other men stand behind them, and one man, off to the right, is seated on a bench smoking a long pipe, a red jug sits near his leg. A dirt path to the far right winds through the pastoral landscape. The border of the tapestry is decorated with gold bands and stylized gold acanthus leaves on a blue ground. It is signed “V DEG WERNIERS” in red together with the cypher of Lille, France.

French

Wool and silk

124" x 186".

Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Henry F. DuPont.

PSNC.2778.2

The Magazine Antiques (April, 1995) P. 596, Pl.5