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Everything old is new again—again! The revival du jour? Tapestries. Particularly the centuries-old variety you’re used to seeing in museums or opulent European villas. These wall-spanning antique tapestries feature rich, figurative motifs not unlike those you might find in an oil painting (landscapes, hunting scenes, perhaps a coronation or battle). Painstakingly handwoven on looms, they are intended to be mounted on a wall—a move that helps combat their fragility from age and recalls the room-insulating styling once popular in castles.
Suddenly these finely woven tapestries—many of them Franco Flemish (like this one, which sold for nearly $1 million, far over the estimate, last year at Christie’s)—are being dusted off by a younger generation and installed in stylish homes across the globe.
Take, for instance, the eclectic London home of Tish Weinstock and Tom Guinness, decorated by British talent Rachel Chudley, in which a 19th-century landscape tapestry dominates the living room. Another hangs around the corner in the morning room. “It was one of the first items we found for the space,” explains Chudley of the living room antique tapestry, snagged at auction from the estate of Christopher Hodsoll.
Her art-loving clients went gaga for it straightaway. “It works as a mural, covering the wall in a scene that creates a separate ethereal world to step into,” says Chudley. “Plus, the texture acts as an antidote to the black leather, metal, and high gloss of the walls. The balance of color in the tapestry sets the tone for the rest of the room.”
Others have followed suit. In a Victorian residence in New York’s Hudson Valley, Workstead hung a framed 19th-century tapestry over the sofa in the living room. Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele was recently photographed for Vanity Fair against a gargantuan antique tapestry in his Rome abode. And in art adviser Will Kopelman’s New York City apartment, decorated by Gil Schafer, a 17th-century Flemish tapestry (a 15-footer, no less!) hangs in the living room.
Kopelman snagged the eye-popping piece, which depicts the coronation of Charlemagne, at auction in London before realizing it was too fragile to be rolled up for easy transport. Rather, it had to be crated flat for shipping and craned in through his 10th-floor window.
If that sounds like simply too much, take a note from AD100 firm ASH NYC, which recently used tapestry-covered pillows in a L.A. staging project. Plenty are available ready-made, as are interesting tapestry fragments poised to be reinvented. Or learn from stylist Mieke ten Have, who installed a Verdure tapestry-mimicking fabric by Manuel Canovas as a giant panel in her upstate New York bedroom. “I love the feeling of being set in a lush green pasture inside of a room,” she says. “I think tapestries have a wonderful way of mooring a space, especially if they are large in scale.”
If you’re buying the real thing—whether it’s at auction, from an antiques dealer, or on a site like Chairish or 1stdibs—Chudley advises to “look for signs of age, signs of the hand that made it, interesting scenes, and pleasing color combinations.” As for hanging, she suggests mounting it on a simple pole, as she did in her London project. “It gives you the flexibility to move the piece around—you may want to hand these special pieces down as family heirlooms. It also gives a carefree, lived-in impression.” And for cleaning? Says Chudley, “Other than dusting, send the tapestry to a professional if you want to clean it.”
