Manufacture Goblins

The manufacture of the Goblins is a Manufacture of Tapisserie whose entry is located at the 42 Avenue Goblins with Paris in the XIII {{E}} district. It was created in April 1601 under the impulse of Henri IV, at the instigation of its adviser the commercial Barthélemy de Laffemas. Its gallery, renovated since about thirty years in order to find its mission of origin of space of exposures has just celebrated its 400e birthday, at the time of its reopening to the public on May 12th 2007.

Its official name is “national Manufacture of the Goblins”. It depends on the general administration of the State-owned furniture and national Manufactures on carpet and tapestries which gathers the State-owned furniture, the Tapestry workshop of the Goblins, the Manufacture of Beauvais (workshops located in Paris and Beauvais), the Manufacture of the Soap factory (workshops located at Paris and Lodève) as well as the national Ateliers of lace of Puy and Alençon.

History

The first mention of a Gobelin goes back to August 1443, when this family, which paradoxically did not manufacture any hanging, took with rent a house Rue Mouffetard with the ensign of the swan and four years later establishes on the edges of the Bièvre, running in this time there with open sky, a workshop of dyeing. Jehan Goblin, native of Rheims, was thus about the middle of the 15th century, a dyer of wool considered for his reds with scarlet, installed close to a mill on the Bièvre, in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, which one baptized “ Mill of Gobelins ” because of the importance of its descent which during one century and half continued to improve tinctorial industry there. The reputation of the Gobelins eclipsed that of the other dyers consequently, so much so that the river and the district took their name as of the 16th century.

As of April 1601, the tapestry way of Flandres made its appearance when Henri IV made install and to join in " a large house or antiennement faisoit teinture" Marc de Comans and François of the Board, Flemish tapestry makers, which their sons succeeded before separating. Taking again for the account of Louis XIV the plan implemented by Henri IV, Colbert encouraged towards 1660 Dutch Jean Glucq to import in France a new process of scarlet dyeing called “ with the hollandaise ”. This one definitively set in 1684 in one of the houses of old the madness Gobelin which it bought and embellishes after having obtained from the letters of naturality.

Assessing the quality of the productions of the enclosure of the Goblins , Colbert succeeds in convincing Louis XIV to give to the means necessary to the supposed gloss glorifier monarchy. It borrowed in order to buy on June 6th, 1662 the hotel of the Goblins (approximately 3,5 hectares, increased many times until in 1668) and to gather around all the Parisian workshops like that created with Maincy by Nicolas Fouquet. Thus nacquit the Royal Manufacture of the Goblins which depended on the superintendent of the buildings and was subjected by him to the authority of the first painter of the King, Charles Le Brun; which, officially named in 1663, had thereafter under its orders of the whole teams artists “good painters, main tapestry makers in high stringer, goldsmiths, founders, engravers concise and cabinetmakers…”; it thus cumulated the direction of the Manufacture of the Pieces of furniture of the Crown .

Thus included in the Manufacture of the Pieces of furniture of the Crown, the Manufacture of the Goblins accepted royal edict of November 1667 its organization final, important advantages being granted its inhabitants: freedom from tax, renouncement of the right of aubaine, maintenance of the selected apprentices. Charles Le Brun deployed there until her death on February 12th 1690 an extraordinary activity, by impelling the first work of high stringer - 19 hangings (197 parts) and 34 in low stringer (286 parts) - works of Manufacture, intended for the furnishing of the royal Houses and at the diplomatic present, acquérirent by their magnificence an international reputation which remains three centuries later. Various successors such Pierre Mignard and Robert de Cotte continued and developed the intention of the Brown one.

In 1674, Jean Glucq married Marie Charlotte Julienne, sister of a cloth manufacturer and famous dyer which it joined, François Julienne, which had on its side a secrecy for the blue of king. Jean Julienne, nephew of Marie Charlotte, assisted thereafter her uncle François with the direction of royal fine cloth manufactures and dyeings of all colors, way of England, Spain and Holland. These two private establishments, joint of the Royal Manufacture of the Goblins, were joined together in 1721 by Jean Julienne, were admitted to advise honorary royal Académie of painting and sculpture at the first day of 1740 and were become famous like patron (Watteau, Pater, Lancret, etc), Amateur and Collectionneur. Its dyeing, often confused with the Royal Hotel of the Gobelins because of the royal stamp (that the Privilèges authorized) of which were provided its productions, périclita towards 1804. By showing the plants Julienne, some of the boards which illustrate the treaty of the art of drapery of Duhamel of the Heap are identical to those of the Encyclopédie of Diderot and Alembert relating to the Goblins. In December 1689, royal goldsmithery was molten and during five months one lives to destroy “these invaluable furnishings whose art exceeded the matter”; financial problems slowed down work then obliged with congédier the workmen in April 1694. Only the most skilful artists completed their chiefs of work, the others enlisted with the war after which, the reopened workshops in January 1699, one produced nothing any more but tapestries with the Goblins, name that one allotted to them consequently.

Jules Hardouin-Mansart restarted the establishment by entrusting the direction until in 1782 to several architects controllers of the buildings of the King, of which most famous was Soufflot. But as of the middle of the 18th century, Manufacture knew serious financial problems which were worsening, the Treasury which cannot pay the royal orders with the contractors, then at the edge of the bankruptcy; to this financial crisis was added an artistic crisis, in spite of the nomination of Jean-Baptiste Pierre, first painter of the King. A reorganization of May 1791 avoided the ruin but operation remained difficult during the Révolution. The reign of Napoleon did not give a new lease of life, Manufacture not working any more but for the Emperor who wished than its productions are “the principal ornament of the Imperial Houses”. 80 to 90 workmen divided between the workshops high and low stringer then reported the imperial epopee according to the historical tables of David, Gros, Meynier, Girodet-Trioson… while also retorting the portraits of the Emperor and his family. The Restauration made take again the portraits of the end of the reign of Louis XVI and the Second Empire the portraits of Napoleon III and of the Impératrice.

In 1665, the workshop of dyeing was officially organized by Colbert; the dyeing was then carried out using natural dyes of vegetable origin (gaude, garance, Indigo) or animal (kermes, cochineal). The dyeing of wools and silks is done now exclusively by means of synthetic pigments. One always tints with the hank but the timber sinking cylinders were replaced by stainless tanks. Between 1824 and 1883, the experiments of the chemist Eugene Chevreul, director of the laboratory of the dyeings, made it possible to reduce half the number of the colors which were up to that point necessary to the liquid manure. It worked out a true grammar of the colors and laws of simultaneous contrast. Its chromatic circle defined, starting from the three basic colors 72 let us tons and 14.400 colors. Today a new system called N.I.M.E.S. takes into account the contribution of new technologies. In 1825, the basic trades smoothes were sent to Beauvais, the tapestries henceforth woven exclusively in high stringer. Located during 2 centuries at the foot of the hill of Chaillot, an ordinance of Charles X of May 4th 1825 made settle, on February 15th 1826, the Manufacture of the Soap factory (workshops of carpet) in the enclosure of the Goblins of which part of the buildings flarings on May 23rd 1871 at the time of the Commune, was rebuilt in 1914.

Attached to the administration of the State-owned furniture since 1937, the national Manufacture of the Goblins always weaves tapestries to decorate with the public edifices by calling upon many artists (Paul Cézanne, Jean Arp, Fernand Leger, Alexander Calder, Jean Picart the Soft, Yves Brayer, Sonia Delaunay, Jean Dewasne, Serge Poliakoff, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Zao Wou-Ki, Jean Lurçat, Marcel Gromaire, Joan Miro, Victor Vasarely, Eduardo Arroyo, Gerard Garouste, Louise Bourgeois, Matali Crasset, Christian de Portzamparc, Raymond Hains, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Martine Aballéa…), thus testifying to the multiple possibilities of a mode of expression open to all the esthetic and contemporary tendencies.

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