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If you have a penchant for things beautiful, precious and exotic, do not miss this stunningly beautiful 17th-century English tapestry from the Fondation Toms Pauli reserves, which will be on display at the Lausanne Cantonal Fine Arts Museum (MCBA) for one year.

For the very first time, an ancient tapestry from the Toms Collection will be integrated, for one year, into the permanent collection of the MCBA in Lausanne. Woven in the late 17th century, this example of a so-called ‘Japan’ or ‘Indian manner’ piece draws its inspiration from the lacquerware imported by the East India Company in the 17th century. Titled The Concert, the tapestry combines both quality of composition and fineness of execution.

Reproducing a work woven by the English, John Vanderbank manufactory, this piece depicts an elegant succession of small narrative scenes in which figures, plants, birds and architecture represented in superbly realistic detail bear witness to the magnificence of the Orient. The richly decorated border of the tapestry brings together in the same manner a luxuriant array of exotic motifs.

Last exhibited in 2010 at Musée des Tissus in Lyon, this grand tapestry with its tobacco-brown background (278 x 530 cm) is similar to other works from the Vanderbank, Chabaneix and Mazarind workshops conserved in the prestigious collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Alfred Beit Foundation in Russborough.

Fondation Toms Pauli has made the acquisition of a 17th-century Brussels tapestry illustrating The Triumph of Titus and Vespasian.

Woven by the Brussels manufactory of Guillaume van Leefdael after a design by Charles Poerson in the years 1660-1675, this Triumph of Titus and Vespasian tapestry (375 x 588 cm) recently acquired by Fondation Toms Pauli belongs to a series of eight subjects telling the story of the emperors Vespasian (69-79) and Titus (79-81) during the First Jewish-Roman war.

This rare and beautiful piece complements the four other episodes of The Story of Titus and Vespasian set conserved by the Fondation Toms Pauli: Joseph Prisoner led before Vespasian and Titus, The Assault of a City, Two Women Implore Titus, and Vespasian and Titus Applauded. These were displayed at the MCBA in 2004, at the Flemish Tapestries from the Toms Collection exhibition, and at Musée Rath in Geneva in 2013 for the Ancient Heroes exhibition.

Renowned institutions that possess examples of this tapestry include the Saint Petersburg Ermitage Museum (four subjects including The Triumph), the Louvre, the Prado, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Patrimonio Nacional in Madrid.

With five specimens now in their possession, of which the most recent acquisition, alongside the Ermitage example, can be considered one of the largest and most complete of the Triumph episode, Fondation Toms Pauli and the State of Vaud maintain a prominent place in the world of tapestry.

A work by Verena Brunner enters the 20th-century collection

The history of the New Tapestry movement as that of textile art in general includes a number of Swiss artists whose works were presented at the Lausanne Biennials as well as at exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. Their explorations were part of the groundbreaking evolution of the medium in the years 1960 to 1990.

Among these artists is Verena Brunner, an important Swiss creator whose name was absent from our 20th-century collection inventory. She directed the textile department of the Lucerne High School of Art and Design for more than 12 years (1988-2000) and was herself a student in Magdalena Abakanowicz’s class at the State Higher School of Plastic Arts in Poznań. Thanks to Verena Brunner’s generosity, this gap has now been filled!

Sich seinem andern Gesicht überlassen, a large work (280 x 540 cm), halfway between figurative and abstract art, has recently entered our foundation’s 20th-century collection. This creation is similar to Nuovo Mondo, a piece exhibited at the 13th Lausanne Biennial in 1987 and currently conserved in the Confederation’s art collection. It corresponds to Verena Brunner’s intent to design her projects as pathways of poetic and dreamlike thoughts, translated first into drawings and then into an airy weave of shimmering threads.

A free transposition of a poem by Reiner Kunze, Rudern Zwei (Brief mit blauem Siegel), the form, structure and narrative of the work clearly set it apart from the classical tapestry tradition.