The Toms Collection: Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-Century Tapestries

The Toms Collection is one of the most important ancient tapestry collections privately assembled during the second half of the twentieth century. Bequeathed to the State of Vaud by Mary Toms in 1993, it comprises more than one-hundred wall tapestries and decorative tapestry pieces, representing major early sixteenth- to late nineteenth-century European manufactories.

In 1958, having amassed a fortune in real estate, the English property developer Reginald Toms (1892-1978) and his wife Mary (1901-1993) settled in the Château de Coinsins, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. They discovered a passion for ancient tapestries and, in the sixties, made the acquisition of some one hundred pieces.

More than fifty of the tapestries in the Toms Collection were woven in the workshops of Flanders, mostly in the Baroque period and the eighteenth century. Beautiful tapestries from English, Italian and French workshops, as well as English embroidered pieces, complete this prestigious ensemble which is noteworthy not only for its geographical, chronological and thematic diversity, but also for its remarkable condition.

Since the 1994-2002 restoration campaign conducted by Manufacture royale De Wit, in Mechelen, Belgium, the treasures of the Toms Collection have been admired at the Abbey of Payerne, Switzerland, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, the Palacio Real in Madrid, the Cité de la Tapisserie in Aubusson, and the Musée Rath in Geneva.