It is rare nowadays to see someone pull out a half-finished tapestry from their handbag and get on with their stitching. In fact, tapestry is becoming increasingly unfashionable; ‘nomadic murals’ (as architect Le Corbusier described them) are often relics of the distant past. So much so that they have plummeted in price.
‘People are streaming into contemporary art, and tapestry is becoming more of a niche market,’ says Marcus Radecke, Christie’s European head of furniture. ‘Whereas a large Brussels baroque tapestry might have fetched £50,000 in the 1980s or 1990s, nowadays it would sell for £20,000 or £25,000.’
That may still sound a lot for woven thread, but it’s a long way short of the record-breaking $1.2 million paid for ‘Wild Men’, a Swiss medieval scene sold at Sotheby’s in 1981. Another set called the Caesar tapestries was commissioned by Henry VIII.
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