Resumen de Matthijs Roelandts, Joris Leemans and Lanceloot Lefebure: new data on Baroque tapestry in Brussels
Koenraad Brosens, Veerle De Laet
While there has been a recent resurgence of interest in 17th-century Brussels tapestry, a substantial number of lesser-known artists have been overlooked, among them the obscure workshop managers Matthijs Roelandts and Joris Leemans, whose works include the largely overlookedThe Story of Constantine and The inclinations of Man series, produced from works by the Brussels-based painter Lancelot Lefebure. Today, new evidence allows more complete biographies of Roelandts and Leemans to be built up, as well as allowing for the attribution of the designs to Lefebure. Both series are characterized by iconographic programs that were connected to those developed in a number of other tapestry series that were popular on the European market in the second quarter of the 17th century, and they also show that Lefebure was familiar with the new monumentality introduced into Brussels and French tapestry around 1620.
