It is the largest carpet ever woven in France: twenty-five meters long and nine meters at its widest point. A monumental piece of almost 200 square meters, weighing a ton, which occupied small, skilled hands from 1825 to 1833. This treasure is discovered in the exhibition “Grands decors réstores de Notre-Dame”, until the 21st of July, at Mobilier national, in Paris, in collaboration with the regional directorate of cultural affairs (DRAC) of Ile-de-France.
Saved from the cathedral fire in April 2019, it is the centerpiece of an exhibition that also includes twenty-one paintings and fourteen tapestries designed for this place of worship. Models of contemporary liturgical bronze furniture by designer Guillaume Bardet and two chairs with wooden poles by designer Ionna Vautrin, from the 1,500 currently in production at Bosc, in the Landes, are also presented. Everything must be ready to be installed at Notre-Dame on December 8, the feast of the Virgin Mary, in whose honor the building was built.
“It is very touching to have to restore a velvet carpet whose weaving made in the workshops of Savonnerie, then located at the foot of the hill of Chaillot, was repatriated a year later here, to Gobelins, both royal factories were attached by order of March. 4, 1825 », says Joëlle Delaunay, the head of the carpet re-entry workshop at Mobilier national, to which the DRAC Ile-de-France entrusted the restoration of the piece. We are in a confidential location in Les Gobelins, called “the Aquarium” because of its large bay windows. This is the domain of returners who need northern light, like painters, to choose each colored thread as best as possible.
Here, while the restored half of the Notre-Dame choir tapestry is on display in the Gobelins gallery, the other half is being restored. Here it is partially unrolled on a huge table, the rest still on the ground in its white shroud. “We will be ready for December 8th! There is much less damage on the lower part: braids to redo, breaks linked to folds or moth holes to repair… As for the water poured by the firefighters, we have been dealing with it for a long time, equipped as we are, at Mobilier national, large wind tunnels”specifies the expert, surrounded by an armada of coils of linen or wool, cotton braid and curved needles.