[Gutenberg 60790] • The Spanish Royal Tapestries

Excerpt from The Spanish Royal Tapestries

IN point of size, scope and general interest, this little book is perhaps the least considerable of the score of volumes comprised in The Spanish Series, but the collection would have lacked something of the completeness I have endeavoured to secure for it, if the subject of which it treats had not been included. As is inevitable in a series of this kind, many of the books are devoted to aspects and monu ments of Spanish history and achievement, which have served the purpose of writers in all ages, but which could not, on that account, be omitted, while others have an imperative claim to inclusion on the ground that, though of secondary importance, they have never been dealt with elsewhere.

The Tapestries which are here reproduced in greater number and variety than has hitherto been attempted are known to students and Connoisseurs the world over, but the measure of that knowledge is limited. Many of the pieces in the possession of the Spanish Crown were acquired by purchase or inheritance, and others were woven in the Nether lands to the command of its Burgundian rulers.