New documentation for the 'Tenture des Indes' tapestries in Malta

Abstract

The exuberance of Brazil, as depicted in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century in the eight tapestries of the Tenture des Indes, delighted audiences in various places, among them Paris, St Petersburg, Rome, Beijing and Malta. At present, the only complete set of the so-called Anciennes Indes can be seen in Malta. The tapestries have hung in the Grandmaster's Palace of the Order of St John since 1710. Over the years the facts of how the works came to Malta have been blurred by legends, but clarity can now be provided through an examination of the correspondence between the Grandmaster Ramon Perellos y Roccaful and his agents in Paris, particularly the knight of the Order Jean-Jacques de Mesmes.