The Saga of the Cleopatra Tapestries

According to tapestry historian and scholar Koenraad Brosens, the fourteen Cleopatra tapestries now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (fig. 1) were woven around 1680 in the Brussels workshops of Willem van Leefdael (Flemish, 1632–1688) and Gerard Peemans (Flemish, 1637/39–1725), based on designs by Justus van Egmont (Flemish, 1601–1674). The history of the tapestries took an important turn in 1922, when they came from Spain to the United States as the property of collector Charles Deering; at that time, they were placed on loan with the Art Institute. By 1944 they had been inherited by Deering’s daughters, Marion McCormick and Barbara Danielson, who gave them to the museum.^[1]

The Cleopatra Tapestries

The details of what transpired during the two centuries between the tapestries’ creation and their purchase by Deering, however, have come into focus only over the last decade, thanks to a team of dedicated researchers of which I am honored to be a member. As far back as 2005, I could document that Deering had acquired the tapestries in Palma de Mallorca due to letters between the collector and his artistic advisor, Miquel Utrillo. Utrillo oversaw the construction of Deering’s palazzo, Maricel (fig. 2),  which was built in Sitges, near Barcelona, between 1910 and 1917. This correspondence is part of the Utrillo Archive in the Biblioteca Rusiñol, which is located within  the complex that once was Maricel.^[2]

In 2006 I received from librarian Maria G. Saborit a copy of a 1915 letter, originally located by Sitges-based historian Roland Sierra, from Apolonia Burguera, an art dealer, to Olegario Junyent, a painter who functioned as a go-between, since at that time it was not customary for dealers to contact an owner or prospective owner directly. The document offered information pertaining to the tapestries, including their availability for purchase from a “Sr. Villalonga” at a price of 350,000 pesetas.^[3] The next breakthrough occurred in October 2008, when Pilar Viladomiu, then a professor in the Barcelona school system, visited the Art Institute’s Department of Textiles to look at a thirteenth-century Hispano-Islamic textile that was once part of the burial garment for Spanish bishop Arnau Ramon de Biure, who served from 1348 to 1350. During this appointment, I told Professor Viladomiu that I had been to Sitges in connection with my research on the Cleopatra tapestries but that I was as yet unable to trace a clear connection to Palma beyond what I learned from Burguera’s letter. I asked her if she could introduce me to an art historian, historian, or archivist in the city, and she said, “I have friends in Mallorca; I will see what I can find.”

Soon thereafter emails started flying back and forth between Barcelona and Chicago, and by early 2009 it looked as if the story of the tapestries was beginning to unfold. In April 2009 Professor Viladomiu and I met again, this time in Palma, where she had arranged a series of appointments in various archives as well as one with a member of the Villalonga family. Our first meeting was with Perico de Montaner and María José Massot at the municipal archive of Palma. There, we were joined by José Francisco Villalonga Morell. It was suggested that the tapestries may have become part of the Villalongas’ property through Onofria Mir i Morrelles (1627–1689), the only surviving daughter of Joan Mir i Ramis (died 1643), a wealthy financier. She married twice—first, nobleman Nicolau de Verí i Desbrull (died 1656), who died without an heir, and later Príam de Villalonga i Brondo (1632–1681), a member of the prestigious religious-military Order of Calatrava. The couple had a son, Francisco de Villalonga i Mir (1664–1737), who at age nineteen was inducted into the Order of Santiago.

From the municipal archive we went to the Archive of the Kingdom of Mallorca, where I met Marià Carbonell Buades, an art historian and professor at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; Antoni Puente Munar, a chronicler; and again José Francisco Villalonga Morell, who brought along his relative Pep Villalonga-Mir i Morell, a researcher. Together we examined original documents that inventoried the possessions of the following members of the Villalonga family upon their decease: the aforementioned Francisco de Villalonga i Mir, Gaspar de Villalonga i de Puigdorfilia (1696–1776), and Felipe de Villalonga i de Pinos (1749–1822). In these inventories the tapestries are mentioned repeatedly, with the first reference appearing in the inventory compiled after Francisco’s death in 1737.^[4]

Yet it remained unknown exactly when and how these works ended up with the Villalonga family. At that point, we suspected that the Villalongas may have provided military funding to the Spanish Crown during the reign of Felipe IV (1621–1665) or Carlos II (1665–1700) and that the debt could have been repaid with these tapestries. Noted tapestry historian Guy Delmarcel, however, rejected this theory: “As for a connection to a king, forget it. It went the other way around; Philip IV blackmailed his nobles of high rank (the Grandes) to give HIM their tapestries in exchange for favors, especially for the decoration of his new palace, the Buen Retiro. After his death, in his inventory dating from 1666, there is mentioned a set of Scipio, 9 pieces, ‘que son de Villalonga’!”^[5] While the Villalongas may have purchased other tapestries for the king, a close inspection of royal inventories suggests that the Cleopatra tapestries were never in the Crown’s possession.^[6]

It seems most likely, then, that the family acquired the works for themselves; Mallorca underwent a terrible financial crisis during the seventeenth century, and it was very common for wealthy people to buy Flemish tapestries as investments. It is also possible that the Villalongas purchased the tapestry series to celebrate Francisco de Villalonga i Mir’s induction into the Order of Santiago by Carlos II. Because their subject matter includes the repeated portrayal of horses and matching borders showing arms and armor (see fig. 3), the works would have been ideal for a family involved with the cavalry, specifically the military orders of Calatrava and Santiago.

In 2015, hoping to confirm that the tapestries entered the family during Don Francisco’s lifetime, Professor Carbonell looked afresh at the 1737 inventory, which describes “a cloak-room with 14 cloths d’arras with different stories; which is, six small and eight large ones; very well used, property of the deceased gentleman.”^[7] He realized, however, that the inventory—unlike those that exist for other tapestry collections housed in Palma, including those at Can Pueyo and Can Olesa—includes no prices or dates of purchase.^[8] Unfortunately, no records exist to verify this potential transaction either in Mallorca or in Flanders, where the tapestries were woven.

Until 1915 the Cleopatra tapestries were housed in a Villalonga family home known as Ca Dona Mira, located in downtown Palma. By 1945 the main streets of the new city were opened, and what is now known as Jaume III Avenue cut this enormous structure in half. A portion of the house where the tapestries once hung still stands and is presently inhabited by a Villalonga descendent, Felipe de Villalonga-Mir i Fuster de Puigdorfila. It was Felipe’s grandfather, Felipe de Villalonga-Mir i Dezcallar (born 1866), who most likely sold the tapestries to Deering. Our theory is that, as the oldest son, he was legally required to provide his two sisters with the legítima—about one third of his inheritance, paid at the time of his parents’ death. As he needed cash for this transaction, he tried to sell the tapestries. Correspondence between Barcelona dealer Andreu Massot and Felipe de Villalonga dating from April 18, 1913, speaks at first of an Argentinian millionaire. Thereafter, Enrique de Olalde in Barcelona and Burguera in Mallorca attempted to sell the collection to the town hall of Barcelona. A further effort was undertaken by painter Pedro Blanes Viale.^[9] As mentioned earlier, in the end it was Burguera who, in 1915, sold the tapestries through painter Junyent to Deering for the price of 350,000 pesetas.^[10]

Deering, the proud new owner of fourteen large tapestries—the largest of which is about seven meters long and nearly four meters high—was now faced with where to display his acquisitions. The Sala d’Or at Maricel, although spacious, could not be considered, since its many windows made it impossible for all of the works to be hung together.^[11] Therefore, it became Utrillo’s task to design a new annex to the structure he had begun in 1910 known as “Maricel de terra,” which was already paired with a parallel building running along the ocean, the “Maricel de mar” (see fig. 4). All of Deering’s collections came to be housed in Maricel de terra and its annex, which, according to newspaper accounts, had a large receiving and reception hall with uninterrupted walls on which Deering could install the tapestries (see fig. 5). The new building, completed between 1916 and 1917, was also referred to as “El sarcòfag,” because a Roman sarcophagus that Utrillo had found in Sitges had been placed against its facade. As the sarcophagus did not have feet, Spanish sculptor Pere Jou carved two lions that served as the base (see fig. 6).^[12]

In 2012, when I visited the Rusiñol Library on the former grounds of Maricel, I recognized in one of the building’s interiors the floor pattern and dado design that I had seen in a photo taken in 1917. Because the spaces changed when the library took possession in 1936, it is now difficult to determine the original floorplan, especially since the current library also includes parts of Utrillo’s former home. Based on a number of extant photographs, however, it is possible to determine the order in which the Cleopatra  tapestries were hung at Maricel (fig. 7).

Despite all we have learned, some significant questions still remain to be answered, such as who placed the order for these tapestries and when. We can document that each of the tapestries was woven in Brussels because the mark for the city of Brussels (a shield flanked by two letter Bs) appears in the so-called guard, which is located in the middle of the outermost border of each piece. There also, on the right, are the weavers’ marks or a combination of their two names (figs. 8–10). It is to be hoped that with further work, luck, and continued determination, future researchers will uncover the Cleopatra tapestries’ remaining mysteries.

Weavers’ Marks

Details of the mark of the city of Brussels (1944.12) and weavers’ marks for Gerard Peemans (1944.13) and Willem Leefdael (1944.16).