William Baumgarten & Co

William Baumgarten Ateliers Mark in 1893

William Baumgarten & Co. was an interior design firm and the first American producer of Gobelins tapestries. The manufactory was active between 1893 and 1910^[1][2]

In the 19th Century, the most important producer of tapestries in the world was the city of Aubusson, in France, it was there that Mr. Baumgarten found the Foussadier family who were taken to New York City to work in his company.^[3] They had formerly worked at The Royal Windsor Tapestry Manufactory (1876-1890).^[4] Antoine, Louis and Jean Foussadier handled the dying and loom work, whilst the females of the family, Madame Foussadier and her daughter Adrienne did all the needlework. By 1896 the factory had 40 artisans working full-time. Examples of Baumgarten Tapestries can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^[5] and in the collections of the Vanderbilt´s, Rockfeller´s and Whitney´s. Baumgarten was the designer of William H. Vanderbilt’s house on Fifth Avenue^[6] and of William Welsh Harrison’s Grey Towers Castle (which has now become part of Arcadia University) in Philadelphia.^[7] Baumgarten was also the original designer of several rooms at the Plaza Hotel in 1907 (including the Edwardian Room).^[8] In the year 1900 the price of a Baumgarten Tapestry ranged from US$500 to US$1000,^[9] at that time the average yearly wage in the United States was US$438 and a school teacher earned US$328 per year. According to the GDP Index a Baumgarten tapestry would cost today between 11,400 and 22,800 US dollars.

Design for a Baumgarten Tapestry in the 1890´s

References

Tapestry Tapestries Adoration of the Magi Bayeux Tapestry Devonshire Hunting Tapestries Gunthertuch Cloth of St Gereon Hestia Tapestry Holy Grail tapestries Hunt of the Unicorn Jagiellonian tapestries Lady and the Unicorn New World Tapestry Överhogdal tapestries Pastoral Amusements Quaker Tapestry Raphael Cartoons Ros Tapestry Project Royal Tapestry Factory Sampul tapestry Scottish Royal tapestry collection Story of Abraham Valois Tapestries The Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald Styles Kalaga K'o-ssu Millefleur Studios Aubusson Brussels Beauvais Gobelins Moravská Gobelínová Manufaktura Mortlake Morris & Co. Portalegre William Baumgarten & Co Weavers and designers Francis Crane Givi Kandareli Pieter van Aelst III John Henry Dearle Lefèvre family William Morris Gunta Stölzl Judocus de Vos Tapestry-working artists Pieter Coecke van Aelst François Boucher Marc Chagall Francis Cleyn John Coburn Michiel Coxie Éva Farkas Petronėlė Gerlikienė Francisco Goya Blind Man's Bluff The Parasol list of tapestry cartoons Muriel Nezhnie Helfman Else Marie Jakobsen Jacob Jordaens Hans Knieper Nancy Kozikowski Jean Lurçat Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer Bernard van Orley François Quesnel Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) Related topics Byzantine silk Catherine de' Medici's patronage of the arts Embroidery International Gothic Kilim Navajo weaving Needlepoint Weaving