Atelier J. de LaBaume-Durrbach

Many of the century’s greatest artists—Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, Alexander Calder, Victor Vasarely and Marc Chagall—allowed French weavers to translate existing works of theirs or create cartoons, original designs conceived specifically for conversion into cloth.

Modern art tapestries offer advantages not only to curators but to collectors, as they are both rare and hard to counterfeit. Tapestry is a particularly labor-intensive art form. France’s weaving workshops, which trace their profession to medieval times, placed each thread by hand, taking months and even years to complete a piece. Such a time-consuming approach ensured that every tapestry belonged to a limited edition. Some are even rarer than they seem because the ateliers did not necessarily produce every copy that their contracts permitted. It was common to embark on a second weaving only after the first one was sold, and some editions never reached their maximums.