Spanish Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Roccaful (b. 1637, ruled 1697-1720) was the head of the Order of St John through more than an eventful couple of decades which included, inter alia, full participation in the Holy War against the Muslims and the formation of the Order of St John’s man-of-war squadron in 1705 to complement the galley squadron.

On the cultural side, he is best remembered for his donation of two magnificent sets of tapestries: for the Conventual Church (now the Co-Cathedral) of St John and for the Council Chamber of his palace, now the Presidential Palace, both in Valletta. This article’s attention will be focused on the latter.

In 1708, Perellos was planning the acquisition of a set of tapestries that would be a replica of the marvellous set existing in the French Royal Palace of Versailles that enjoyed great fame and celebrity. These so-called Tenture des Indes were splendid illustrations of exotic plants and animals of the 17th-century newly-discovered New World that still excited the curiosity of Europeans in the 18th century.

In 1636, the Dutch Prince John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen was made governor-general of Dutch Brazil and proceeded to Recife with an entourage of literary and scientific men that also included two artists: Albert Eckhout (c. 1610-65) and Frans Post (1612-80). During their seven-year stay (January 1637-May 1644), these two artists produced well over a thousand sketches and other works from which were created the eight cartoons that were to inspire the Tenture des Indes.

Since Prince John Maurice also had a zoo at Recife that included some examples of African fauna, some of these creatures found a place in the sketches and, ultimately, in the final cartoons. Sketches and drawings were subsequently presented to various kinsmen and crowned heads in Europe, including a collection presented to King Louis XIV of France in 1679. This collection was to eventually lead to the production of the tapestries at Versailles.

On August 5, 1708, Perellos wrote to the Order’s ambassador in Paris, Bailli Jacques de Noailles, about the project and that the choice of tapestries was being entrusted to him and to Chevalier Jean Jacques des Mesmes, who duly proceeded to Paris. The financing of the tapestries was to be affected by the Order’s receiver in Paris, Chev. Nicolas de Bachevilliers, who was to pay out the relevant monies from the grand master’s receipts. Des Mesmes reached an agreement with the Gobelins Factory on October 22, 1708, in a contract signed with the weaver in charge of the Gobelins looms, Etienne Le Blond, in the presence of two signatories, the notaries Raymond and Boscheron.

The contract stipulated the following terms:

• the commission was to be completed by March 1710;

• payment was to be at the rate of 120 livres per square ell;

• the set was to consist of 10 large wall-panels, six window-panels, and a panel to be hung over the door;

• all the panels were to be woven upon horizontal warping.

The Versailles set actually consists of eight large panels, so, strictly speaking, the Valletta set of 10 panels, as agreed with Le Blond, was slightly different from the French one. This is because consideration of the wall space in the Council Chamber had to be taken into account, and it was decided to have a more harmonious display by redesigning two of the large panels to produce four smaller ones of the same height but having less width.

So the original panel depicting The Indian Hunter was divided in two, thus creating a new panel known as The Ostriches. Similarly, the panel known as The Elephant was divided, thus creating a new panel known as The Horse Isabelle. Incidentally, the name of the weaver in charge, the previously-mentioned Etienne Le Blond, is found on the border of the panel depicting The Elephant.

The window-panels and the door-panel had designs of Turkish slaves supporting the coat-of-arms of Perellos. The borders of the large panels are embellished with a design of acanthus leaves with, as one might expect, a prominently-displayed Perellos coat-of-arms at the top centre. The large panels are all of the same height, 4.70 metres, but the widths vary so that they could be hung without difficulty in the Council Chamber.

Between 1678 and 1718, at least five sets of similar panels were commissioned. The first was in 1678, but the whereabouts of four of the panels are unknown, the rest being at Cordoba, Argentina. The second set, commissioned in 1689, were at Versailles till the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 when, somehow, four of the panels were relocated to Berlin. In 1693, Peter the Great of Russia commissioned a third set for the Winter Palace at St Petersburg but the set was lost in a fire in 1837. The fourth set was the one commissioned by Grand Master Perellos in 1708 and it is still in the Council Chamber of the Presidential Palace at Valletta. A fifth set, commissioned in 1718 for a French source, has remained untraced.

On the other hand, it has also been said that eight sets were woven, and the Perellos commission was the fifth in the series. Therefore, the only full set available for general viewing, woven on the same cartoons used for the other sets – some of which are in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London –  is the one in Malta.

The only full set available for general viewing is the one in Malta

The following is the list of the 10 large panels together with their French and English names and the dimensions of each. Each one is, as already stated, 4.70 metres high but with a variation in their width for the reason stated previously:

Le Cheval Isabelle (The Light-Bay Horse) – 2.98 metres wide;

L’Elephant (The Elephant) – 4.08 metres wide;

Les Pecheurs (The Fishermen) – 4.00 metres wide;

Les Deux Taureaux (The Two Bulls) – 5.11 metres wide;

Le Combat d’Animaux (Animals Fighting) – 4.58 metres wide;

Le Roi Porté (The King carried in a Hammock) – 4.50 metres wide;

Le Cheval Rayé (The Striped Horse) – 5.04 metres wide;

L’Indien a Cheval (The Indian on Horseback) – 3.50 metres wide;

Le Chasseur Indien (The Indian Hunter) – 4.30 metres wide;

Le Autruches (The Ostriches) – 3.13 metres wide.

Taken together, the tapestries feature exotic scenes of Africa, India, the Caribbean and Brazil, including an elephant beneath a cashew-tree; an ostrich, cassowary and flamingo; a rhinoceros and a zebra being attacked by a leopard; and a tableau with palm trees, a tapir, a jaguar and an iguana.

However, it is difficult to describe the tapestries better than Sir Harry Luke’s vivid description in his 1949 publication that reads as follows:

“We see a mounted herdsman wearing just such a poncho as is worn today by the huasos of Chile and the gauchos of the Argentine, and below him a gentle, contemplative llama. We see a panther fiercely clawing a helpless giant sloth; we see elephant, rhinoceros, tapirs and wild boars; we see an anteater shooting out his fantastic tongue to pick up his insect prey, for even the individual ants are woven into the fabric. Monkeys deport themselves in the coconut palms, parrots and cockatoos on the branches of trees; small birds perch quite happily on prickly cacti, still smaller ones of variegated plumage on the leaves of a banana. Peacock, ostrich and flamingo vaunt themselves in dignified attitudes below.

Even the individual ants are woven into the fabric- Ex-Governor of Malta Sir Harry Luke

“Crawling about on the ground are chameleons, armadillos, alligators and what not; brilliantly coloured fishes swim in the streams and up the rapids; by the banks swarm equally brilliant crustacean of every kind. Thus a terrified red mullet is dodging the open maw of an enormous gurnard or something of the sort; an octopus, streamlined, is swimming away from a pursuing swordfish while a turtle, sticking out its neck by the water’s edge, looks on in mild surprise. Tropical fruit and vegetables are displayed in luscious profusion.”

The weaving work on the entire set of the tapestries was completed in March 1710, in accordance with the agreement of October 1708. They were packed in four bales and, on June 2, were transported by mule-train to the harbour of Marseilles via Lyons and Avignon. They were loaded on a brigantine bound for Malta and, by the end of summer 1710, the tapestries had arrived safely in the island but not before a great scare that could have led to their loss. En route to Malta, the brigantine was ambushed by pirates who captured the cargo. After a lot of haggling, the knight charged with their safety paid a ransom said to have been equivalent to the cost of their manufacture.

In 1910, the tapestries were returned to the chamber after extensive restoration work was carried out at the Gobelins Manufactory in France. In 1957, restoration work was carried out on the panel representing Les Pecheurs after a meticulous survey of all the panels. At present, the tapestries are in very good condition.