This exceptional tapestry is part of a series of nine tapestries, known as The Story of the Emperor, woven with wool and silk threads by master weavers at Aubusson, one of the finest tapestry workshops of France. Designed by Jean-Joseph Dumons, after sketches by the celebrated eighteenth-century French artist François Boucher, La Foire is a superb example of the fashionable chinoiserie scenes the workshop produced for aristocratic patrons. The tapestry illustrates an imaginary Chinese market with merchants selling exotic birds to an elegant royal consort within a lush landscape of garden pavilions and tropical trees, flowers and plants.
