| The Franses Research Archive and Library in London is the
world's largest academic resource on European Tapestries and
Carpets. It operates as non-profit and houses over 160,000 visual
records, which have been meticulously cross-referenced by subject,
date, and origin. The information has been collected and catalogued
from several hundred museums, libraries, trade and private
collections, and allows precise identification of individual works
(as well as visual reconstruction of dispersed sets of tapestries).
The Archive specialises in identifying lost, missing or stolen pieces; in 1993 discovering two Gobelins tapestries stolen from the Institute of Fine Arts New York. The Archive also specialises in research projects. FRANSES is currently working with the National Trust cataloguing the collection of tapestries in their 200 properties throughout England, and on a project for Glasgow City Art Galleries assembling documentation for the famous Burrell Collection of medieval tapestries. |