This section is from the book "Tapestries; Their Origin, History And Renaissance", by George Leland Hunter. Also available from Amazon: Tapestries; Their Origin, History, And Renaissance.
German tapestry looms were among the first to become active, as we have already seen in the chapter on Gothic Tapestries. But no German city ever became an important centre of tapestry-weaving. Among primitive German tapestries - besides the Saint Gereon and Halberstadt pieces - are the 12 pieces at the Ratisbon Rathaus that picture men and women in strange costumes playing cards or dancing; the Saint Catherine and the Apostles tapestries at Saint Laurent in Nuremberg; the one in the Nuremberg Museum that pictures games and recreations on the walls of a fortified city; the one in the Brussels Museum 1.14 metres by 3.85, that pictures, against a verdure background with long descriptive scrolls, the Return of the King, the Banquet, the Game of Backgammon, the Visit to the Hermit, with tiny scenes from everyday life beneath the main scenes; Mr. Morgan's Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, lent to the Victoria and Albert Museum; the two long bands of tapestry exhibited at the Brussels Tapestry Exposition in 1880, one belonging to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the other to Prince Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, with long scrolls inscribed in German, one of which reads: "ForWilhelm loves one of the beauties, Amely".
In the Munich Museum are three large genealogical tapestries that Ott-Heinrich had woven early in the XVI century at his own factory in Lauingen, after designs by M. Gerung. Also in the Munich Museum, the Four Seasons, Day, Night - six XVII century tapestries woven in Munich for Duke Maximilian I, of Bavaria, by Hans Van Der Biest after designs by Peter Candid; also the Twelve Months by the same masters. During the XVIII century a number of rather mediocre tapestries were woven in Munich and also in Berlin.
A modern high warp plant in Germany is that of W. Ziesch & Co., established in Berlin in 1879. A booklet published on the occasion of the jubilee celebration of the XXV anniversary in 1904, contains photographic illustrations of aged tapestries before and after repair (See plate no. 319), and a colour plate of a tapestry woven after a cartoon by the historical painter Julius Jürss for the Dortmund Rathaus, picturing "the Empress Elizabeth at the Rathaus Celebration in 1378." The four scenes are framed in jewelled Gothic columns, and the artist evidently made a serious attempt to reproduce the costumes and atmosphere of the XV century.