Tolkien tapestry unveiled at Aubusson

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Aubusson weaves Tolkien (c) Cité international de la tapisserie - Aubusson
Aubusson weaves Tolkien (c) Cité international de la tapisserie - Aubusson

On April 6 the first of several tapestries based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s illustrations was unveiled in a ceremony at Aubusson which is home to one of the most well-known tapestry-producing industries in France. As a representative of the Tolkien family Baillie Tolkien was present, wife to Christopher Tolkien and editor of Letters from Father Christmas. The first picture to be turned into a tapesty was Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raft-elves.

In a post on the Facebook page of Cité internationale de la tapisserie – Aubusson Baillie Tolkien can be heard saying – in French – that she is absolutely convinced Tolkien himself would have been delighted to see this piece of art come to life.

Baillie Tolkien was asked to cut the last thread of the tapestry as you can see here.

The enthusiasm of the crowd present can be easily seen in this short Instagram video.

Hopefully we will see many more of those tapestries come to life. The hashtag for this project will be #AubussonWeavesTolkien.

You can read up on this project’s origin with the English version of its website here.

Suffice it to say this project has the full support of Christopher and Baillie Tolkien and the Tolkien Estate. All in all, 14 illustrations will be brought to life – the next will be “Taniquetil.”

According to Irish Times journalist Bernice Harrison who was present at the unveiling of the first tapestry the next will be presented in September.

A local radio station has quite a few pictures and short videos from the event itself.

Picture credit: (c) Cité international de la Tapisserie – Aubusson

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Marcel R. Bülles

Marcel R. Bülles is the author of thetolkienist.com, a specialist blog centering on worldwide Tolkien fandom, geekdom and research. He works as a freelance translator, journalist and writer and is the founder of the German Tolkien Society as well as a co-founder to RingCon, Europe's formerly biggest fantasy film convention. You can find him in cafés all over the world sipping an espresso blogging, writing, reading. At one point he was married to an extremely lovely French lady by the nickname of Sauron. Yes, that Sauron. He is also active with the International Tolkien Fellowship on Facebook and the Tolkien Folk on Instagram.