One panel from a series of Gobelins tapestries, Les Portières des Dieux, depicting Bacchus, representing Autumn, seated on a cloud holding a glass in his right hand and vines in his left, a faun beside him eating grapes, surrounded by grotesque framework within a border representing a gold frame. From a set of the Four Seasons, woven in the workshop of Jacques Neilson after a design by Claude Audran III. The Court of Louis XIV of France frequently employed mythological iconography, most famously in the Grand Apartement of the Palace of Versailles, where a different deity was assigned to each room. This tapestry is part of a series called Portières des Dieux (Portals of the Gods) and is one of four representing the Seasons. Bacchus represents autumn and is identifiable by his crown of vine leaves, leopard-skin pelt and staff. Jacques Neilson was head of the horizontal loom workshop of the Gobelins. The manufactory comprised three workshops, two with vertical looms (haute lisse) and one with horizontal (basse lisse). Here Bacchus correctly holds his spear in his right hand; in another weaving of the same design in the Royal Collection (RCIN 3190), the image is reversed, suggesting that for that tapestry the cartoon was not correctly inverted before weaving took place. Woven mark NEILSON. G 1768