Manufacture des Gobelins

The Manufacture des Gobelins sits behind a tall iron fence, recognizable by the statues of weaving and design that flank its seventeenth-century entrance. This is the oldest state-run tapestry factory in the world. It began when Louis the Fourteenth combined various royal workshops into one complex to furnish his palaces. In sixteen sixty-two, the master weaver Jean Jans moved his looms here, and weavers have produced high-warp tapestries for the French government on this exact site ever since.