Two newly restored Flemish tapestries, woven in Brussels in the 16th century and forming part of a collection exhibited at the St John’s Co-Cathedral Museum, will be brought back from Belgium this afternoon.

The tapestries, The Triumph of Faith and The Institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi, underwent restoration by Royal Manufacturer De Wit in Mechlin (Mechelen), Belgium, over the last year.

They form part of a collection of 29 tapestries, which are the main exhibits of the museum and the largest series of ancient tapestries ever woven.

Royal Manufacturer De Wit, the world leader in the conservation of ancient tapestries, has already restored six of the tapestries, and another two will be flown to Belgium today, on the same cargo plane that will bring back the newly restored works of art.

Royal Manufacturer De Wit regularly works for the greatest museums in Europe and the US. It was entrusted with the world’s three largest tapestry conservation campaigns, the St John’s Co-Cathedral Museum tapestry conservation project being one of them.

The tapestries were first cleaned using a revolutionary aerosol suction system, developed by the Belgian firm. All the fragile parts of the tissue were then consolidated by networks of methodically applied stitches.

The incomplete parts of the composition, which affect the legibility of the work, were treated using modern visual integration methods that are entirely reversible and that do not interfere with the original parts of the work.

Finally, the tapestries were spread out and lined on a large table that the firm designed specially for this operation.

Due to the tapestries’ size, they will be transported in air cargo C 130 planes, forming part of the fleet of the Belgian Air Force. The C 130s are the only planes capable of transporting the tapestries’ huge 225 kilogramme crates.

The King Baudouin Foundation (Baillet-Latour Fund) is financially supporting the conservation project, while the Belgian Air Force and the Belgian Embassy in Malta are supporting the logistics.

The project started in 2006 and is expected to be completed by 2016, at an estimated cost of about e700,000.

Flemish tapestries were Perellos’ gift to the Conventual Church

The collection of Flemish tapestries consists of 14 woven panels (6 x 6 metres) and 14 oblong ones (1.8 x 6.6 metres), as well as a large woven portrait of Aragonese grandmaster Ramón Perellos y Roccaful, who had commissioned the tapestries as a gift to the Conventual Church.

The collection was ordered for the sum of 40,000 scudi (then the equivalent of about e23,000) and arrived at St John’s Co-Cathedral in 1701.

The tapestries were woven on the cartoons of Peter Paul Rubens, apart from the portrait of the grandmaster, probably made on a drawing of Mattia Preti, and the one representing the Last Supper, woven on the cartoon of Nicholas Poussin.

The set of tapestries, with the exception of two of the large panels, used to be hung to embellish the nave of the co-cathedral in June, to coincide with the feast of Corpus Christi and the festivity of St John the Baptist.

The tapestries were woven by the Flemish atelier of Judecos de Vos in Brussels, which was one of the most important centres for the production of tapestries in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Production of tapestries began in the city in the 14th century or possibly earlier. In 1447, tapestry weavers formed their own guild, independent of other woolworkers, and by this time, tapestries had started being exported to Italy.

In the 17th century, the great Flemish painter and diplomat from Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens, made numerous tapestry designs. His prestige was an important factor in the continuing international success of Flemish tapestries.