Description:
Plain weave yellow silk sleeve fragment, made and painted in China with scrolling floral sprays in pink, red, brown, purple, and silver, which was cut from an English gown. Much of China's silk production found its way to the West, especially England. The English East India Company purchased large quantities of raw silk for their weavers at Spitalfields and elsewhere, and also auctioned finished silks in London, ostensibly for sale out of the country. An act passed in 1700 to protect the English silk industry required that "all wrought silks � of Persia, China or East India � which are imported into this kingdom shall not be worn or otherwise used in Great Britain." Although this law prohibited the use of Chinese silks in England, the fabric was often smuggled back into the country or re-exported to Europe, the West Indies, and America. Chinese silks differed from European examples. Chinese looms tended to be wider than Western versions; widths from selvage to selvage ranged from 28 to 32 inches while western silks usually measured 19 to 23 inches wide. Chinese silk selvage edges are also distinctive, using contrasting colors, and at times contrasting weaves, to that of the fabric's ground color. Unlike their European counterparts, Chinese silks also tend to be very soft, supple, and lightweight.
Label Text:
The novelty of painted silks from China captured the interests of fashionable English and Europeans during the mid-18th century. Painted silks were made up into more casual forms of women’s dress. They also decorated private chambers in the home. While their patterns mimicked Western drawloom-woven silks, the fragile, painted designs of these textiles announced their chinoiserie connections.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2004.39.1 |
