Description:
7 3/4 yards of a drawloom-woven patterned silk. The ground is woven in a warp-faced pink satin weave, interlaced with pink and white wefts. The white weft threads float on the surface to produce a ground pattern known as a flush or flushing effect. Additional green warp threads are bound in a satin weave to produce green vertical stripes. Additional design interest was added through the drawloom's figure harness, which created supplementary, weft-patterned floats (brocading) in 3-4 colors; green, blue, and 1 or 2 darker pink shades. Different densities and binding effects (twill) produce a heavier or lighter effect in the brocaded designs. The overall design repeats in a straight or comber repeat, three times across the fabric, which has a selvage width of 21". The vertical dimensions of the brocaded motif is about 9 1/4". Patterned silks such as this example were some of the costly fabrics availabe for dress and furnishings in the 18th century. It could take many months to design, prepare the loom, and weave them. English and European centers of 18th-century silk weaving included Spitalfields (East London), Lyon (298 miles from Paris), and Amsterdam and Haarlem in Holland. There is evidence that these costly fabrics were imported and worn in New England, but in far fewer numbers.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+F.394 |
