-
Furnishing fabric
Unknown - Enlarge image
Furnishing fabric
- Place of origin:
Italy (made)
- Date:
ca. 1680 to 1690 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Silk damask
- Credit Line:
Given by Messrs Warners & Sons
- Museum number:
T.43-1937
- Gallery location:
In Storage
232 yards of this Italian crimson silk damask were bought in 1699 for furnishing state rooms for King William III in Hampton Court Palace. This fragment was taken from the walls of the robing closet. Its design shows stylised acanthus leaves. Styles in furnishing textiles changed more slowly than those for fashionable dress, and this pattern was chosen for other grand furnishing schemes well into the 18th century.
The English silk industry was expanding rapidly in the later 17th century, but the majority of its production was dress rather than furnishing fabrics, and high quality furnishing silks continued to be imported from Italy, as they had been for centuries.
