Woven shawl of wool with cotton and silk, Great Britain, 1825-1835

Woven shawl of wool with cotton and silk. Almost square, with a dense Islamic or Indian floral patterned border on a golden ground. The narrow border is open on the inner side. Vase-like shapes stand shoulder-to-shoulder, alternately bright red and white, and filled with identical sprays of flowers tied in two places with ribbon, in two different colourways. Stiff sprigs of flowers project from their tops. The spandrels between the shapes, the yellow of the ground, have another flower spray. Three shapes at each corner are slightly different, the central one resting on a small quarter moon containing a vase shaped and flowers.

On the field at each corner is a red ground symmetrical cone filled and topped with flowers, flenched by two small white cones.

By one of these is an embroidered inscription.

The guardstripe edging is applied in all four sides, and a yellow silk woven edge and fringe is applied on two. The pattern is of arcading around floral sprays in a harlequin ground - black, yellow and red beneath the arches, and red, blue and pale green above. There is a proper woven corner. binding 3/1.

Yellow and white silk, red worsted, and green, blue and pink cotton.

The guardstripes are woven on a white silk warp, and the yellow is in wool.

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century it became fashionable for women to wear shawls, with the finely-woven and brightly coloured 'cashmeres' imported from India becoming desirable accessories.

Shawl making in Britain began in 1775 and 1785 in two centres, Norwich and Edinburgh. By the 1820s no woman with any pretension to elegance would have been without several shawls, each chosen to complement a particular outfit. Initially shawl designs were copied from Indian imports. French designers, however, had been encouraged to develop patterns in keeping with European taste and when the War with France ended in 1815, British designers often visited the French weaving centres to study their designs.

T.68-1982