Design
1761 (designed and made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This design is a preparatory technical drawing for a patterned silk. It acted as instructions for the weaver about how to tie up the threads on the loom and then weave in the pattern. It belongs to a group of designs commissioned by a silk manufacturing partnership active in Lyon, the most prestigious centre of the silk industry in Europe from the 1660s onwards. The partnership was called L. Galy, Gallien et cie from 1761 until the beginning of 1771 and it was one of Lyon's 400 manufacturing concerns mid-century. It kept good records, noting on the back of the designs the number of the design and minimal instructions on how it should be woven.
This design was for a patterned silk with a satin background, approximately 54 centimetres wide. It would have had this motif repeated across the width at least twice. In Lyon, manufacturing regulations dictated the widths in which such silks might be woven. The point-paper printer was Claude Seraucourt, an engraver who made everything from maps to ruled paper.
This design was for a patterned silk with a satin background, approximately 54 centimetres wide. It would have had this motif repeated across the width at least twice. In Lyon, manufacturing regulations dictated the widths in which such silks might be woven. The point-paper printer was Claude Seraucourt, an engraver who made everything from maps to ruled paper.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | paper, with copper-plate engraving, and gouache |
| Brief description | for woven silk, 1761, French; Galy Gallien, meander, flowers, green blue white |
| Physical description | Mise-en-carte or draft, copper engraved paper, with design painted in watercolour. Pattern of meanders, flowers, in green, blue and white. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Marks and inscriptions | On front: 8 en 12 de Seraucourt
On back:
L. Galy, Gallien et Cie.
24 janvier 1761
No. 490 Satin en dorures de 8 en 12 35 dix[ain]es à Répétition (There follow instructions for combining the colours of the weft into six lashes.)
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| Object history | Made for the firm of L.Galy, Gallien et cie., this and the other designs of this type were passed down through the partnership. They subsequently came into the hands of a designer called Robert Ruepp of 7 rue Bergère in Paris, who exhibited silks at the Great Exhibitions in Paris in 1900 and in 1925. They subsequently came into the ownership of Sir Frank Warner (of Warner and Co.) and then in 1972 into the collections of the V&A. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | This design is a preparatory technical drawing for a patterned silk. It acted as instructions for the weaver about how to tie up the threads on the loom and then weave in the pattern. It belongs to a group of designs commissioned by a silk manufacturing partnership active in Lyon, the most prestigious centre of the silk industry in Europe from the 1660s onwards. The partnership was called L. Galy, Gallien et cie from 1761 until the beginning of 1771 and it was one of Lyon's 400 manufacturing concerns mid-century. It kept good records, noting on the back of the designs the number of the design and minimal instructions on how it should be woven. This design was for a patterned silk with a satin background, approximately 54 centimetres wide. It would have had this motif repeated across the width at least twice. In Lyon, manufacturing regulations dictated the widths in which such silks might be woven. The point-paper printer was Claude Seraucourt, an engraver who made everything from maps to ruled paper. |
| Bibliographic reference | Natalie Rothstein. Silk Designs of the Eighteenth Century. In the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, London, 1990, p.249. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | T.399-1972 |
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| Record created | June 24, 2009 |
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