Block-printed cotton velveteen curtain, designed by Arthur Silver for the Silver Studio, fabric printed in France, 1899

Block-printed heavy-weight curtain furnishing cotton velveteen. The design is split vertically with trailing acanthus leaves between which meander full-blown pinky-red poppies and clumps of yellow briar roses and thorny stems. The pattern is printed in red, pink and shades of yellow, grey and blue on a brown ground.

Purchased with the support of the Friends of the V&A

Purchased. Registered File number 1988/106.

The design was drawn by Arthur Silver, founder of the Silver Studio in 1896. See 'Design and Designers of the Victorian Reign' by G.C. Haite, Architectural Review, 1896-1897, p. 81, where it is illustrated and described as a 'Design for Cretonne'. Silver Studio records, now at Middlesex Polytechnic, record the design as No. 1636 in their cretonne record book. The paper design was sold by the Studio to Richard Stanway, a warehouseman. A block impression of this design, marked 'Meubles R.S.' is in the collection of the Musée de l' Impression des Etoffes, Mulhouse, France. The impression is from a collection of sample books donated to the Museum by the French printers Gros Roman of Wesserling, Mulhouse. This suggests that they were printed for Stanway in France or alternatively that he subsequently sold the Silver design to the French manufacturers.

T.8-1988