Raphael

This is a woven furnishing silk of very high quality. It was shown in the South East Gallery of the International Exhibition of 1862 by the manufacturers Daniel Walters (Class XX, no. 3898). There is no firm evidence to suggest that Owen Jones (1809-1874) designed this silk although it is known that he was fascinated with Renaissance decoration. Furthermore, there is documentary evidence that he supplied Daniel Walters with at least three silk designs, the first woven in the early 1850s.

The design for the silk was taken from Raphael's decoration of the loggia of the Vatican and follows the 19th century fashion for repeating designs taken directly from historic architectural motifs. Owen Jones's 1856 publication The Grammar of Ornament illustrates a number of similar designs in the section devoted to Renaissance Ornament. In the introduction to this chapter Matthew Digby Wyatt, himself one of the most successful commercial designers of the period, recommends the reader to draw inspiration from such work in Rome 'even the great Raffaelle himself did not distain to design ornament for carvers, of the purest taste and most exquisite fancy'.