Frieze panel, France, ca. 1800-1815.

One of three rectangular frieze panels, with border decoration and frilly drapery. Woven silk with embroidered details. Designs inspired by early reproductions of the wall paintings at Herculaneum.

Unfortunately there are no papers surviving for this acquisition. The 3 pieces of satin were purchased from a G. Bracho [Brachs?] via M.R. Steel & were bought for £6.
RP 17529 (25 April 1871)

At the time of acquisition in 1871 there were similar hangings in the Royal Palace at Madrid, and these were thought to have come from Naples.

This frieze is made up of figures cut from the same silk as that designed by Jean-Demosthène Dugourc and woven by the Lyonnais manufacturer Camille Pernon for the ballroom in the Casita del Labrador at Aranjuez in 1797. The satin was woven with a design of four different rows of figures; in each row comprised two figures of the same design across the width of the textile. The black ground is a 1 and 8 satin. The length of the repeat was approximately 2.2 metres, the width of the fabric 55 cm (a typical Lyonnais silk width).

A full uncut length of the textile exists in the Musée des Tissus in Lyon, Inv. no. 24804/1. In the Sala de la Torre, Casita del Principe in el Escorial two pieces of upholstered furniture have applied motifs from the same design - the first, a firescreen has three of the figures sewn side by side (i.e. half widths seamed together), applied with embroidery, and the second, a chair has a single figure sewn on its back. In each case embroidery has been used to apply the motifs to a ground of another silk. In the first case, embroidered motifs artfully take the eye away from the seams, as they do in the V&A example. There is also a chair-seat and back at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and a wall-hanging at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio that are put together the in the same way (See Soieries de Lyon. Commandes Royales au XVIIIe S. (1730-1800), cat.no. 81, p. 130, cat. nos. 75 and 76; Art and Design in Europe and America 1800-1900. V&A, 1989, pp. 24-5).

The figures, Bacchantes were copied from engravings of wall-paintings at Herculaneum reproduced in the volume of Le Antichità di Ercolano esposte published in 1757 in Naples. The whole work was published in a small, limited edition by Charles III of Spain and of the Two Sicilies between 1755 and 1792, and became widely available in about 1770. At the turn of the century, there was a new wave of interest in the excavations, when the Naples fell into French hands, and Josephine decorated the dining room at Malmaison with full-sized dancing figures. Later examples of Pompeian rooms at the Maxpalais in Munich and at Aschaffenburg in Bavaria Art and Design in Europe and America 1800-1900. V&A, 1989, pp. 24-5).

The flowers on this silk do not fit into the Pompeian style.

1274A-1871