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Shawl

1839- 1840 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Woven wool shawl depicting on a bright red ground huge fantastic flowers blossom from delicate floral trails and attenuated slanting cones with their roots in the end borders and their curling tops forming a symmetrical pattern round one of the flowers in the centre of the shawl. At either end, these long cones and trails interlace through the tracery of a gothic arcade. Besides gothic windows and pinnacles there are figures in niches, some looking distinctly Chinese, and banners with heraldic eagles.

The end borders are formed by the ends of the plant-filled cones and roundels with tracery. The side borders are of meandering plants growing from a Chinese vase in each corner. Within is a narrow band of Gothic ornament, projecting into the field. All round the edges is woven a fringe with little tassels.

The end pieces are broad areas of black, pale orange, pale blue, red, green, dull yellow, and pale green. The ends of the warp are printed in these colours, changing to uniform red before the border is finished. These are the colours found in the weft, plus a darker marron red, white, and pale pink.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Woven in wool and cotton on a silk warp
Brief description
Woven wool shawl, designed by Herault and Leon, made by Bournhonet et Cie., Paris, 1839-1840
Physical description
Woven wool shawl depicting on a bright red ground huge fantastic flowers blossom from delicate floral trails and attenuated slanting cones with their roots in the end borders and their curling tops forming a symmetrical pattern round one of the flowers in the centre of the shawl. At either end, these long cones and trails interlace through the tracery of a gothic arcade. Besides gothic windows and pinnacles there are figures in niches, some looking distinctly Chinese, and banners with heraldic eagles.

The end borders are formed by the ends of the plant-filled cones and roundels with tracery. The side borders are of meandering plants growing from a Chinese vase in each corner. Within is a narrow band of Gothic ornament, projecting into the field. All round the edges is woven a fringe with little tassels.

The end pieces are broad areas of black, pale orange, pale blue, red, green, dull yellow, and pale green. The ends of the warp are printed in these colours, changing to uniform red before the border is finished. These are the colours found in the weft, plus a darker marron red, white, and pale pink.
Dimensions
  • Without fringe length: 134in
  • Width: 66.75in
  • Length: 309cm
  • Width: 169cm
  • Width: 1680mm
  • Length: 3620mm (Note: including fringe)
Gallery label
(1984)
WOVEN SHAWL, long.
French; Bournhonet et Cie., Paris.
Designed by Herault and Léon, for the Exhibition of French Industry, Paris, 1839.
The mixture of design sources seen here, fanciful gothic architecture, Chinese pots in the border, and Indian 'pine' shapes, is typical of eclectic textile design in Europe in the late 1830s and '40s. The 'pine' or 'cone', the basic motif of Indian shawls and their European copies, is here drawn out to cover half the shawl, growing from the narrow outer guard-stripe through the deep border and into the field, to turn over at the centre and burst into flower like a firework. This adventurous use of the pine was found to a lesser extent in shawls of the 1840s and became common only in the 1850s.
The shawl of this design exhibited in 1839 had a black ground. It was woven in Cashmere goats' wool, as this shawl probably is; but Bournhonet also exhibited in 1839 the first shawl woven with a silky wool from a flock of special sheep owned by M. Graux of Mauchamps.
Collection
Accession number
T.362-1980

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
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