Design
31/01/1706-1707 (designed)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This design is from an album that contains 104 designs for fine woven silk cloth and is dated January 31st 1706/7. A constant supply of fashionable new designs from which to create new lines was required, so patternmakers and master weavers like James Leman supplied a wide range of designs for different weavers. The album contains some of his work from the period 1706-1716, as well as five designs from the 1730s.
James Leman was born in 1688 into a weaving family of Huguenot descent. In 1702 he was apprenticed to his father, Peter, and lived with his family in Stewart Street, Spitalfields in London. Leman's inscription on the design reveals that it was commissioned by Mr Sandys, a mercer who commissioned three designs from Leman between 1707 and 1708.
James Leman was born in 1688 into a weaving family of Huguenot descent. In 1702 he was apprenticed to his father, Peter, and lived with his family in Stewart Street, Spitalfields in London. Leman's inscription on the design reveals that it was commissioned by Mr Sandys, a mercer who commissioned three designs from Leman between 1707 and 1708.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour, on laid paper |
| Brief description | Design for woven silk from the 'Leman Album', pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper, by James Leman, Spitalfields, 1706-1707 |
| Physical description | Design for woven silk from the 'Leman Album', in pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper, depicting plants, with remarkable botanical accuracy, growing from a mound of brown earth. A rose bush, an orange bough, both in blossom and fruit, a tomato plant with both ripe and unripe fruit, a fruiting sloe branch and a parrot tulip grow from the earth, all in pink, red, orange, yellow, blue, green and brown. Short roots trail down from the mound of earth. The design is squared up in pencil for cords and dezines, with dezines numbered in ink. |
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| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Credit line | Purchased with Art Fund support and the National Heritage Memorial Fund |
| Object history | This is a design from the so-called 'Leman album' which was bought from Vanners Silks Ltd. in 1991. Natalie Rothstein catalogued the designs before the album was bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum. She gave each design a VS number (for Vanners Silks) in her catalogue Silk Designs of the Eighteenth Century. The designs have been subsequently numbered by the Prints, Drawings and Paintings Department, however, a concordance exists. Historical significance: The designs collected in the album are, with the exception of some fragmentary medieval examples in Italian collections, the earliest silk designs known to exist. |
| Production | Attribution note: Natalie Rothstein questioned whether it was the colours which are numbered 1-9 on the designs, in her book Silk Designs of the Eighteenth Century. See References for more details of this book. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | This design is from an album that contains 104 designs for fine woven silk cloth and is dated January 31st 1706/7. A constant supply of fashionable new designs from which to create new lines was required, so patternmakers and master weavers like James Leman supplied a wide range of designs for different weavers. The album contains some of his work from the period 1706-1716, as well as five designs from the 1730s. James Leman was born in 1688 into a weaving family of Huguenot descent. In 1702 he was apprenticed to his father, Peter, and lived with his family in Stewart Street, Spitalfields in London. Leman's inscription on the design reveals that it was commissioned by Mr Sandys, a mercer who commissioned three designs from Leman between 1707 and 1708. |
| Bibliographic reference | Rothstein, Natalie. Silk Designs of the Eighteenth Century in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London with a Complete Catalogue with 473 Illustrations, 371 in Colour. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990. 351p., ill. ISBN 0500235899.
p. 98, pl. 5 |
| Other number | VS.28 - 'VS' stands for Vanners Silks which owned the album when Natalie Rothstein catalogued it for her publication <u>Silk Designs of the Eighteenth Century</u>. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.1861:34-1991 |
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| Record created | May 3, 2002 |
| Record URL |
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