CORA GINSBURG • MODERN
FORWARD
After the success of our 100 Years of Fashion lookbook, we wanted to do something similar for European and North American textile design. This is the first in what will be a two-part series on printed and woven fabrics for furnishing and dress from the 1870s to the early 1930s.
Titi Halle, owner and Director of Cora Ginsburg LLC, presciently began collecting modernist textiles over thirty years ago, at a time when their importance was still largely overlooked. We continue to seek out the rare and unusual, and to tell stories that have been forgotten via textiles. For instance, just last year, we discovered a collection of rare 1920s and 1930s French and German furnishing fabric samples, the showroom stock of the luxury decorating firm Lucien Alavoine & Company. A number of those appear in the following pages.
This selection, ranging from Lyonnais dress silks used by Jean-Philippe Worth to graphic cottons hand printed under the Weimar Republic, is by no means comprehensive, but it was never meant to be. It’s a record of some of the most interesting modernist textiles currently in our collection, by designers whose significance has already been well established within the histories of art and design, like Alphonse Mucha and Christopher Dresser, as well as those who remain unknown today despite success during their lifetimes, like Paul Desseroit.
We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed making it!
Martina D’Amato Managing Director
1
SCHEURER-ROTT
Roller-printed cotton sample
French (Thann, Alsace), ca. 1883 19 x 13 ½ in.
Since the time of the first large-scale excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum in the mid-eighteenth century, the distinctive fresco styles of those cities’ villas intrigued and inspired generations of artists, architects, and craftspeople. This fantastic pattern demonstrates that, as late as the end of the nineteenth century, the Pompeian Revival still influenced contemporary design. A network of grotesques with architectural elements, mythical creatures, masks, foliage, and swags populate the negative space surrounding cartouches with neoclassical figures in peploi and himations, with a palette that even mimics its twothousand-year-old antecedent, most strikingly in classic “Pompeii red.”
This cotton comes from the archives of the Alsatian textile manufacturer Scheurer-Rott, later known as Scheurer, Lauth et Cie. The gouache design for this textile is in the collection of the Design Library; see Susan Meller and Joost Elffers, Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns for Printed Fabrics (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), p. 401.
2
TASSINARI & CHATEL
Jacquard-woven silk sample
French (Lyon), ca. 1870s
18 ½ x 21 ½ in.
This jacquard-woven silk, with whimsical butterflies and stylized peonies on sinewy branches in half-drop repeat, comes from the archives of the famed Lyon-based silk weaving firm Tassinari & Chatel. The composition attests to Europe’s continued fascination with East Asia well into the nineteenth century, as well as the concurrent revival of Ancien Régime models. The motifs are lifted and adapted from both Qing dynasty precedents, particularly the florals of woven and painted fabrics made in and around Canton (modern-day Guangzhou) expressly for the export market during the second half of the eighteenth century, and the fantastical animals seen in “chinoiserie” interpretations produced on the looms of Lyon and Amsterdam as early as the 1720s.
This sample was exhibited in A Durable Thread: The Silk Road from China to America, William Paterson University Galleries, Wayne, NJ, August 29–December 2, 2022, and it was published in the accompanying exhibition catalogue.
ANONYMOUS
Silk cannelé skirt panel
French, ca. 1880
34 x 21 ¼ in.
Inspired by European meander silks of the 1760s, this complex patterned silk features a composition of serpentine feathers and bands of creamy fur brocaded with pale tan chenille. The design as well as the shaped hem, revealing its use as part of a woman’s skirt, help to date it to the late 1870s or early 1880s.
4
TASSINARI & CHATEL
Les Grenades voided silk velvet skirt panel
French (Lyon), designed ca. 1881–82, woven ca. 1897–99 57 ¼ x 40 in. (irregular)
Although the manufacturer of this rich voided silk velvet has not yet been identified, the fabric was used on at least two occasions by the couturier Jean Philippe Worth (1856–1926). Worth’s English-language memoir that was published posthumously in 1928 includes a photograph of the designer himself dressed as Lord Capulet with a long coat made of an identical velvet (fig. 2). A reception dress preserved in the Museum of the City of New York is also made from two silks in this pattern: a wine red voided velvet, and an ivory lampas (42.146.4A-B).
With special thanks to Fabrice Olivieri for identifying this pattern.
FIG. 2
“J. P. Worth as Capulet in ‘Romeo and Juliet’,” in Worth, A Century of Fashion (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1928), n.p.
BERARD & FERRAND
Figured silk
French (Lyon), ca. 1880–85
132 x 28 in.
This unused length of silk damask comes from the Lyonnais silk manufacturing firm Berard & Ferrand, known for their high-end dress silks. Founded in 1851 by Ernest Berard, Berard & Ferrand was awarded medals or honors at all of the major international exhibitions held between 1855 and 1889 and, in 1883, the firm supplied the silk for Empress Maria Feodorovna’s coronation gown. Despite such resounding international success, Berard & Ferrand did not survive into the twentieth century. In March 1900, the company abruptly shuttered and liquidated all stock.
In keeping with the Orientalist taste of the 1870s and 1880s, this tonal aquamarine damask appears to be loosely inspired by East Asian motifs, with a composition of stylized, curling Japanese chrysanthemums. At about the same time, Berard & Ferrand had expanded their premises on the quai de Retz in Lyon to include imported “articles de Levant.” This unused length retains the firm’s original paper label.
ANONYMOUS
Brocaded ribbed silk
French (Lyon?), ca. 1880–90
133 x 23 ¼ in.
There is an apparent three dimensionality of the two-tone golden roses brocaded in half-drop repeats along this ribbed silk. The unusually heavyweight fabric rustles when moved, evocatively suggesting how this textile sounded when in motion on a body, made up into a dress—a subject that made its way into contemporary fiction. While the maker is unknown, the silk was likely produced at one of Lyon’s powerhouse firms.
7
WARNER & SONS
Magdalen silk damask
English, designed 1895
90 ½ x 21 in.
Known for their faithful copies as well as inventive revivalist silks, the English textile manufacturer Warner & Sons first registered this pattern, Magdalen, in 1895. The design reproduces a fragment of a Lucchese silk lampas now in the V&A (fig. 1). The weave structure and pattern, with a composition of grapevines and birds in yellow and green, are of a type called camacas in fourteenth-century inventories.
The V&A’s files also contain a dated 1892 watercolor reconstruction of the silk executed by one of the museum’s official artists, Blanche F. Hunter. Because of the fragmentary and worn state of the original silk, Warner’s designers might have also consulted Hunter’s drawing in order to turn the lampas into a two-color damask in at least five colorways.
8
ANONYMOUS
Pair of roller-printed cotton curtains
French (Alsace?), ca. 1890
132 x 76 in. each
A dense, symmetrical composition of stemmed roses, lily-like flowers with oversized stamens, and serrated leaves offer the platonic ideal of the Art Nouveau aesthetic. Probably printed in Alsace, the cotton was made into a pair of curtains or portieres, all finished with cotton pom-pom passementerie and a celadon green cotton twill lining. Based on their nearly pristine condition, it is possible that these curtains were ultimately never used.
FÉLIX AUBERT
for SCHEURER, LAUTH ET CIE
L’Iris d’Eau roller-printed cotton sample
French (Thann), ca. 1897–98
19 x 24 in. (left), 30 x 27 ¼ in. each (pp. 26–27)
Trios of symmetrical irises undulate in Iris d’Eau, designed by the textile and lace designer Félix Aubert (1866–1940) and printed by the Alsatian textile firm Scheurer, Lauth et Cie in coordination with Pilon et Cie. Aubert was a major proponent of marrying the fine and decorative arts as well espousing truth to materials and form following function. In 1898, Aubert and his artistic collective the Groupe des Six chose this textile to adorn the walls of the Galerie des Artistes Modernes during their exhibition.
Lengths of Iris d’Eau are in the Allentown Art Museum (2005.023.000), Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection (T-2409), Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2008.32, 2008.33, 2008.34), Landesmuseum Stuttgart (GT 6516), Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005.33), Textilmuseum Krefeld (06458), and Wadsworth Atheneum.
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER (attributed) for SCHEURER, LAUTH ET CIE
Roller-printed velveteen and sateen samples
British (printed in Alsace), ca. 1898–99
27 ½ x 29 ½ in. (velveteen), 8 x 18 ½ in. (sateen)
Industrial designer, architect, artist, and botanist Christopher Dresser (1834–1904) and his contributions to Britain’s Design Reform movement and indeed the whole history of modern design in Europe cannot be understated. His prolific career and prodigious oeuvre survive in a multitude of media, including textile design. From the 1870s, he regularly licensed his designs to Alsatian manufacturers. His student Cecil Tattersall, later wrote that, “You can take it that he [Dresser] was doing business with every firm manufacturing wallpapers and cretonnes at the time,” and that he visited Alsace “at intervals.” In 1904, while on one such trip, Dresser died in Mulhouse and is buried there.
This composition of stylized hollyhocks and leaves and a coordinating border design are among those attributed to Dresser from his years supplying designs to Alsatian printers, including Scheurer Rott and its successor Scheurer, Lauth et Cie. These two samples come from that firm’s archive. A Scheurer sample in another colorway is in the Dorman Museum, Middlesbrough; published in Harry Lyons, Christopher Dresser Textiles (Woodbridge, Suffolk: ACC Art Books, 2018), pp. 24-25. Another length of this textile is in the Musée de l’Impression sur Étoffes de Mulhouse (1544/2/113); see Ruth Grönwoldt, Art Nouveau-Textil Decor um 1900 (1980), p. 121, no. 91.
ALPHONSE MUCHA
Femme à la marguerite roller-printed velveteen sample Czech (printed in Alsace, France), ca. 1898–1900 27 ½ x 30 in.
The Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) was a leading proponent of the Art Nouveau style in fin-de-siècle Paris. Mucha was best known for his posters depicting sensual, languid women with abundant, flowing hair, including the celebrated actress Sarah Bernhardt with whom he worked from the mid-1890s. His skill as a draughtsman and decorative designer brought him commissions for a wide range of graphic projects, from largescale advertisements for cigarette paper, champagne, and railroads to magazine and book illustrations.
Around 1900, Mucha produced a limited number of watercolor designs for furnishing fabrics with the workshops of C.G. Forrer in Paris and Hines, Stroud & Co. in London. These incorporated his distinctive female figures and lush vegetal forms. Femme à la marguerite was manufactured by one of the major Alsatian printing firms, Scheurer, Lauth et Cie, in velveteen, cotton sateen, and a heavyweight ribbed cotton in several colorways. The refined elegance of Mucha’s furnishing cottons would have perfectly complimented Art Nouveau interiors, in which they were used as screens and pillows.
Panels of this textile include those in the Allentown Art Museum (2005.025.000); Art Institute of Chicago (2004.76); Baltimore Museum of Art (2003.142); RISD Museum (2008.9.2); Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (2004-6-2); Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection (T-2019); MAD Paris (DT 93); Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2008.35, 2008.36, 2008.37); and Wadsworth Atheneum (2003.16.1).
DAGOBERT PECHE
for the WIENER WERKSTÄTTE
Blumenhorn block-printed linen sample Austrian (Vienna), ca. 1911–12 43 ¼ x 29 ¾ in.
Founded in 1903 by architect-designers Josef Hoffman and Kolomon Moser to create furniture and furnishings, the Wiener Werkstätte would become one of the most influential design collectives committed to the cause of handcrafts until its closure in 1932. With the establishment of its own in-house textile and fashion departments in 1910 and 1911, respectively, the Wiener Werkstätte gained widespread commercial popularity and recognition in the realm of pattern design that coincided with a shift from producing woven fabrics to an emphasis on printed cottons and silks. Although lively compositions and vivid coloring characterize many Wiener Werkstätte textiles, the large number of designers who created both abstract and representational patterns over three decades resulted in a wide range of styles and idioms—historicist, modernist, vernacular, and exotic.
Perhaps the most versatile and commercially successful of all Wiener Werkstätte designers was Dagobert Peche (1886–1923), who worked prolifically in textiles, leaving an archive of almost three thousand designs. Peche is known for his sophisticated color sense, as evidenced here in this early design. Aptly titled Blumenhorn, the pattern features cornucopias of flowers enclosed within a feathered lattice. Although block printed, the linework and use of negative space suggest knowledge of and inspiration from Indonesian batiks.
The paper strikeoffs for this and another colorway of Blumenhorn are in the MAK Vienna (WWAD 3-1, (WWAD 3-2), as well as swatches in various colorways (T 11379-1-16, T 10621-44, T 10621-45, T 10621-46, WWS 87). Three drawings are in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (1988-62-623, 1988-62-624, 1988-62-625), and a monochromatic blocked wallpaper is in the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (T1/125).
ROSA KRENN
Liverpool block-printed silk
Austrian (Vienna), ca. 1910–12
35 x 37 in.
The intriguingly titled Liverpool is by Austrian designer Rosa Krenn (1884–1970), one of the many still largely unknown women designers whose work was key to the success of the Wiener Werkstätte. Krenn first attended the Prague Kunstgewerbeschule and subsequently, between 1909 and 1913, she studied at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule under Josef Hoffman and the ceramicist Michael Powolny.
Krenn’s blocked silk demonstrates the high-end production of Wiener Werkstätte printed fabrics. At least eight separate blocks were used to create the dense, stylized floral and foliate pattern—one for each color. On the off-white ground, rows of large purple and pale pink flowers with deep and light salmon-colored details, smaller flowers with curlicue stems in purple, pale green, and two shades of blue, and similarly colored flowerheads nestle among a thicket of whimsically shaped green leaves outlined in dark blue. The soft drape and sheerness of the plain-woven silk suggest it might have been used for a tunic blouse or as an inset dress panel. Photographs of models in Wiener Werkstätte creations as well as its fashion illustrations around 1910–12 often show a patterned silk used in conjunction with a solid-colored fabric. In addition to wearing Wiener Werkstätte fashions and accessories, enthusiastic female patrons could also decorate their interiors with coordinating—or even matching—boldly patterned fabrics, thereby fully embodying the workshop’s adherence to the principles of Gesamtkunstwerk.
A panel of Liverpool is in the collection of the MAK Vienna (WWS 436).
MARIANO FORTUNY AND HENRIETTE NEGRIN
Block-printed cotton twill cushion cover Italian, ca. 1921 19 x 19 in.
Made into a double-sided cushion cover and used in the home of Henriette Negrin (1877–1965), the wife, muse, and collaborator of Mariano Fortuny (1871–1949), this block-printed cotton by Fortuny draws on a particular British precedent. Printed in charcoal gray on an ecru cotton twill, the dense design precisely reproduces in two dimensions a late sixteenthcentury blackwork embroidery with Tudor roses and other florals, pomegranates, and foliage within an elongated lattice pattern. It is possible that Fortuny or Negrin came across the pattern in A.F. Kendrick’s A Book of Old Embroidery, published in 1921 (fig. 3). Seven pieces of this embroidery, now reconstructed to form the top of a smock, later entered the V&A Museum (T.113 to 118-1997).
A cushion cover with an identical pattern printed on silk is in the collection of the Museo Fortuny (T0206, IG0295). Other examples of this pattern, both printed and woven, are in the Art Institute of Chicago (1981.89c) and the Museo del Traje (CE088558).
FIG. 3
From Albert Frank Kendrick, A Book of Old Embroidery (London: The Studio, 1921), pl. 8
ATELIER MARTINE
(attributed)
Figured and brocaded cotton curtain French, ca. 1915–20 95 x 53 ¼ in.
The whimsical, stylized flowers (possibly carnations) brocaded in cornflower blue and white on this sheer white cotton are characteristic of the Atelier Martine. Couturier Paul Poiret (1879–1944) conceived of Martine, named after his second daughter, as a school, workshop, and retail shop that designed and manufactured textiles, carpets, furniture, tablewares, and home accessories. For the endeavor, Poiret recruited young girls with no formal artistic training from working-class families, accompanying them on field trips to paint the natural world and choosing which naïve compositions to put into production.
This mousseline de Tarare has been made into a billowing curtain with twisted cotton fringe. Strengthening the likelihood that this cotton was designed and made at the Atelier Martine is this curtain’s provenance: it belonged to Denise Boulet, Paul Poiret’s wife and muse, and hung in her bedroom. It was exhibited in “Poiret le Magnifique,” Musée JacquemartAndre, Paris, 1974; it was published in the accompanying exhibition catalogue, p. 46, no. 172, and in La Creation en Liberté. Univers de Paul et Denise Paul Poiret 1905–1928, vol. 1, Piasa, May 10–11, 2005, p. 85. A related fabric is seen in a photographed of the Poiret home published in Caroline Milbank, Couture (Paris: Lafont), 1985, pp. 86–87.
In 1974, Denise Boulet donated related brocaded muslin samples from the Atelier Martine to the V&A Museum (T.613-1974, T.613A-1974, T.613B-1974, T.613C-1974, T.613D-1974, T.613E-1974, T.613F-1974).
PAUL POIRET
the textile ATELIER MARTINE (attributed)
Girl’s dress of block-printed silk satin and velveteen French, ca. 1915–20
This well-loved dress comes from the wardrobe of one of couturier Paul Poiret’s daughters, probably Perrine (b. 1910) or Martine (b. 1911). Poiret made the tiny garment from a crepe-back satin that was almost certainly block printed at the Atelier Martine with a pattern of white daisies, red poppies, lavender carnations, and other flowers. The shift is finished with bands of black cotton velvet at the collar, sleeves, and hem. Self-fabric loops at the slightly dropped waist would have held a coordinating satin or black velvet belt.
ANONYMOUS (in the style of Atelier Martine)
Block-printed cotton
French, ca. 1915–20
29 ½ x 26 in.
This block-printed cotton with daisies, dahlias, and other small flowers relates closely to designs from Paul Poiret’s Atelier Martine and may even be attributable to his workshop.
For a textile depicting similar dahlias that was produced in about 1917 by the Atelier Martine and later used in Poiret’s Biarritz showroom in 1922, see Palmer White, Poiret (New York: C.N. Potter, 1973), pp. 144, 149. In 1925, Paul Follot also used a similar design of dahlias on the walls of a bedroom he designed for Pomone, the decorating workshop of Bon Marché; see Émile Bayard, Art appliqué français d’aujourd’hui (Paris: E. Gründ, 1925), p. 35.
RAOUL DUFY for BIANCHINI-FÉRIER
Les Althéas block-printed silk French (Lyon), ca. 1918 54 ½ x 52 in.
Painter Raoul Dufy (1877–1953) pioneered the concept of the artist textile in his early collaborations with couturier Paul Poiret and his sixteen-year career with the Lyonnais textile firm Bianchini-Férier. Between 1912 and 1928, Dufy produced an astonishing four thousand textile designs for Bianchini. Manifest in these drawings is Dufy’s unique understanding of how to simultaneously compose fine art and design functional fabrics for furnishing and dress.
This length of block-printed dress silk in the pattern known as Les Althéas is an original document from the Bianchini archive. The hibiscus or rose of Sharon’s blooms interlock in a dense mosaic of blues and pinks that fill the carefully delineated forms of nature. Through the equilibrium of shapes, calligraphic outlines, variations in saturations, the scale of the print, and the sheerness of the silk, Dufy maintained a delicate balance between artistry and fashion. This pattern was produced until at least 1929, one year after Dufy’s tenure at Bianchini ended.
Lengths of Les Althéas are in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag (1002235) and Art Institute of Chicago (2004.939).
Provenance: Bianchini-Férier archive
19
LOUIS SÜE
for COMPAGNIE DES ARTS FRANÇAIS
Paris silk damask sample
French, ca. 1919–23
54 ½ x 52 in.
In 1919, architect, designer, and decorator Louis Süe (1875–1968) founded the Compagnie des Arts Français together with painter and designer André Mare. The duo quickly became famous for their modernist furniture and lighting which was always accented by their distinctive carpet and textile designs featuring stylized florals, festoons, bows, and drapery. In this twocolor damask known as Paris, Sue utilized all of these forms, adding large plumes of ostrich feathers shaped to possibly evoke the French royal fleurde-lys. n 1926, Süe and Mare used the fabric as a wallcovering in a shoe salon (fig. 4).
A length of Paris in a different colorway is in the Met (23.175.8, 23.175.12), acquired directly from the Compagnie des Arts Français in 1923.
4
ANONYMOUS
Voided silk-cotton velvet Italian, ca. 1925
42 ¼ x 52 ¾ in.
The pattern of this luxurious silk-and-cotton velvet is a clever homage to traditional Venetian silk design and weaving, made to suit the contemporary Art Deco moment. The unknown manufacturer adapted the rhythmic, zigzagging compositions and stylized floral elements of so-called “bizarre” silks produced for women’s dress in the early eighteenth century into a rich and tactile heavyweight drapery fabric in shades of claret red, flamingo pink, taupe, and ecru. The weave marries silk and cotton velvet, alternately reflecting and absorbing light, with a subpattern of velvet stripes and areas of exposed tabby-woven cotton duck that outline the curving geometric shapes and flowering basket motifs.
Identical panels of velvet are in the collections of the Museo del Tessuto, Prato; and the Soprintendeza per i beni e le attività culturali, Trento.
21
JEAN BEAUMONT, PIERRE SARDOU, or MADAME MADIER for TASSINARI & CHATEL
Les Spires silk lampas French (Lyon), 1927 55 x 50 ½ in.
At the 1927 showcase L’Art moderne de la soie at the Palais Galliera (then called the Musée Galliera), one could view the latest creations from Lyon’s top silk manufacturers, including Cornille & Cie, Ducharne, BianchiniFérier, and Tassinari & Chatel. A photograph of Tassinari’s installation shows a length of this jacquard-woven silk, Les Spires, draped as a curtain (fig. 5). Twill and tabby weaves give depth to the spirals in tones of burnished gold and mulberry red set against a deeper plum satin. The pattern seems to have been well-known in the period and was highlighted by authors in decorating magazines during the late 1920s. The actual designer is not clear, however. A length sold in 2008 from the Tassinari archives was attributed to Jean Beaumont, while a 1928 photograph of Les Spires taken by Thérèse Bonney bears her handwritten inscription ascribing it to the architect Pierre Sardou. In print, the author of an article in the October 1928 issue of Art & Industrie noted the creator as one “Mme. Madier.”
A length of Les Spires is in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (1931-1-12).
FIG. 5
“L’Art de la soie au musée Galliera,” La Renaissance de l’art français et des industries de luxe, July 1927, p. 379
22
PAUL DESSEROIT
Jacquard-woven rayon sample
French, 1930
27 x 52 ¼ in.
Very little is known about the textile manufacturer Paul Desseroit outside of the company’s advertisements, which were featured in French decorating publications in the 1920s and 1930s. Founded in 1912 with retailers in Brussels, Berlin, Zurich, Vienna, and London, Paul Desseroit specialized in printed and woven furnishing textiles, exhibiting at fairs including the Paris Colonial Exhibition in 1931 and the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. Desseroit himself served as president of the Chambre syndicale des tissus d’ameublement, tapisseries et tapis.
The firm used this jacquard-woven rayon with a small-scale geometric design of mauve and ecru adjoining triangles and polygons in a French advertisement in 1930 (fig. 6). New York can be added to the list of cities with distributors of Desseroit’s fabrics, as this sample comes from the stores of the 57th Street showroom of Lucien Alavoine & Company, which officially closed its New York branch in 1963.
FIG. 6
Art et Industrie, March 1930, p. xiv
ANONYMOUS
Jacquard-woven rayon samples
French, ca. 1927–32
28 to 33 x 50 to 51 ¼ in. each
This group of rayon furnishing fabrics (see also inside covers) were available for purchase around 1930 via the Paris-based high-end decorating firm Lucien Alavoine & Company, who also maintained showrooms in New York and London. Similar fabrics from unknown French manufacturers are in the V&A Museum; some of these were retailed in London at the Sloane Street premises of the French furniture importer Betty Joel Ltd (CIRC.735-1931, CIRC.737-1931, CIRC.24-1936 CIRC.26-1936, CIRC.30-1936).
ANONYMOUS
Jacquard-woven cotton-rayon samples
French, ca. 1931
28 x 51 in. each
These modernist woven samples are a testament to the creativity and pragmatism of French designers and weavers specifically producing patterns for hard-wearing upholstery fabrics to be used in public spaces in the 1920s and 1930s. Cities in northern France, like Lille, were especially well known for these creations. A network of rigid polygons and stylized foliate stems in deep tan and chocolate brown are set against an ecru diaper-patterned ground.
Both textiles are dated based on identical lengths that entered the V&A Museum in 1931 (CIRC.739-1931, CIRC.753-1931, T.213-1931); published in Charlotte Samuels, Art Deco Textiles (London: V&A Publications, 2003), pls. 47, 48.
25
ANONYMOUS
Block-printed cotton and wool velvet samples
French, ca. 1925–30
23 x 50 in. each
Like the previous rayon samples, these printed velvets are examples of the array of patterns used for upholstery in high-end public projects in France during the 1920s and 1930s, and all come from the New York showroom of Lucien Alavoine & Company. The Martine-inspired florals and geometric patterns on the following pages are similar to a printed fabric used on the seats in a Farman airplane cabin decorated by René Joubert, architect and founder of the furniture and interior design firm D.I.M. (Décoration Interieure Moderne), and his colleague Philippe Petit, who together also designed the Farman offices (fig. 7).
FIG. 7
Interior of a Farman airplane, published in Rosalia and Giovanni Fanelli, Il Tessuto Art Deco e Anni Trenta (Florence: Cantini, 1986), no. 112.
GEORGES LE MANACH (attributed)
Jacquard-woven cotton-rayon sample
French (Lyon?), ca. 1933
26 ½ x 48 ½ in.
Following the Paris Colonial Exhibition in 1931, French artists and designers took renewed interest in appropriating and adapting patterns and forms initially seen in France’s Western African colonies. Textile manufacturers followed this trend with fabrics for furnishing and dress. This jacquard-woven upholstery fabric may be a variation of Georges Le Manach’s aptly named Le Zèbre (fig. 8). A related textile with a Kubainspired jacquard-woven design, also attributed to Le Manach and with the same provenance as this example, is in the Mint Museum.
