Tags
17th and 18th Century Fashion in Detail, 18th century clothing, Antique bed, Antique clothing, Antique embroidery, Antique Fabric, antique painted aubusson studies, antique painted canvas, Antique sample books, Château d'Azay-le-Rideau, Embroidery
The “Filley de la Barre” bed
Late 17th or early 18th century embroidered white satin bed canopy
Just imagine the industry behind creating beautiful fabrics for dress, bedding, drapery,
carpets…and communicating that design to the customer in the 18th and 19th century …
Antique sample books and oil painted aubusson canvas studies
are a collectible part of the process.
Eighteenth-century silk patterns were primarily floral. Lyon silk manufactures
regularly sent their designers to Paris to meet with artists specializing in flower painting,
and to visit the botanical gardens…
Flipped on it’s side…
View of English c. 1740-45 mantua petticoat…
Ivory ribbed silk embroidered with colored silks and silver thread
17th and 18th Century Fashion in Detail
Avril Hart and Susan North
Silk pattern book
Prelle archives
Lyon, France
Silk sample book of silks woven
at Saint-Étienne c. 1770-1810
Musée d’Art et d’Industrie
18th century French sample book
Prelle
Hanks of silk thread…
Dyeing samples.
Caron Baudoin c. 1893
Quenin archives, Cuizner
Georges le Manach archives…
Tours, France
…more on sample books here
including the Cooper-Hewitt Museum exhibit…(click to view)
Unless otherwise mentioned, all photos from Silk Jacques Anquetil
19th century French pastoral scene…
Oil on canvas painting, created for the development of Aubusson wovens…
Features a scene of sheep and a lamb, framed by decorative elements
such as scrolls, a fabric swag with tassels, and garlands of flowers and leaves…
Ebay
19th Century French painted Aubusson sample…
Beautiful bouquet of roses, peonies and other assorted flowers, fruit and berries in a
basket surrounded by a cartouche interlaced with rose vines…oil on canvas
Antique World Fabrics here
Ebay
*
Heather Clawson of Habitually Chic was recently in Paris and visited the
Pierre Frey headquarters where there is an extensive collection of antique fabric
and wall paper, antique clothing, painted canvases and even a room model
to show how fabric would look in the room…visit here…
Trouvais 
Simply gorgeous!
Amazing, isn’t! And wouldn’t you want to get a hold of one of those sample books. I will send this post to a couple of friends who are textile pattern designers. OX, Monika.
So very beautiful! I would not even need the actual textile pieces to lift off to Cloud 9 ~ I could be completely happy having the Silk Pattern book or the French Sample book in my possession for even an hour or two. ~Jermaine~
These fabrics are enough to make me swoon….xv
Hi Trish,
These are fabrics who are so beautiful ! The reeditions of some of them are very expensive! I worked a few times with Le Manach fabrics in the past! When the fabric arrived I was always thrilled! And when I went to our client with the draperies or upholstered chairs in the Le Manach fabric, I was so excited to see all of this in the client’s home! I so enjoy working with these beauties!
Greet
To die for, aren’t they? Especially the silver thread embroidery. sigh. so beautiful! Those sample book are a treasure, I am sure that they will be passed down generation to generation. Once in a while I get to purchase a tiny piece of history like that, but not often. Great post! Lidy
oh , now you really have me— I have been following your site for awhile, but this post was definitely over the edge.where on earth do you find these wonderful wonderful pictures? can people actually look at these books, or are they locked away in a museum somewhere? please comment!
Hello Louise…all sample books on this page are in textile museums…company archives. The link to Habitually Chic shows how she was able to visit Pierre Frey’s collection at their Paris headquarters. If you follow my link (“more sample books here”) my earlier post on sample books shows ribbon sample pages from Bianchini-Ferier that were on sale earlier at Ebay UK, and books that came up for auction at Kelly Taylor in London and Charles Whitaker in Pennsylvania. Thank goodness museums and fabric house are preserving and archiving these treasures for us. So, you can buy them at auctions or on Ebay if you actually want to touch them, or visit them at the various museums mentioned. Silk is a fabulous book for textile lovers…published in 1996.
What a collection of beautiful images! I see the fabric books at the flea markets and trade shows and die for them! Each is so unique and precious it’s like they should be in a museum but you can touch and admire and even BUY them. I’m getting weak just thinking about it…
This post sings to my soul! Thank you for putting together such a lovely lovely collection of images. You are a true master at that art, my dear! Thank you also for the blogger award. I really enjoyed reading a little bit more about the woman behind the beautiful posts!
Absolutely lovely, thanks so much for sharing this.
Regards, Le Loup.
Hi Trish,
What amazing and exquisite fabrics and work.
I love everything, especially the sample book and the silk pattern book.
Many thanks for sharing this beautiful post today.
Hugs
Carolyn
I’m sure you would love to visit prelle ‘s show room in paris , it is gorgeous. Last year I wrote a post about it.
Unbelievable sample books…all these exquisite fabrics are remarkable. Thank you for another informative and beautiful post. Trish, you are so good at this!
🙂 Laura
Thanks for beautiful post………Lovely collection………..
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