Indienne (detail), Wood block printing on cotton, factory Oberkampf in Jouy, 1785
Way at the top of the blog page I've posted a picture of a repro print I did a few years ago in a line called Lately Arrived from London with the document print I copied it from.
Directly above is the same print from the The Museum of Printed Textiles in Mulhouse, France. Could my document print be as old as 1785? Is it the oldest piece of fabric in my collection?
My piece of chintz on the left,
white colorway of the repro print I called Seaflower
in the center and tan colorway on the right.
I am reading Susan W. Greene's estimable book Wearable Prints 1760-1860. She shows two versions of the same print with the Oberkampf print being the newer one (page 97). The print on the left above is a little more crude in the drawing and printing style. She believes it to be an Indian chintz that inspired the Oberkampf print.
I wonder about my example, though. It is not the same colors as the Jouy museum's print.
Mine is stained but the original colors seem clear, and the blues and purples
just aren't the same as the earlier prints. I think I have a later copy of the Oberkampf print.
Much like this one with the same bright colors.
Perhaps late 19th-c to early 20th?
I recall a friend of a friend gave it to me years ago.
The Seaflower repro. We didn't do the purples.
Seaflower in the background of Roseanne Smith's star quilt.
So the Seaflower print is a repro of a repro of a repro of an Indian chintz.
The tan colorway
I can, however, tell you where to buy Susan W Greene's book Wearable Prints 1760-1860.
It's a must-have if you are interested in historic fabrics. The subtitle says it all:
History, Materials and Mechanics.
History, Materials and Mechanics.
A little more about the Lately Arrived from London collection from 2011.
Roseanne's quilt before the border.
And after.
Now she has to quilt it.