Author: Laurel McEuen

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Bed hangings of heavy white silk, embroidered in gold thread, gold foil strips, and colored silks. Each panel is made up of two breadths of fabric seamed down the center and is lined in white silk plain weave. The design is arranged so that golden rococo curves meet at the center seam to form a symmetrical v-shaped pattern, with flowering branches and birds, worked in satin stitch in colored silks. While the flowers are symmetrical, the birds are vertically off-set; each panel shows eleven birds, all different, which appear to be taken from a set of ornithological prints by Xaviero Manetti. Metallic effects in several textures are created with couched crimped gold lamella and couched foil-wrapped silk-core threads.
Flight of Fancy: Luxe Prints & The Textiles They Inspire
This eighteenth-century French embroidered bed hanging has all the sumptuousness and curves one might expect from a Rococo textile. However, the symmetrical, repeating undulation of the branches is punctuated by specificity and variety discovered through close study and interest in the natural world and expressed through the visual language of luxury. Among the golden perches...
textile with deep red flower pattern
Fresh, Fun, Friendly
Josef Hillerbrand (1892-1981), was a German-born architect and painter who also designed textiles, as well as carpets, ceramics, glass, metalwork, furniture, lighting, and interiors. He received his formal training from the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Munich, where in 1922 he was asked by Richard Rimmerschmid, a prominent Art Nouveau artist and designer,...
Piece of printed velvet with a young woman in medieval dress with flowing hair, holding a daisy and standing amidst a swirling profusion of branches and flowers, in shades of brown, rust, green and yellow on a pale pink ground.
Velvet Lady
“Femme à Marguerite” or “Woman with a Daisy” was designed by Alphonse Maria Mucha, a fin-de-siecle artist perhaps most famous for his works on paper. Mucha was born in Moravia in 1860 and died in Czechoslovakia in 1939, however like a majority of his works, this fabric was designed in France around the turn of...
Large-scale geometric pattern with imbricated semi-circles, circles with wedges, diamonds, rectangles and squares, in navy and pale blue, green, yellow, burnt orange, lilac, and tan on a white ground.
Celebrating Comfort & Personal Style
Upon hearing the words modern, modernism, or modernist design, what are your first thoughts? “Form follows function,” universal, structured, machines, red, yellow, blue, black, white, tubular steel, leather, Cubism, geometry, straight lines, circles, squares, triangles? What about knotted carpeting, irregular shapes and patterns, whimsy, a denial of the machine aesthetic, comfortable, cozy, eclectic, personal, humanistic,...
golf ball textile
Fore!
If you’re anything like me golf is not your forte, and well, neither is driving a golf cart. The only time I ever went golfing was with my dad, and I drove our cart through a pristine flower bed. Needless to say, I’ve not golfed since, but my dad and I still laugh about the...
Rank Badge (Buzi), 1368-1644
Longevity
Asia Week  is in full swing! An annual event in New York City, Asia Week began last Friday, March 15th and runs through this Saturday, March 23rd . In an effort to support and celebrate Asian art both in the city and across the nation, galleries, auction houses, museums and cultural institutions in New York ...
Small robe in yellow silk tapestry weave, k'ossu, with metallic gold dragons on the front, back, shoulders and sleeves. The ground is filled with clouds motifs in blue and green; flaming pearls, bats, and other auspicious symbols. At the bottom is a deep border is multicolored diagonal stripes (water convention). Assymetrical closure with yellow silk ties at the neck and side; side openings are edged with bright blue silk.
The Dragon’s Allure
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, the Year of the Dragon has come to a close and we are beginning the Year of the Snake. In honor of the Chinese New Year I present to you a very small Chinese robe from the collection of the Textiles Department. This late 18th century robe is made...