In 1923, E. Irving Hanson (American, 1878–1955), vice president of the textile firm H.R. Mallinson & Company, made a visit to France. With a long-standing interest in art and design, his trip inspired a group of six textiles based on famous places in that country, using iconic churches and gardens as its theme. In Paris,...
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In composition, Kaleidoscope closely resembles Larsen’s famous design of concentric squares, Magnum. But whereas that design was machine-embroidered around mirror-like squares of Mylar, Kaleidoscope is a durable, hard-wearing upholstery in a technique called epinglé velvet – so named for the wires which are inserted into the shed during the weaving and over which the pile...
This velvet exemplifies the prodigious skill of Italian velvet weavers in the latter half of the 15th century. The red silk pile is embellished with sparkling allucciolato, or metallic weft loops. The voided areas have no pile, but shine with supplementary wefts of silk wrapped in silver-colored metal. Italian velvet weavers developed a special technique...
