HOME and AWAY

  I am off away till the 26th February, collecting my annual dose of sunshine from sunny Tenerife.   I hope I deserve a holiday as I have been busy planning all our Talent for Textile Fairs for the year and will be posting off the programme to everyone on my mailing list during the first week of March,  in addition to a newsletter sent January to those who have Email - sorry, I cannot afford to send it to everyone by post.
Our first fair is the popular Ilminster one at the Meeting House on March 12th, 9.30 am - 4pm.  Free entrance for everyone and a very social occasion with lots of old friends  meeting again.  Your usual hard-working dealers will be there with new stock gathered during the winter months and you can have a good chat over coffee or something a bit stronger in the popular cafe there.

CURTAIN CALL My 'heavenly' curtains!

This beautiful Tree of Life design is a copy of a Palampore 18c. wall hanging or bedspread from India - it was copied as Le Grand Genois (Genoa) by Braquenie, famous French fabric designers now owned by Pierre Frey. The cotton is very fine and the printing immaculate, with many charming details, the 'rockwork' at the base, the strange whorls on the trunk, the fanciful and fantastic flowers and the glorious mix of colours. I bought 3 curtains at a Fair a long time ago and used 2 for my dining room window - the third curtain (shown) is hung as a straight panel on the wall opposite. They give me joy every time I look at them. There is a new and lovely book about these pieces called Chintz by Rosemary Crill of the V.and A Museum. See also my reference in the Post 'More about Petworth '- for another good book about French toiles. The 'painted' chintzes were first produced on the Coromandel Coast of India and then shipped along the trade routes to ports in France, England and Holland where they were highly prized and became very fashionable. Later versions (1860s)were made in Genoa and were known as Mezzaras and were designed to be worn over crinoline dresses. All are now rare and valuable and in good condition fetch many hundreds of pounds, if not thousands. I was lucky to find two in a bundle of linen I bought, almost unseen, thirty years ago, and have enjoyed ever since., without realising their rarity and value. A visit to Christies and the Museum at PORT LOUIS, Brittany, has revealed their fascinating history and provenance.

French Affairs

I have had a wonderful, long love affair with French antiques and textiles - I was first hooked on the dashing, striped tickings used for the old feather beds that kept the French and many other nations, warm in bed. Tough, closely woven, down -proof in jolly stripes, they were filled with feathers, and also straw, maize shucks and horsehair, two underneath on the rigid planks of uncomfortable slatted beds, and one on top, acting rather like a tea cosy. The French were fairly conservative with the colour in the weaving; using mostly indigo blue in wide and narrow stripes and rather less in beige and red fine stripes, but other countries wove them in hundreds of different brilliant stripes, in every colour except green(which was thought to be unlucky and was a difficult dye to manage). Sometimes they were made with a long slit on one side so that the contents could be stirred up by hand in the morning and easily removed when soiled , but of course feathers had to be sealed in the bags with very tiny stitches.  This image, with my name and address, printed in World of Interiors Magazine, brought me dozens of buyers who had never seen tickings in such brilliant combinations and the big US designers sent reps  as many were keen to add to their collections, and these were unique and without copyrights.

BLUE COATS AND BLUE STOCKINGS

 This news picture of a pupil at Christ's Hospital, Horsham, E.Sussex, rang a bell with me, as many years ago I purchased a similar coat from a Brighton dealer during a severe snow storm, brand new (not 1552) thinking  the heavy Melton wool cloth would repel snow, rain and wind.  I was specially keen on Tudor clothing and my brother had purchased a broken -down Bluecoat school, in East  London., to restore.  I thought this would be an interesting bit of memorabilia for his project.  Alas! all the lead was stolen from the roof and the plan was a disaster, so the coat went to the back of the wardrobe where it has been ever since!   This is a generous size 14, as new,  full length with a brilliant mustard yellow flannel lining and some brass buttons inscribed Edouard VI Rex who presumably was the founder of the school, back in Tudor times.. It is now for sale.   Melton cloth, originally from Melton Mowbray, is a thick wool cloth with a short nap used for outerwear and overcoats - I think the guardsmen in London all wear them for sentry duty and ceremonials as it is almost impervious to rain and is eztremely warm.  Coat now SOLD

OLD LANG SYNE

   I do not think  'SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT'' will ever apply to my old friend, Bryony Thomasson, about whom I wrote a little post A legendary dealer some long time ago.  So it was a great pleasure to hear from her daughter Mary today who seemed to have read it (by chance? - I do not know) and she said that the stuffed figure of Jean, the faithful follower and companion  maraicheur,  was actually sitting beside her while she (Mary) emailed me!  It was so good to have this link with the golden times of the Brocante world and I hope this tells Mary what a generous and helpful person Bryony was to those whom she wished to encourage.  She certainly told me lots of wonderful stories about her finds in remote areas and was very conversant with local customs and was on intimate terms with some of the old farmers who were clearing out their barns.  She also had many connections with the convents which were at that time being disbanded and their enormous stores of linen, laundries, workroom remnants weaving works were being scattered to anyone who would buy them.  She knew the names and use of the many strange garments the nuns wore and she had connections with the charity Emmaus who disposed of surplus belongings for their charitable homes housing some of the aged and disadvantaged S.D.Ps  (Sans domicile permanent) . She was very helpful in passing on good clients interested in buying rustic items and when she heard that I had been dealing in sacks and string, rope and twine, as well as hemp and linen, the knot was well tied and we kept in touch over several years;  I spoke to her when she was terminally ill and she said the best thing that had happened was that an American friend/client had bought her entire collection and was going to kept it intact and displayed in an old barn in Connecticut and that made her very happy.  R.I.P. Bryony.  Click on brochure to see more!    It's a very good example of display and full of info.

CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR




  


Flowers made with modern ticking fabrics from Ian Mankiin, London
Click to see the detail..



This is to wish all my readers a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.  I seem to have collected quite a few new readers in the States - welcome to you all - I do appreciate your interest and please do send me any thoughts and queries that you may wish to share.   I am a great admirer of Kaari Meng of French General, Hollywood, Calif. USA. and her most interesting Blog The Warp and the Weft.  You can reach her for lots of inspiration at   Kaari@frenchgeneral.com  Don't miss it - she brings parties to France which have been a great success and huge fun for all!    Another good one with lots of info. about every kind of textile is textile@lindaclift.co.uk      Best wishes to you all,   Elizabeth.

MONKEY BUSINESS

    The first time I saw a design of little monkeys swinging through jungle trees was down the Kings Road in London. It was on a pair of early 19c.chintz bed covers in a very smart antique shop called Browns. I was shocked to hear they were more than £30 but you have to know that this was in 1950 when I was newly married and trying to furnish a little mews house on a wage of £5. 50 a week! Somehow they stuck in my brain and next time I saw another pair of lovely green chintz counterpanes with ivy leaves in a trellis pattern and a rich border with red berries for £10, I bought them to console myself! In fact I got them from Robin Eden in Pickwick, Corsham, on my way for a Cornish holiday. I was to meet his son Matthew, another antique dealer, nearly 30 years later, when I moved to Freshford and I was able to tell him that his father (much missed by many) had started my love of old textiles.

     I have always loved the 'singeries' but they are quite rare - porcelain, silver, carvings and textiles were decorated with monkey figures in the 17th .18th C. and give a playful, exotic Eastern image to European designs. The picture shows a good example and comes from the collection of Julia Basset who lives in France and is a well known textile dealer.   I saw her at the Textile Society's Fair in Kensington in Septembrt.  She has lovely and rare things and often takes her textiles to Newark Antiques Fair..

INDIENNE ROSES

            I love this gentle Indienne design from France, late 19th C. The flowers and buds are in soft misty colours so the bolder brown branches make an effective trellis, running in diagonal lines across a background of tiny dots and other greeny- gray flowers that hardly show. This diagonal line is very important in designs and particularly effective when used on wallpapers and curtains.

         A long time ago when I learnt a bit about flower arrangements (I had two flower shops for several years) I was shown how to create a diagonal line across large arrangements, taking one colour  from top left to bottom right using four or five stems of the same flowers and pulling them forward or recessing them alternately and repeating with another colour from top right to bottom left. It not only gives a life to the design but gives a rhythm and line to the whole.which is very satisfying to the beholder. This has a sort of connection with the S, or serpentine line, which artist and classic draughtsman, William Hogarth, decreed was the' line of beauty' in the 18th Century following the High Rococo movement in furniture and art designs.
      If you look at the beautiful calicos of 19C. they often have interesting backgrounds of dots, wormlike squiggles (vermiculate) tiny geometric diaper patterns which add to the depth and charm of the overall design - something that modern copyists often leave out and neglect.  The dots (picotage) were made with a board that had pins driven into it and then the board was hammered on to the cloth with the dye on it - this was because it was almost impossible to get the fine pattern on an engraved metal 'bat'. A lot of Colefax &Fowler designs do have this feature - I think John Fowler was very exact in his reproductions of beautiful old fabrics that he found in the country houses he helped to re-furnish and restore.  There were coral, seaweed, mosaic and other popular patterns all used for the background of larger designs;. in fact  inspiration was often from nature - leaves, ferns, feathers,  all used in repetitive forms.