Strapwork with Flowers and Jewels
This furnishing textile encapsulates the boundless curiosity and confidence of late nineteenth-century France. Emulating Renaissance silks in its juxtaposition of gold and crimson, the anchoring strapwork patterning harkens to historic European woodwork, prints, and textiles, but speaks equally to traditional Near Eastern motifs. The textile’s naturalistically rendered foliage and flowers, tamed into a gentle symmetry, display a level of detailing achievable only thanks to the latest developments in machine weaving and with th intense palette of modern synthetic dyes, bringing this piece firmly into the nineteenth century.
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