Mise-en-carte and Sample for Woven Textile with Interlacing Branches and Scrolling Bundles with Fruits and Leaves over a Striped Background
Anonymous, French, 18th century French
Not on view
Mise-en-carte (weaving pattern) for a woven textile (a) from the late-18th century, with design motifs typical of the time of Louis XVI, when textiles were decorated with colorful garlands of flowers and leaves, as well as other naturalistic motifs and garden trophies. This design is made up of a pattern of undulating orange branches from which emerge scrolling branches with leaves and stylized, round fruits, over a striped background made up of vertical blue stripes. The scrolling branches stand above shadows created with thin horizontal orange zig-zagging lines.
Placed below the mise-en-carte is a fabric sample (b) with a fragment of what would have been the finished textile: the scrolling branches and fruit scrolls are executed with dark blue; the shadows are created with a lighter shade of blue and the zigzagging lines are executed with dark blue. The stripes in the background are executed with white and light blue.
The instructions for the weaving of the textile are inscribed on the verso of the sheet.
