Page 71 - Homes & Antiques (February 2020)

MATERIAL MATTERS Silk

throughout the whole of Asia, by sea Europe’s main silk-producing centre.
to Japan and, later, overland to Rome, Italy started a silk industry in the
along trading routes that we now 12th century. Later, France led the
refer to as the ‘Silk Road’. The way. In the mid 1400s, Lyon became a
Romans bought silk and admired it, leading marketplace for trading in
but had no idea of its origins. Some imported foreign silks.
assumed it was made from tree In 1685, the Revocation of the Edict
leaves. They didn’t discover its true of Nantes meant that many French
origin until AD 552, when Emperor
Justinian sent two monks on a
RIGHT Print showing The Breeding of
mission to Asia and they returned to
Silkworms, 1775, from The New Rustic
Byzantium with silkworm eggs
House. BELOW The Manner of Feeding
hidden in their bamboo walking
Silkworms – the engraving, created in 1753
canes. Sericulture then spread by Benjamin Cole, depicts a silkworm farm.
throughout Greece and Asia Minor
and further west over time. By the
10th century, Andalusia was

Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images; East Asia Collection, Victoria

Antique silk Fereghan
rug, from Western
Persia, c1890,
£14,000, Farnham
Antique Carpet.

Key Designs Creations that tell the story of silk

Ann
Images;

Collector/Getty

Media/Print and Albert Museum; British Museum; V&A Images This wooden panel, c500- This early silk damask fragment Martha Edlin’s Casket is an This rare silk swatch book
ROYAL SMUGGLER
ELEGANT EMBROIDERY
TRADE INSIGHT
SILK ROAD FIND
exquisite example of 17th-
700 AD, depicts the story of
(1200-1500) was found in
Art a Chinese princess smuggling Egypt and shows the Chinese century stumpwork embroidery, was seized in 1764 by British
customs officers from French
Low; cocoons and mulberry seeds symbol ‘shòu’ – a character worked by Martha when she agents, who were attempting to
Joe out of China in her headdress. meaning longevity. was just 11 years old. sell silks illegally in London.

February 2020 Homes & Antiques 71