Page 72 - Homes & Antiques (February 2020)

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1. Antique silk Kashan rug,
from Isfahan, c1915-1920,
£8,600, Farnham Antique
Carpets. 2. 17th-century
tapestry woven in silk and
wool featuring wooded
landscape, £28,000,
Julia Boston Antiques.
3. French blue and yellow
silk, c1700, £500, Joanna
Booth. 4. 1930s Hermès
silk scarf, £643, 1st Dibs.

in cream, white, light co#ee and pale
blue hues.
‘The designers we know by name
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today are those for whom archives
survive, for example, James Leman
Huguenots – some of whom were A Merchant’s Sample Book. ‘Silk was and Anna Maria Garthwaite, whose
talented weavers – "ed France to mainly woven in small workshops, designs are in the V&A, and Jean
Germany, Italy and England, each housing maybe three to four Revel and Philippe de Lasalle,
bringing with them their skills. looms. Silks with woven pa!erns whose work and portraits survive
London and Lyon became the hubs were the height of fashion, new in the Musée des Tissus in Lyon,’
for European silk. ‘The 18th century designs being created each season. explains Lesley.
was a period in which the French Plain silks were perhaps the In 1804, French weaver and
and English silk industries mainstay of the trade, as they merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard
experienced growth and renown dated less readily.’ invented the Jacquard machine
for the quality of their plain and Lesley says that, throughout the – a device $!ed to a power loom
pa!erned silks, which were sold both century, French design was copied by with perforated cards that meant
at home and abroad,’ says Professor the English. From the early 1740s to producing silk brocade and
Lesley Miller, Senior Curator of the early 1760s, England had its own damask was simpli$ed.
Textiles and Fashion before 1800, at very particular style: naturalistic
the V&A, and author of Selling Silks: "oral pa!erns on light-coloured silks The End of an Era
Increased mechanisation in the $rst
part of the 19th century boosted the
productivity of the silk weaving
industry. But sericulture in Europe
Caring According to the Farcroft should never use chemicals on began to decline, caused in part by

restoration specialists silk. Don’t get silk rugs too wet diseases that a#ected the silkworm,
for silk (farcroftuk.com), most silk or their foundation can shrink and competitively priced raw silk
costumes or textiles can be – they need a gentle, delicate from Japan, which became easier to
antiques gently vacuumed to remove clean compared to a wool rug. get hold of with the opening of the

dirt and dust, but if you are Never clean one area of a silk Suez Canal in 1869. In the Second
concerned that the material is rug, even with a very gentle World War, raw silk from Japan was
too fragile, or if it has elements solution. You need to wash the cut o# and new manmade $bres
4 such as beads that might come whole piece. Silk rugs can be began to be used instead of silk, even
loose, it’s best to seek the help cleaned by hand using a mild for parachutes and stockings.
of a professional restorer, rather foamy soap solution, which Today, European sericulture
than attempting the job yourself. crystallizes when it dries and has all but ended, but it’s still an
‘If very old silk pieces dry out, then you can vacuum it out. You important industry elsewhere.
they can get a bit brittle and should test the dyes before you ‘There are millions of people
crack,’ reveals Stephen Marsh of go ahead – some chemical dyes worldwide who are directly
Farnham Antique Carpets. ‘You can bleed if they get wet.’ dependent on sericulture. It provides