Flower Embroidery Design for Silk Manufactory of Lyon (c. 1790): Art, History and Details

Flower Embroidery Design for Silk Manufactory of Lyon (c. 1790) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean Baptiste Pillement (French, 1728–1808).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This drawing features a floral design intended for use by the silk manufactory in Lyon, a city with a long tradition in this industry. Jean Baptiste Pillement’s chalk drawings were translated not only into fabric, but also prints, which circulated and spread his style widely. Here, he used a small range of colors and repeated forms to create an appealing decorative motif.

Object facts

• Title: Flower Embroidery Design for Silk Manufactory of Lyon
• Date: c. 1790
• Creator attribution: Jean Baptiste Pillement (French, 1728–1808)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black and colored crayon on wove paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 22.2 x 24.4 cm (8 3/4 x 9 5/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2019.67

A detail from the museum

Jean Baptiste Pillement not only created designs for silk manufacture, he also is credited with inventing a new technique for printing on fabric.

Collection credit

Bequest of Muriel Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby's (Firm). Fine French 18th Century Prints and Drawings. 1977.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.