Loom width with Stylized Leaf Design (1790): Art, History and Details

Loom width with Stylized Leaf Design (1790) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This textile was produced in Alsace, France, located in the eastern part of the country near the border with Germany. Alsace was a leading area in the production of printed cotton. Printed cotton textiles were extremely popular in France in the late 1700s, due in part to an interest by Europeans in Indian textiles and designs. It was printed by means of a wax resist, in which a carved wood block was used to apply hot wax to the undyed surface of the fabric. After the textile was dyed with indigo, the wax was then removed by boiling the fabric in water and melting the wax so that the design was revealed.

Object facts

• Title: Loom width with Stylized Leaf Design
• Date: 1790
• Culture: France, Alsace, Sain-Bel, late 18th century
• Type: Textile
• Technique: wax-resist print dyed with indigo, design printed by means of woodblock
• Dimensions: Overall: 54.6 x 53.3 cm (21 1/2 x 21 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1935.113

Collection credit

Gift of Gertrude Underhill

Further reading listed by the museum

• Chapman, Stanley D., and Serge Chassagne. European Textile Printers in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of Peel and Oberkampf. London: Heinemann Educational, 1981.
• Schoeser, Mary, and Kathleen Dejardin. French Textiles, from 1760 to the Present. [London]: L. King, 1991.
• Laval, June K., and Greg Brown. Antique French Textiles for Designers. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub, 2004.

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.