French Textile Designs

The vibrancy of colour in our new collection of hand-painted 19th-century French silk textile designs is quite incredible. We're so used to encountering the 19th-century as an era of sepia, the collection is a glorious injection of technicolour—and an insight into the technological advancements that enabled such chromacy, including the invention of the jacquard loom and rise of synthetic dyes. These high fashion designs were most probably destined for haute-couture fashion houses; their scrolling floral motifs bridge French Rococo and emerging Art Nouveau design styles, whilst heavily referencing fashionable Indo-Persian and Mughal design elements, driven by an Orientalist fascination with the East.

Image 5) Dress c.1843, Metropolitan Museum of Art | Dress 1890–1895, V&A.

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