An Anglo-American collaboration

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2005 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

There were a number of positive outgrowths of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, held in London's Hyde Park in 1851. Not only was the enormous and innovative glass structure (called the Crystal Palace) in which it was housed an influential building type, but the exhibits were inspiring, representing as they did the industrial and artistic prowess of the people in the many participating nations. When all was said and done the exhibition was both a critical success and extraordinarily profitable.

The British government purchased a number of the more intriguing exhibits "for the excellence of their art or workmanship." The committee, under the leadership of Prince Albert, was determined to display these objects, and in 1852 the Museum of Manufactures was opened in a series of rooms in Marlborough House loaned by Queen Victoria. Three years later the committee decided that the substantial profits from the exhibition would be spent to acquire land and construct a building to house these objects permanently, and in 1857 Victoria and Albert officially opened the South Kensington Museum (now called the Victoria and Albert Museum).

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The museum defines its diverse holdings of more than four million objects by medium, and the department of textiles and dress, as it is called, is one of the largest of its kind. It contains objects from around the world that span millennia of textile and costume history.

Since the doors first opened to the display in Marlborough House the museum has had an educational mission. One of its earliest goals was to house a collection that would inspire designers and students in related fields. A recent collaboration between the museum and Brunschwig et Fils in the United States aptly fits this mission while at the same time giving the museum exposure and revenue on these shores. The designers at Brunschwig et Fils spent months with the curatorial staff at the museum, and from this collaboration have produced six fabrics (four printed and two woven) and five wallpapers based on the museum's holdings. Some are oneoff reproductions while others have been refined in some way either out of necessity or to meet the demands of the current market-place.

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Pagoda Trellis (illustrated bottom left) is based on a fragment of a silk panel hand painted in France in the eighteenth century in response to the European rage for chinoiserie that pervaded every aspect of interior decoration. Silk was enormously expensive and therefore a status symbol, whether made up into clothing or used to adorn walls and windows. The fragment in the museum is smaller than the repeat, so the designers at Brunschwig et Fils were called upon to finish the original design in a sympathetic way. The firm is offering Pagoda Trellis in four colorways and as a hand-printed wallpaper:

June Bloom (illustrated at left) is based on a glazed cotton printed in England at just about the time of the Great Exhibition and shown there in the Museum of Ornamental Art in the section called "False Principals of Design." In British textile design of the period, flowers reigned supreme, a fact deplored by Sir Henry Cole who declared them non-innovative because they were taken directly from nature. In a complete about-face, today we see this glazed, roller-printed cotton as a wonderful way to bring the outdoors inside and appreciate it exactly for its truth to the natural world. Brunschwig et Fils is offering this pattern in a linen and cotton blend in five colorways, two of which are pastels and three are in bright palettes.

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Brompton Silk Stripe (illustrated above) is available in twelve muted tones and is based on an embroidered cotton robe made in England in the nineteenth century. The Brunschwig et Fils version is made in silk taffeta stripes, which alternate with narrow satin bands.

Brunschwig et Fils, which sells to the trade only, is headquartered in North White Plains, New York. For information about its showroom locations in the United States and abroad, telephone 800-538-1880, or consult its Web site (www.brunschwig.com).