This piece is comparable to silk designs by James Leman (ca. 1688–1745), whose ancestors probably emigrated from northern France.  Huguenot artisans were influential in a number of industries in England, particularly during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Length of furnishing fabric, foundation fabric deep cream-colored satin; large-scale symmetrical design of bases of columns, triangular pediment and stiff trees and blossoms woven with deep old gold and wine-red velvet in cut and uncut velvet pile; much of background fabric rotted out between velvet motifs.

Ground: white satin,  Design: large-scale tulips, rosebuds, and morning glories in blues, greens, pinks, purplish red and purplish pink.  a) rectangular fragment with circular piece cut out (d.)  Selvedge:  a. has 2 selvedges present.  b. and c. have 1 selvedge each present.  Note:  Believed to have been part of a costume worn by Lydia Hutchinson, born in 1723, daughter of Edward Hutchinson, Treasurer of Harvard College.  These had been in the Museum since 1887, as the loan of the Misses Howe of Cambridge.

1752, Spitalfields

1752, Spitalfields

Description