Today there was a presentation jointly by several textile museums, given by collector Gunnar Nilsson. I signed up months ago, just as well, since they reported that there were viewers from 51 countries today. I imagine they filled their allotted spaces.
His slides are well labeled, so I'll let them speak for themselves. Wool is the principal fiber used, in both weaving and embroidery. These are from a very small, but clearly prolific, area of southern Sweden, see the map.
You'll notice familiar motifs, stars, flowers, birds and animals and, once in a while, usually for marriage items, people.
These are all household items, pillow covers, bench covers, carriage robes, bedspreads, rather than wall hanging art. They're traditional in design and technique, largely domestic production.
I hope they ring bells with our Swedish and Swedish descended blogistas.
Happy evening everyone, celebrate your own heritage!
I found it interesting to note the volume of reds throughout the textiles. It seems like pretty much every piece has just a bit of red.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure whether it's a characteristic of the region, or the choices of the collector. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can tell us more.
DeleteOur familiar rag rugs began their history as bed coverings, especially in the Scandinavian countries. I recognize several patterns.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting observation Joanne.
DeleteJust beautiful!
ReplyDeleteSome beautiful work there. I love learning about different cultures and how their crafts reflect their environment
ReplyDeleteCrafters, not only keeping their families warm, but also keepers of history
I had a feeling you'd like this one. I think it's the first Scandinavian presentation I've seen from these museums, though HGA has presented Scandinavia- trained weavers on Textiles and Tea.
DeleteThat must have been an enriching presentation - tons of information along with the beautiful works.
ReplyDeleteThanks to TJ Davis for yesterday's extremely detailed hint - I might have to rib him (that's another clue) about it - the HH answer leaped into my brain!
Chris from Boise
Yes, it was the fullest TJ clue yet! The textile museums usually have very formal presentations with captioned slides, so we get the benefit. It's dodgy when the simultaneous speaker captions trail across the image just as I'm doing the screenshots, or the zoom screen inserts commands likewise. So I take many shots and spend ages editing to give a coherent version in here. Every shot is edited to eradicate the image of the phone screen, then to crop confusing margins. It comes out okay.
DeleteThe editing of this one is rough because the slide captioning took a lot of width, reducing my choices, but never mind!
DeleteThank you for all the work you put in to making these textile presentations accessible to us, your faithful readers!
DeleteTextiles always get my attention and appreciation. It's a beautiful and interesting collection. Thank you for sharing it with us!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked it, yes I thought, since you value textiles and beautiful useful items, you'd enjoy this.
DeleteSo many carriage cushion covers! Do you suppose there was some status involved in how fine your carriage cushion was? I think my very favorite is the embroidered seat cover.
ReplyDeleteI wonder about the social status question. The embroidery is mostly chain, satin and cross stitch, for anyone interested.
DeleteThose Flemish weave (which I assume is a style?) carriage cushions are beautiful -- all so detailed.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker indicated it was a style of weaving learned from Flemish work. He didn't go into it, but I surmise maybe made by immigrant Flemish weavers who scattered all over Europe and Scandinavia during religious upheavals.
DeleteUpdate: turns out a 16th century Swedish king imported Flemish weavers to the Royal workshops to create special items. So it seems their influence spread from there. Elsewhere in Europe religious persecution drove the Flemings out of Belgium, a lot coming to England where the current Queen was Flemish, so she was a protector.
DeleteUpdate to the update: Flemish weavers protected by the Queen were earlier, other forces, including flooding in Flanders, as well as political pressure, having forced their migration. I'm not going down this rabbit hole by myself! There may be an update to the update to the update..
DeleteBeautiful
ReplyDelete