Selling silks
Subtitle: a merchant's sample book 1764
By: Lesley Ellis Miller
Edition: Hardback edition.
Publisher: V&A Publishing
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 271
ISBN-13: 9781851777815
Subjects: Silk industry; Sample books; Textile fabrics; History
Description: "In 1764, British Customs confiscated a book containing hundreds of silk samples of different qualities from French agents who were attempting to sell them illegally in London. The merchant's sample book acquired in 1972 by the V & A may be this very book, a fascinating record of the eighteenth-century French and English silk industries and their commercial practices. Alongside a full and faithful reproduction of the whole album, Lesley Miller sets in context the role of the book as a marketing tool from the premier European silk-weaving centre of Lyon and as a model for Spitalfields manufacturers. This publication makes accessible the contents of an extremely rare and fragile object. Translations of French inscriptions, identification of how samples have migrated from one page to another, and technical analysis of some of the silks, as well as a glossary and biographical data on the Lyonnais suppliers make this an invaluable resource for historians, collectors and designers."--Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 264-265) and index.