Not Forgetting Antique Textiles…

… at the Decorative Antiques & TEXTILES Fair

Amongst the secrets and pleasures you can see in the Winter Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair, alongside other pieces from three centuries of Italian design in the foyer display you might catch sight of this large (height:2.26m x width:4.3m) Mario Fortuny block printed cotton panel from c1920 as shown by Rhona Valentine. Rhona Valentine has an important collection of rare early Mariano Fortuny panels, documents and costume for sale dating from the early 1900′s up to 1949. They also have a large selection of cushions made from early fragments by Mariano Fortuny.

Rhona, based in Petworth, has an extensive collection of 17th, 18th and 19th century European and Islamic textiles and costume pieces including embroideries, needlework, crewelwork (see below), velvets, paisley shawls, cushions & hangings.

PS For my information as much as anything… you may all know this already…  but I didn’t: According to Wikipedia: Crewelwork, is a decorative form of surface embroidery using wool and a variety of different embroidery stitches to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old. It was used in the Bayeux Tapestry, in Jacobean embroidery and in the Quaker tapestry… The crewel technique is not a counted-thread embroidery (like canvas work), but a style of free embroidery. It was in the 17th Century, its heyday, and now traditionally worked on a closely woven linen twill ground “Jacobean linen twill” fabric, typically linen or cotton. This linen is part of the design and many stitches allow the sight of the linen through and around the design.