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THE CHINTZ BOOK
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library
http://archive.org/details/chintzbookOOperc
DECORATIVE PANEL. BLOCK-PRINTED CHINTZ. SHERATON PERIOD.
THE CHINTZ BOOK
BY
MACIVER PERCIVAL
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Printed in Great Britain
PREFACE
There are no more charming fabrics for informal use, whether
for furnishing purposes or for personal wear, than the decorated
cottons which — under a hundred different names — have been such
universal favourites since they first became fashionable in Europe
in the seventeenth century.
I have written this little book about them mainly for lovers
of old furniture who like to see their treasures in the setting best
suited to them, because for certain kinds of old furniture the right
chintz is undoubtedly the most successful background. 1
The Chintz Book contains not only an account of the fabrics
which were made in England in bygone days, but also of their
prototypes, the " painted callicoes " imported from India in vast
quantities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and of
their rivals the French " Toiles de Jouy," which, at the end of the
eighteenth century and the early nineteenth, had so considerable
a vogue here as to form a serious menace to our growing cotton
industry.
The numerous illustrations have been chosen from the cottons
of many countries and periods, and form a guide to the styles in
use at different times.
Even for those who do not attempt " period furnishing " the
subject is full of interest, as the cotton trade has for over a century
been one of the principal sources of the nation's wealth. The
rise of this industry to its position in England has often been
1 Of course it is practically impossible to obtain the actual old material in
sufficient quantities for use, but excellent reproductions are available.
v
vi PREFACE
written about, but generally from the view-point of the student
of our commercial development or from that of the mechanical
engineer, so that the question of design has been either treated
as of very secondary importance or else been omitted altogether,
though the beauty of the English patterns and their richness of
colouring played their parts in the building up of our huge export
trade.
It is a great pity that there are so few collectors of these
charming fabrics, as interesting specimens are not difficult to
acquire, and a series showing the transition from quite early
styles and methods to the more mechanical excellences of our
grandparents' days has an absorbing interest for lovers of old
times and old manners and customs. Such a collection would
contain examples of the ages-old technique of hand-work and
partial dyeing practised in India until recent times, with its in-
tricate yet bold designs so well suited to the processes employed;
the prints from wood-blocks whereby Europeans — lacking the
infinite patience of the Oriental — sought to emulate the glory of
the Eastern fabrics; the total break-away in design of the prints
in self colour from copper plates which had such a surprising
vogue in the midst of the riotous Rococo of the mid-eighteenth
century; while the latest type to be included would probably
be the prints from numerous blocks of metal and wood which
mark the highest level of European technique at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, before the triumph of mechanism had
altogether swept away the need for the close co-operation of
craftsman and designer.
Acknowledgments
My best thanks are due to Mr. H. E. Trevor for his kindness
in giving me permission to publish the correspondence between
David Garrick (from whose brother George he is descended) and
Sir Grey Cooper; 1 to the authorities of the Victoria and Albert
1 See p. 53.
PREFACE vn
Museum for supplying me with copies of the letters and con-
senting to their publication; to the editor of the Connoisseur for
permission to use illustrations and other matter which has
appeared in that magazine; to Miss Garbett, Librarian of the
Salt Archaeological Library, Stafford, for permission to examine
and photograph her old chintz bed-covers; and to all those kind
friends here and in the United States of America who have helped
me by sending me pieces of old chintz and much interesting
information.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Introductory. — A Sketch of the History of Printed
Cottons, with some Account of how they were
produced ......... I
II. Indian "Chints," and how they were made ... 8
III. Indian "Chints" — How they were used in England in the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 18
IV. How English Cottons were printed in the Eighteenth
Century, before the Invention of Machinery . . 25
V. Pioneers of English Cotton Printing .... 32
VI. The Days of Freedom ....... 40
VII. How Chintzes were used in England during the Georgian
Period .......... 48
VIII. Printed Cottons in France — Oberkampf and the "Toiles
DE JOUY" ......... 62
IX. Dates and Landmarks in the History of Chintzes and
Printed Cottons ........ 76
X. Some Books of Interest to Lovers of Old Chintzes , 79
Appendix ... . . . . . . . .81
Glossary 96
IX
LIST OF PLATES
CHAPTER I
PLATE Facing page
I. Nos. i and 2. Blue Resist Prints ..... 3
II. Printed Linen : German, Sixteenth Century ... 6
CHAPTER II
III. Palampore, or Bedcover, from Masulipatam, Eighteenth
Century ......... 10
IV. Glazed Cotton : Dutch East Indies .... 12
V. Hand-painted Palampore ....... 14
VI. Portion of Hanging enlarged from Plate IX . .16
CHAPTER III
VII. Palampore, or Bedspread : about 1750 .... 18
VIII. Indian Chintz , Eighteenth Century .... 20
IX. Pintado, or Painted Calico ...... 22
X. Indian Painted Calico : Tree of Life Design . . 24
CHAPTER IV
XL Textile Printer's Trade Card 26
XII. Three Stages of a Furnishing Chintz .... 28
XIII. Two Furnishing Prints ....... 31
CHAPTER V
XIV. Wall-hanging Printed on Canvas ..... 32
XV. Indian Design for English Print ..... 36
XVI. Sprigged Chintzes ........ 38
CHAPTER VI
XVII. A Cotton Hanging ....... 40
XVIII. Chintz Border: English ... ... 42
xi
Xll
LIST OF PLATES
PLATE
XIX. Three Print Dresses ....
XX. Georgian Chintz .....
CHAPTER VII
XXI. Red Print: 1761 ...
XXII. Red Print
XXIII. Designs for Applied Borders
XXIV. David Garrick's Bed ....
XXV. English Design : Late Eighteenth Century
XXVI. English Cotton : Early Nineteenth Century
XXVII. No. 1. Commemoration Panel: George III
No. 2. Rectangular Panel : Indian Colouring
Facing page
■ 44
46
48
50
52
54
56
58
61
CHAPTER VIII
XXVIII. No. 1. Cotton printed at Nantes 1
No. 2. French Cotton : Chinoiserie J
XXIX. No. 1. Design by Prud'honI
No. 2. Red Print J
XXX. No. 1. Manufacturing Processes: 1783^
No. 2. The Wolf and the Lamb : 1804 ,
XXXI. No. 1. La Chasse 1
No. 2. Red Print/
XXXII. Three Dress Patterns .
64
68
72
74
7*
COLOURED PLATES
Facing pagj
Decorative Panel. Block-printed Chintz. Sheraton Period
Frontispiece
Portion of Seventeenth-century Palampore of Most Exquisite
Workmanship. It is pierced with a Strip of another Panel.
(Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum) ... 8
Pheasant and Palm. English Chintz. Late Georgian Period . 30
Chintz Panel for Screen or Chair, Commemorating the
Marriage of Princess Charlotte of Wales to Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, 1816 ...... 60
DESCRIPTIONS OF PLATES
Plate I. gives two examples of blue " resist " block prints. The first is designed
somewhat on the lines of an Indian chint, and the second is a fine example of the Chinoiserie
patterns. Though the resist style was the earliest fast-colour style which Europeans
learnt to use, these particular examples are not earlier than the middle of the eighteenth
century.
Plate II. — A piece of printed linen — German — sixteenth century. V. and A.*
Plate III. — An eighteenth-century palampore in the Indian section of the Victoria
and Albert Museum. It is hand-painted and dyed in colours on fine cotton material.
It is easy to see where the designers of many of the late eighteenth-century cotton prints
found their inspiration for many of their patterns. As described on page n, the design
is painted with different solutions, each of which has the property of absorbing a different
colour from the dye into which the whole painting is plunged, so the process is a com-
bination of dyeing and painting. There is no printing used in these productions.
Plate IV. — This is a slightly glazed cotton imported from the Dutch East Indies
in the early part of the eighteenth century. At first sight it appears as if the outline
were printed, but this is not so. The whole of the design, both the drawing and the
filling, is accomplished by hand-work. It is, however, not nearly so elaborate as some of
the designs, as there is very little wax resist work in it. The pattern being composed
of such small areas of colour, there would have been no advantage in breaking up the
surface of leaves and flowers by the fine tracery resulting from the use of the wax painting.
Plate V. — An Indian palampore (Palang-posh) of fine cotton fabric partly printed
and partly hand-painted in colours with an elaborate " Tree of Life " design. Made in
one of the Honourable East India Company's factories at Masulipatam, Madras Presidency,
in the second half of the eighteenth century. Indian section, Victoria and Albert Museum.
Plate VI. — Portion of palampore or bed-cover, the whole of which is shown on
Plate IX, from Masulipatam. Victoria and Albert Museum.
Plate VII. — A palampore in the Indian section of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The outline is traced with a brush over a design pounced through a stencil. Stamped
on the back are the initials U.E.I.C. in a lozenge-shaped device, standing for the words,
" United East India Company." Date about 1750. It will be noticed that this palampore
is very like those which David Garrick used in upholstering his bed. It comes from
Masulipatam, Madras, and was given by Lady Hardman. Length 12 feet. Width 7 feet
8 inches.
Plate VIII. — An Indian cotton of the middle of the eighteenth century. The portion
shown is part of a dress and has an interesting history. It was worn at a house-warming
given by Thomas Osborne to celebrate the occasion of his taking up his abode in Hampstead.
Osborne, who was the publisher of Johnson's Life of the Poets and other works, though
keen as a business man, was extremely gullible in social matters and was persuaded to
give a large and very expensive entertainment, hoping to ingratiate himself with the old
inhabitants, who, however, " only laughed at his simplicity." It shows the estimation
in which these fabrics were held that a chintz gown of this kind was considered suitable
for a very important semi-public function.
* The letters "V. and A." signify that the original is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
xiii
xiv DESCRIPTIONS OF PLATES
Plate IX. — Pintado or painted calico of the seventeenth century. Similar chintzes
were much appreciated in England at the end of the seventeenth century for use as wall
hangings. V. and A. See enlarged portion, Plate VI.
Plate X. — Example of Indian painted calico, late seventeenth century. Wonderfully
rich and varied colouring. Originally intended as bed-covers (palampore), these were
used in England for wall-hangings, curtains, and a variety of other purposes. V. and A.
Plate XL— A textile printer's card. Late seventeenth century.
Plate XII. — These three examples illustrate three stages in the production of a
furnishing chintz. The first gives a simple impression from a wood block intended to
be filled in afterwards with various colours. The stem will ultimately show segments
of black and some light colour; the flowers and foliage will be filled up by successive
blocks to give the required shades. The points of the leaves are left rather solidly black,
as it was difficult to get the blue of the blue-yellow greens accurately into very fine lines.
The second shows an outline intended to have a black ground, and therefore the
boundage or outline is cut very thick on the block to make the work of filling in the ground
by hand easier. The upper part of the design, where only the green foliage behind the
blossoms has been filled in, appears much heavier than the lower part, where only the light
part tells against the black ground.
In the third stage the whole of the ground of a black-and-white design has been filled in.
Plate XIII. — Two excellent furnishing chintzes of the Sheraton period. Number i is a
fine print in natural colours on a self buff ground. It would be charming on a Hepplewhite
four-poster. The lower print in very soft natural colours has lost something of its original
brilliancy. The ground was originally a rich golden yellow, but is now a quiet buff
shade.
Plate XIV. — This is one of the earliest known English attempts at printing on a textile
material for furnishing purposes. Most probably it was originally intended for use as
a wall-hanging. The style of printing is very much like the pictorial papers used for
lining boxes and other cases ; possibly the block may have been originally used for some
such purpose. It is printed on coarse hand-woven canvas in black outlines from wooden
blocks, and has been roughly coloured in parts by the use of body colour put on with a
brush. The figures may have been intended to represent Charles the Second and his
Queen. The oak tree in the background certainly favours this idea, and the small dogs
which are seen in the top fragment may be held to represent the little spaniels of which
he was so fond.
The period of this piece is the end of the seventeenth century. V. and A.
Plate XV. — Having the Indian cottons, high in price and universally admired as
models (see Plates III, IV, VII, VIII), eighteenth-century printers most naturally did their
very best to copy them as closely as possible. This example is a conspicuous success, the
spring of the trailing stems and the arrangement and drawing of the flowering sprays
following the original very closely. The colours are brilliant and well chosen. For almost
any furnishing purposes, such as curtains or furniture covers, a similar design would be
very suitable, and though this particular example is, perhaps, as late as the end of the
eighteenth century, similar designs in Indian work were in use in Queen Anne's time.
English late eighteenth century.
Plate XVI. — Throughout the eighteenth century sprigged embroidery was very
fashionable and much used, especially for dresses and aprons. In the ladies' magazines
of about 1770 there are numerous designs for working the small sprays for powdering
oyer such garments. These two examples of late eighteenth-century chintz designs are
probably copied from needlework rather than from the Indian cottons, though there were
many powdered designs among them. These designs are carried out in bright colours
in accordance with the natural hues of the blossoms represented. They are probably
intended for personal wear rather than furnishing purposes. Late eighteenth century.
Plate XVII. — It is certainly a sign of marked deterioration in the decorative feeling
of the time (though the patriotism displayed is laudable) when prints of this type were
used for wall-hangings and other decorative purposes. This example, which is printed in
pink on cotton, was brought out towards the end of the eighteenth century.
King George III is shown in the right-hand corner standing by his horse, and on the
left, Queen Sophia is seen seated with six of her children round her. The Royal family
is again represented below. Two princesses occupy themselves in decorating a terminal
figure of Hymen. A small view of Windsor Castle fills a portion of the background, and
groups of flowers and foliage plants are placed between the figures. English. V. and A.
DESCRIPTIONS OF PLATES xv
Plate XVIII. — An extraordinarily rich chintz border intended for curtains, valances
and bed furniture. It is about a foot wide and is printed on a delicately fine though
strong cotton fabric. The outlines of the flowers are printed in red; of the rest in a
purplish black. The roses and hollyhocks are rich red, while the convolvuli are blue, which
is also used for the shaded side of the blossoms. The ground is a rich buff which comes
exactly up to the edges of the flowers instead of showing a narrow white rim round the
design, as was often the case. Allowance must be made in looking at the illustration for
the extra appearance of relief caused by the fact that the red used for the shadows has
photographed as black. The appearance in reality is admirably flat and decorative.
Plate XIX. — Three dresses, late eighteenth century or early nineteenth century, made
of printed cotton. V. and A.
Plate XX.— A very fine Georgian chintz in full brilliant colouring, much resembling
the Spitalfields silks of an earlier date. The whole design is not shown. The repeat is
nearly a yard long.
Plate XXI. — A fine red print of exceptionally decorative effect. The design is
pictorial in character, but the ground is so well covered that the effect is decidedly
more decorative than most patterns of this kind. What makes it particularly interesting
is that it is signed and dated, R. I. & Co. Old Ford 1761, and R. IONES 1761. Old Ford
was near London. It is an enormously large repeat, being nine feet two and a half inches
in length and two feet nine and a half wide. It will be noticed that the design is most
skilfully managed, so that it could be joined up into an " all over " pattern or each part
could be cut out as a separate oblong panel for framing either walls or as screen panels.
Such a design is most unsuitable for covering furniture. V. and A.
Plate XXII. — Two portions of a large red print designed in the Chinese style so
fashionable towards the middle of the eighteenth century. These prints were suggested
by Chinese papers, lacquer chests and such things, but were very much modified by their
English designers. The rest of the pattern includes a pagoda, a group consisting of a
man and woman in the shelter of a conical-roofed summer-house, a rustic bridge or arch
crowned by a fanciful building, either a shrine or a small temple in which is a goddess with
attendant priests and worshippers, two other Chinese persons holding converse, and numerous
fabulous birds and reeds disposed so as to fill all vacant places in the background. V. and A.
Plate XXIII. — These two designs are impressions from wood blocks and hand coloured.
The three-cornered block is a quarter of a circle and was intended to be printed four times
so as to form a round medallion for the centre of a bedspread. The other design shows a
portion of a border and a corner. They were meant to be printed on cotton material
and applied to plain stuffs so as to ornament bed furniture and curtains. This method
of using applied borders to build up panels and other forms of ornament was much
in use during the eighteenth century, and walls were decorated with paper in the same
kind of way, a panel with a central ornament being surrounded by lengths of border
cut to the required size and pasted on. The principal colours of this design are red and
black with the flowers in natural colours. It is one of the very few old chintz designs in
which there is anything reminiscent of Adam, and its fine balance is not out of keeping
with his work. Late eighteenth century. English.
Plate XXIV. — This bed was once the property of David Garrick, and is hung with
Indian chintzes which were sent to him as a special gift from India. The tone of the
paint-work is a deep rich ivory or buff with green ornaments. The linings and trimmings
and also the fringe are green. The whole effect is very harmonious and must have been
very brilliant when new. The suite of furniture which accompanies it is decorated in
Oriental taste, and was prepared especially to be in keeping with the character -of the
hangings and bed-quilt. The panels of the valances have been specially designed for their
situation. V. and A.
Plate XXV. — A wonderfully bright and gay example of the large class of English
designs inspired by Oriental patterns. The photograph shows only a portion of the design,
which is on a large scale. The heavy stem is in green, yellow and brown ; the leaves are
of blue and yellow green so arranged that a portion of the yellow is left clear to represent
veins or an edge ; the flowers are blue, pink, lilac and yellow, but there is no attempt at a
natural effect, they are simply spaced out so as to distribute the colour evenly over the
whole pattern. The tiny forget-me-not-like flowers are simply filled in with the same
bright colours. A curious optical illusion is to be noticed in connection with those of the
forget-me-nots, which are left white. Though they are exactly the same as the rest of the
ground they appear to stand forward as being distinctly white.
xvi DESCRIPTIONS OF PLATES
Plate XXVI. — A particularly soft-coloured print of a very popular early nineteenth-
century type. The colours are very mellow, blue and red predominating; the ground
is a warm fawn colour. The general idea of the design is inspired by the Indian painted
calicoes, but the effect is not in the least like them. The cotton ground is very fine and
stoutly woven, making the fabric particularly flexible and giving it most delightful draping
qualities. The design is one which would be equally suitable for curtains or furniture
covers. English manufacture.
Plate XXVII. — Two most interesting panels of a kind which were very popular
in the Sheraton period, being used for applying to plain material for bed furniture and
for ornamenting chairs and other seats.
The oval was issued in commemoration of the Jubilee of George III, and the figure
50 between the letters G. R. shows its date to be 1 812. It is printed in vivid colouring
with a preponderance of bright canary yellow, then a new and most fashionable shade.
The delightful rectangular panel is in the rich indigo and madder colours copied from
Indian cottons, and is of about the same date.
Plate XXVIII. 1. A finely printed cotton in varied colours printed at Nantes.
Eighteenth century or early nineteenth. V. and A.
2. An old French design in various colours.
Plate XXIX. — Toiles de Jouy.
1. Cotton hanging designed by Pierre Prud'hon (b. 1758, d. 1823). Period of the
First Empire.
2. A red print somewhat in the Louis Seize style. Early nineteenth century. Similar
cottons were considered very suitable for lining small rooms, and were also used for
curtains and bed furniture. V. and A.
Plate XXX. — This extremely interesting fragment is part of a very large design which
was brought out in the year 1783, known as "Manufacturing Processes." It has evidently
formed the seat of a chair, but was doubtless originally intended as a wall-hanging. It is
printed in red of one tone from copper plates. The part shown gives a view of workmen
preparing the cloth by beating it with flails ; in the right-hand corner is a fragment of the
part of the design which shows a man printing with a block, while below the later method
of printing with a press is in progress. The celebrated bell which Oberkampf himself used
to ring to call his workpeople together and to dismiss them is seen on the top of a post.
Printed at Jouy by Oberkampf. French.
The inscription on the material in the press is : " Manufacture Royale de S. M. P.
Oberkampf." V. and A.
A portion of a cotton hanging printed in greenish-brown with classical designs.
Similar patterns were printed in great quantities at Jouy by Oberkampf, and were
extremely popular for furnishing purposes, both in France and England. This design
contains a square panel with an illustration of the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb.
The wolf is shown accusing the lamb of muddying the stream. There is a representation
of Diana standing equipped for hunting with bow and quiver, small oval medallions
enclosing greyhounds, and numerous other devices all displayed on a ground covered
with a diaper pattern.
It is a French print of the Empire period. V. and A. Both these prints are designed
by Huet.
Plate XXXI. — Toiles de Jouy.
1. Designed by Horace Vernet and issued in 1815. It represents hunting in the
Forest of Fontainebleau : "La Chasse."
2. A red print designed by Huet.
Plate XXXII. — Three dress patterns on dark grounds.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY — A SKETCH OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF
PRINTED COTTONS
Old chintzes ! The words bring at once to mind visions of
colour bright and gay, yet soft and subdued withal, of dark
gleaming mahogany, honey-coloured oak, walnut of mysterious
grain, reflecting in their polished surfaces the tints of curtains and
hangings, of sunlit parlours scented with rose and lavender in
quiet country parsonages and picturesque manor-houses — in a
word, all the surroundings of a typical English house.
These charming fabrics indeed sum up very many of the
qualities which an Englishman loves to find in his environment.
Fresh, bright, unpretentious, brilliant yet not obtrusive, they
have so many points which endear them to us, that an old English
house without a chintz room is rather like Hamlet with the Prince
of Denmark omitted.
Yet, after all, chintzes are a comparatively recent introduction
into this country. Less than three centuries ago they were all
but unknown here, and the few examples which had come into
the country were probably treated more as curiosities than any-
thing else. Their history here must be held to date from 163 1,
when permission to import them was granted to the East India
Company, though doubtless they were not unknown before.
The name " chintz " bespeaks their Indian origin, as " chint,"
from which it is derived, signifies in Hindu, " coloured " or
" variegated." The term was applied by reason of the coloured
pattern and not, as we now use it, because of the stiffness of
texture and shiny surface of the fabric. Curiously, this use of
B
2 THE CHINTZ BOOK
the word is to a certain extent retained in other trades. Thus a
carpet salesman will speak of a " self-coloured carpet with chintz
border," meaning thereby that though all the centre part is
of one colour, there are other bright colours introduced round
the edge.
However, nowadays the ordinary chintz has a hard glazed
finish with considerable polish, which has its advantages as a means
of repelling smuts and dirt, but which injures the draping qualities
of the material and is troublesome to reproduce after a visit to the
laundry.
The old importers used many names for the different decorated
cottons besides " chints," the most usual being " Painted Callico "
and " Pintado." This last is an old term derived from the name
used by the Portuguese, who were the earliest traders to undertake
regular commerce with India by means of the new route round
the Cape of Good Hope, which they first used in 1498.
Though in Europe these decorated cottons are a comparatively
recent acquisition, they have been made from very early times and
the dye-stuffs remained the same for nearly two thousand years,
though the methods of applying them have varied in different
countries and at different periods.
The elder Pliny, writing in A. D. 70, gives an account of decorated
cottons as known to the Egyptians of that date, which would describe
equally well Hindu work of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, or indeed madder colours in England in the nineteenth
century.
" Garments are painted in Egypt in a wonderful manner, the
white cloth being first stained in various places, not with dye-
stuffs, but with drugs, which have the property of absorbing
colours. These applications do not appear on the cloth, but when
the cloths are afterwards plunged into a cauldron containing the
dye liquor they are withdrawn fully dyed. It is wonderful that
although there is only one dye in the cauldron, the cloth is dyed
of several colours, according to the different properties of the drugs
which have been applied to different parts ; nor can the colours be
afterwards removed."
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INTRODUCTORY 3
Whether India derived the knowledge from Egypt or Egypt
from India is uncertain, but clearly the principles governing the
art were well known at that early date. It is interesting to
compare Pliny's account which sums up the main facts with the
detailed account of R. P. Cceurdoux seventeen centuries later (see
Chapter XI and the Appendix).
From Egypt come, too, the earliest examples of printed textiles
which have yet been discovered, indeed they are among the earliest
specimens of printing on any material. These vary from very
simple diaper ornament to elaborate figure subjects such as those
shown on the fragments of a door-hanging now in the Victoria
and Albert Museum, which, when complete, must have been a
very beautiful thing. It represents the Communion of the
Apostles, St. Thomas alone remaining practically perfect. There
are also large portions of SS. Mark and Peter with their names in
Greek characters. There are at the same Museum other specimens
of printed textiles of the fifth century, in fact the collection of early
Egyptian printed fabrics housed there is more complete than any
other. 1
Some of the simpler designs are built up by means of several
stamps and not printed from one block, as would be the case with
a single colour print at the present day. This, of course, necessi-
tated an individual attention to each detail of the pattern, making
the method used an extremely flexible one and enabling the designs
to be adapted exactly to the space to be filled. For example, if
a cotton fabric has to be printed nowadays with inch-wide rosettes
three inches apart, the roller is covered all over with the design,
so that at each revolution a large number of rosettes are swiftly
printed across the entire width of the cloth. In the eighteenth
century perhaps only eight or ten would have been cut on a block,
but impressions would have been made on the cloth side by side,
so that in the end the whole would have been covered. But in
many cases the Egyptians appear to have subdivided the pattern
1 See Victoria and A Ibert Museum : Review of the Principal A cquisitions
during the Year 1914, p. 71, fig. 36.
4 THE CHINTZ BOOK
into its component parts and made small blocks of each of these,
applying each separately and thus building up the design required.
Naturally when using blocks little larger than a seal, they were
able to adapt their work exactly to the purpose of the finished
garment or other object which they might be decorating. Of
course the method, though slow, could equally well be used for
ornamenting material in bulk.
Thus Professor Forrer describes a little child's tunic which he
discovered at Akhmim, which he considers may possibly be as
early as the fourth century a.d. 1 In cut it is like the well-known
" Holy Coat of Treves," and it is patterned with wavy lines
arranged diamond-wise with a white spot at the points of inter-
section and a rosette in the middle of each space. For ordinary
single-colour block printing, as practised in the eighteenth century
for such a pattern, a block would have been cut with the pattern
exactly as it finally appears (but, of course, reversed in relief on the
wood), it would have been coated with colour, applied to the
material, and the design would have been transferred as a whole.
The Egyptian worker, however, seems to have used three small
stamps, a short bit of wavy line, a rosette and a blob, and for each
diamond he applied the wavy stamp four times, the rosette once in
the middle of the space and the spot at the junction of the lines,
then followed on with the wavy lines again. Of course he could
use the same stamps in a hundred different ways, to make as many
varieties of patterns, and an ingenious man need never have
turned out two pieces of work alike, provided he had a score or
two of stamps made as lines, circles, Vandykes, rosettes and so on.
Possibly some of the more ornate pieces were painted on by
hand ; if not, large blocks would have had to be specially cut.
The little tunic above described is an early example of " resist
dyeing." The printing was done with unctuous clay or wax
(as described on page 102 of Glossary under " Reserve "), and the
cloth then immersed in the dye-vat. When the protecting film
was removed, the pattern appeared white on a coloured ground.
1 Forrer, R., Les Imprimeurs des tissus.
INTRODUCTORY 5
No cloths dyed with patterns in vivid shades of different colours
such as were made in India have been discovered in Egypt, but, as
we have seen, the method of obtaining them was known to the
Egyptians, though how far back their acquaintance with these
intricate processes extends it is impossible to say. Perhaps even
Joseph's coat of many colours, so marvellous as to arouse the
hatred of his brethren, came from Egypt.
We do not gather from Pliny that these decorated garments
had been imported into Italy, though, of course, it is quite possible ;
he appears rather to describe them as strange curiosities; but if
they were known, it is unlikely that they would be looked on in
any other light than exotic luxuries. It is almost certain that they
were never copied by the Romans ; their manufacture necessitated
a thorough knowledge of dye-stuffs, and the dyer's art was not
apparently well understood in Rome.
During the Middle Ages printed materials were used both for
decorative purposes and to a certain extent for wearing apparel.
The colours, however, were simply pigments applied on the
surface by means of wood blocks, and the designs are very similar
to those used for weaving silk and brocades. Metallic decoration
was also employed, and it would appear that the printed stuffs
were intended as cheap substitutes for woven silken fabrics, which
were then, of course, enormously expensive ; and the designs follow
the originals as closely as possible. The results are very different
in effect to anything which we understand by " chintz," and are
only described because these printers' workshops no doubt acted
as training-grounds whence (when later the beautiful effects pos-
sible on cotton were revealed) workmen who understood the art
of block-printing on textiles could be recruited to learn the
new methods in emulation of the imported Indian hand-painted
fabrics.
Professor Forrer 1 considers that the art of ornamental block-
cutting was developed in the Rhenish monasteries, where perhaps
the earliest example of printing for book-making is found in the use
1 Forrer, R., Die Kunst des Zeugdriicks.
6 THE CHINTZ BOOK
of stamps for the outlines of initial letters. From the eleventh
century rich silks were imitated by German textile printers by
means of wood blocks used with gum or some sticky substance by
which gilding or silvering was attached to the fabric. These
blocks are generally little more than silhouettes, which are filled
in solidly except for slight markings such as petals of flowers or
wing outlines on birds, sometimes not even those. The designs
are always based on silken originals, and the contemporary
brocades were the principal models.
Later on, from the fifteenth century the patterns are more
elaborate, no doubt being to some extent inspired by the tapestries
for which they were a cheaper substitute. At first, however, the
blocks were small, but after the first efforts the printers learnt to
produce larger and more important work.
Colour and metallic printing gave place to black on white, or
sometimes on red or other coloured linen. There was in the
sixteenth century a phase of admiration for the simplicity of black
on white, and in various crafts colour was laid aside ; witness much
of the fine embroidery of the time in which the delicate tracery of
black silk on white grounds had an immense vogue for personal
wear and household use. Some of these prints, however, are
touched up with colour by hand.
The technique of the blocks used improved as more practice
was obtained in cutting them by their increasingly general use for
book illustrations, and thus the art of book ornament and textile
printing act and react on one another. For just as the earlier use of
printing was on woven fabrics, but was developed to an enormous
extent when the art of printing from movable type was discovered,
so later the use of printing on continuous rolls of textile material
from cylinders preceded their use on rolls of paper as used for
newspapers at the present day, when the huge output of the
daughter art is a hundred times or more greater than that of the
prototype.
These printers were, of course, workmen who might con-
PLATE II
Printed Linen, Sixteenth Century
INTRODUCTORY 7
ceivably be equally skilled in both sides of their craft, that is to
say, they were in many cases block-cutters as well as printers.
This point of view is noticeable when the history of the mediaeval
Trades Guilds is studied. All craftsmen had to belong to some
Guild or other; the more important trades had Guilds of their
own, while the numerous smaller branches dependent on them,
or doing work of a similar kind, were affiliated to the pre-
dominant partner. The question as to which Guild the textile
printers should belong was a difficult one, and was decided
differently in various towns. They might equally well be con-
sidered as being dependent on the weavers, the decorators and
painters, or the wood-working trades, according to whether the
point of view taken was that they were employed on textile fabrics
(when the weavers could claim them), as decorating the said fabrics
(when the painters seemed to be the right guild), or as making and
cutting wood-blocks (which brought them into the carpenters'
guild). Of course each Guild was anxious to have as many
adherents as possible, as its power and wealth increased accord-
ing to its numbers. 1 On the whole, the view taken was that of
Cennino Cennini : that their trade was " the Art of Painting with
the Block," and they were included with the " painters."
At the end of the seventeenth century the difficulty was
increased by the adoption of another technique, the art of
" reserve " printing, with the resulting application of colour by
means of dye being introduced, which gave the " Dyers' Guild'
a claim.
This marks the beginning of a new phase in the development
of printed textiles, for with the spread of the use of Indian
' chints " in the seventeenth century, and the introduction in a
modified form of some of the Indian methods into European print
works, the real history of " chintzes " in Europe begins.
1 The whole question of the connection of the textile printers with the
Trades Guilds is dealt with in a most interesting way in Professor Forrer's
Les Imprimeurs des tissus.
CHAPTER II
INDIAN " CHINTS," AND HOW THEY WERE MADE
The earliest chintzes used in Europe came from India, and it
is just as well to have a clear idea of what they were and how they
were made. For they were the models which the European
printers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries kept before
them as a counsel of perfection, though they used other methods
in producing a similar effect; exactly the same results they could
not obtain, but they got as near to them as they could. The
economy of time effected by printing the outline from wood blocks,
which is the European way, is of course enormous, but the Indian
process of drawing it by hand over a stencil guide gave a far finer
and more flexible line, and these decorated panels are as far above
the block-printed cottons of the English calico printer as the best
of these are in front of the ordinary machine print of the present
day.
Long before Indian " chints " were imported into England,
European paintings and prints on cloth and linen had been used
for household decorations, but they faded and dulled with time,
while the " chints " only improved with use, getting brighter and
more beautiful each time they were washed. So while the
fashionables used them and merchants made fortunes by importing
them, the craftsmen and dyers sought for the secret of their
manufacture.
Gradually, bit by bit, Europeans learnt some of the Eastern
methods and adapted them to their purposes, but the whole process
has never been carried out in the production of anything approach-
ing the elaboration of the finest Indian " chints."
The beauty of old Indian " painted callicoes " lies first of all in
8
PORTION OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PALAMPORE OF MOST EXQUISITE WORKMANSHIP.
IT IS PIERCED WITH A STRIP OF ANOTHER PANEL.
INDIAN < CHINTS ' AND HOW THEY WERE MADE 9
their colour, which is the first thing to strike the eye. Lovely
rich tones of rose, from full crimson to delicate shell pink, purple
fading to palest lilac, blue of the softest, fullest hues, and to these
there were added originally rich green and a citron yellow, though
these have faded by now. The glorious colour was used to give
expression to designs of infinite variety, favourite among them
being the enormous " Tree of Life " patterns which adorned so
many of the palampores imported by the East India Companies,
English, French and Dutch. The handsomest and largest of these
have majestic broad trunks, displaying in profusion flowers of
bewildering variety; others are crowded with figures, or large
birds of wonderful plumage are perched amongst exotic foliage
and strange plant growths. Then, on drawing nearer, one finds
that in addition to the broad decorative effect of colour and
subtle and intricate design, the whole thing has a wonderful added
beauty of minute and exquisite detail, and that the spaces which
seemed one flat sweep of colour are, in fact, nothing of the sort,
but that every bit of the whole tinted surface is built up of a
wonderfully delicate patterning, though so subsidiary to the general
scheme that it does not interfere with it at all. Every leaf, every
flower, is full of tiny markings, spots, or shadings, sometimes
corresponding to the veinings which are found in Nature, and at
other times seemingly inconsequent and only added to fill and
break up the surface.
We are now so used to detail carried out by machinery, that
unless the wonder of these cottons — that they are all accomplished
by hand-work — is pointed out, the true significance of these beauties
may be passed over. The time and patience employed in carrying
them out must have been enormous.
A Dutch seventeenth-century writer x amusingly describes the
making of them thus : " The painting of ' chints ' proceeds in the
most leisurely manner, similar to the crawling of snails which
1 Havart, The Rise and Fall of Coromandel, 1693, quoted Hadaway, W. S.,
Cotton Painting and Printing.
io THE CHINTZ BOOK
appear to make no headway. Anyone who would represent
Patience . . . could use one of the ' chints ' painters of Palicol as a
model."
In order to obtain these wonderful effects in a fast dye — and
that the colours are produced by permanent dyes, not pigments,
is the essential quality of a true " chint " — the most elaborate
processes were necessary.
There is extant a most interesting account written by a Jesuit
priest, Father Coeurdoux, to his headquarters in Europe, and dated
from the East Indies, 1742, which gives a description of the art as
practised then, which, as a matter of fact, differs not at all in its
essentials from the way in which Pliny describes it as having been
carried out in Egypt in his time. 1
Father Coeurdoux begins by saying that he has been asked
many times to communicate any discoveries that he might be able
to make in the part of India to which he had been sent as a
missionary, and at last he has had a little leisure and employed it
in " learning the way the Indians make those beautiful cloths
which are objects of trade with the Companies established to
extend commerce." " These cloths are principally of value
because of the vivacity and the lasting qualities of their colours,
which, far from deteriorating when washed, only become more
beautiful."
He says that he puts down the failure of European scientists
and workpeople not to their lack of skill, but to the fact that India
possessed ingredients, and above all water, of a special kind, " which
contribute to the beauty of their mixture of dyeing and painting."
It is not necessary here to follow the Reverend Father through
all the minute details, which are of interest only to those who have
some acquaintance with the technique of the industry. The
account may be briefly summarised thus :
1 The whole account, which, though full of interest to those who wish to
study the technique, might weary the general reader, is given in literal
translation in Appendix A, p. 81.
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PLATE III
Palampore, or Bedcover, from Masulipatam, Madras, Eighteenth Century
INDIAN < CHINTS ' AND HOW THEY WERE MADE n
" The half-bleached cloth " (he calls it " linen," but none of
the Indian chintzes are worked on anything but cotton) " is first
soaked in a mixture of buffalo's milk and the fruit of a plant called
cadou. 1 It is dried, then again damped and smoothed or burnished
to give it a fine surface, the buffalo milk taking the place of the size,
which is used on paper to prevent colours from running and
blotting. When the cloth has been prepared and is lissom and
polished enough, the pattern is drawn. The painter sketches his
design on paper, and having pierced holes along the principal lines
with a needle, he puts the paper over the cloth and passes powdered
charcoal over the pricked holes, thus transferring the design to the
cloth. Lastly, the lines are followed with a paint-brush and colour,
and the outline is complete. So far, it is just the usual process
employed by embroideresses in preparing a piece of needlework.
Then all parts which are to be solid black are painted in, and the
red outlines for red flowers are also painted. The blue is the
first colour to be filled in, and it requires elaborate preparation.
It is not applied by a brush, but by soaking the whole of the cloth
in a preparation of indigo. In order to confine the action of the dye
to those places where blue or green are required, the rest of the
surface>has to be covered with wax. The wax is applied on one
side only and then placed in the sun for just sufficiently long to
melt the wax enough to let it penetrate to the other side. The
painter now hands the cloth to the blue dyers, who are a special
class of workpeople." The Reverend Father says he inquired
' whether it would not be simpler to paint the blue parts in with a
brush, but the dyer replied that it would be easier, but the colour
would fly after two or three washings.
" The wax is then removed from the cloth by steeping it in
boiling water.
" The cloth is afterwards fully bleached and prepared again
with cadou and buffalo-milk for the red colouring.
' Before the red is put on, every detail which is intended to
1 This is a kind of myrobolan plum.
12 THE CHINTZ BOOK
show as white in the midst of the red is painted with wax. Then
in succession the different preparations for the various shades of
colour, such as that of the tone of wine lees and all other colours
of the red class, are added (it may be mentioned that these paintings
are not of the actual colour, but of solutions which enable the
cloth to absorb the colour when put into the dye). The cloth is
then boiled in the actual dye, and this brings out the colour only
on those portions prepared by the preliminary painting, and after
the ground has been bleached and cleared as before, the red colours
are complete.
" The green and the yellow are the same dye, in the former
case painted over blue, in the latter direct on to the white cloth.
This dye is not permanent, and soon disappears when washed
with soap.
" The brushes used by the natives are made of bamboo pointed
and slit up a little way; they fasten a piece of stuff soaked in the
required colour round the stem, and squeeze it as required to
make it run. For wax they used an iron brush thinner towards
the top and fitted with a wooden handle ; round the middle there
is a bunch of wool soaked in hot wax, which runs down the iron
when squeezed."
This slight sketch gives some idea of the processes employed,
but only very simple examples would be carried out thus; in the
more elaborate pieces the flowers were painted six or seven times,
with additional details added in wax each time, which of course,
when finally submitted to the dye vat, would come out in shades
varying from the lightest to the darkest. I have also omitted the
lengthy accounts given by Pere Cceurdoux of the numerous
soakings, washings and beatings which alternate with each process.
Added to all this was the preparation of the colours, so that the
complexity of the whole process makes us wonder how the method
was originally discovered, and how it survived the vicissitudes of
two thousand years, practically unaltered.
Sometimes these decorated cottons are spoken of as Indian
PLATE IV
Glazed Cotton, Black Outline filled in by Hand in Colours.
Dutch East Indies, Early Eighteenth Century
INDIAN < CHINTS ' AND HOW THEY WERE MADE 13
prints, but this is a misnomer. Certainly in some of the later
examples there are portions in which stamps have been used as a
short cut, to simplify the work when there are constantly repeated
small details, but these are not used in the fine examples, and even
in cases where they are used it is only for insignificant parts. In
the eighteenth century printed outlines were used on commercial
work, and of course, by the nineteenth century, printing and the
use even of coal-tar colours had become general.
The great advantage of the use of handwork over machinery
is that every part is individual and can be altered to suit the cir-
cumstances of its use, and the East India Companies soon found a
way to have special designs worked out for special orders. In
many cases these were artistically inferior to the traditional patterns
which had been handed down from father to son, but from a
trader's point of view it no doubt paid them well. For instance,
the Marechal d'Estree had in 1720 a bed worth two or three
thousand crowns, with his coat of arms in the middle of the back,
which aroused the admiration of Papillon, the great wood-engraver,
who says of it : " All the ornaments and flowers were beautifully
drawn, the colours admirable and charming. This bed furniture
was expressly made in the interior of India (though I do not know
in what town) from drawings which M. le Marechal had sent."
Just as much Chinese porcelain during the eighteenth century
was painted with crests and armorial bearings to the special order
of noble families, so similar decoration was applied to the painted
calicoes, especially for beds and bedspreads. It would, of course,
be quite easy for the Indian workpeople to introduce them as
required, tracing the patterns supplied them by means of " pounc-
ing " in the usual way.
The borders of many of the large palampores imported by
the East India Company show evidence of European influence, the
design taking the form of festoons of flowers looped up at regular
intervals in a formal way, which differs entirely from the uncon-
ventional treatment of rambling trails of foliage and flowers which
i 4 THE CHINTZ BOOK
is found in the native designs. Besides the large panels there were
also lengths of material printed with all-over designs. Some
consisted of endless trails with fine, thin stems bearing a multi-
tude of natural flowers, and others were spotted over with sprays
and sprigs of flowers; others, again, were ornamented with the
pine pattern, and there were an infinity of spots, rosettes and small
formal patterns, used, however, more for dress than for furniture.
There are also many small covers and mats of a great variety of
patterns, which are often very lovely. They do not seem, however,
to be as fine in colour as the larger panels. Many of these show
decided Persian influence, and are arranged with a border and a
centre, the border being of a running design with conventional
flowers and the inside filled with a similar trailing design. In the
central portion and the four corners designs with a ground of
another colour are inserted which have a very decorative effect.
The way in which these differing parts of the pattern are put
in is as follows :■ — -When the worker lays out the cloth for trans-
ferring the design through the pricked holes of the stencil, he
carefully covers up the parts where he wishes the medallion or
other ornament to come with a mask of paper cut to the exact
shape; when he has carried out his all-over pattern he removes
this mask and replaces it with the ornamental stencil, which, of
course, exactly fits the required space. This device enables the
painter to fill any sized rectangle with a pattern of individual
character with an outfit of comparatively few stencils, as the border,
of course, could also be repeated as required to any length. They
are not, however, as interesting as those in which the pattern is
properly drawn for the exact purpose it is called on to fulfil, and
they seem to be a commercialised form.
It is difficult to date any Indian " chint " with accuracy;
the designs were traditional, and very likely some that are believed
to be early are not so in reality. There appears to be a flatness
and breadth of treatment in the earlier work which the later lacks,
and the colours are perhaps fuller. It is probable that there are
PLATE V
Hand-painted Palampore, Central Portion
INDIAN ' CHINTS ' AND HOW THEY WERE MADE 15
very few examples older than the seventeenth century in existence,
and even these are rare. Some of them can be dated by the
costumes of Europeans depicted on them, having been made to
special designs, probably to commemorate certain events, and by
special order of the Company. In India itself, Mr. G. P. Baker,
who has made many inquiries on the subject, found that there were
few old examples in the museums and public collections . In Europe
there are several collections in private hands and a number of
beautiful examples in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, while in France they have been very much appreciated
for years, and have been collected by many connoisseurs. Genuine
examples are seldom offered for sale, but may sometimes be
discovered among the flotsam and jetsam which gathers in every
old country house.
It is interesting to know how to distinguish between genuine
old work and the modern copies executed by means of the printing-
press. If there is a repeating design, find two parts which are
approximately the same. If the details are exactly the same in every
particular, it has been printed and is a modern reproduction. If
it is a large panel, say of bedspread size with a large tree pattern, if
a modern one it will be printed, and though the centre will, of
course, not show a repeat, the border will give scope for comparison.
There will also be the fact that the execution is infinitely coarser
and the material of poorer quality, the colours inclined to garish-
ness where the originals are rich. If the green is a solid colour it
is modern. In old examples the yellow has almost always faded,
leaving only a soft, slightly greeny blue, with just a trace of the
yellow remaining. In genuine old Indian cottons with a white
ground, unless they are of very perfect workmanship, there is often
a very faint network over the background of thin thread-like lines
intersecting at irregular intervals. This effect is caused by the
slight cracking of the wax used to protect the white ground while
the blue was being dyed. There is a kind of Japanese ornamental
dyeing in which these " crackle " lines are deliberately produced,
1 6 THE CHINTZ BOOK
but the effect is not the same. Some finely coloured eighteenth-
century work has a printed outline with hand fillings.
It is a great pity that there are not more good reproductions of
Indian cottons of the better kinds suitable for furnishing use, as
they are quite the most useful type. There are, however, some
very good copies, the worst thing against many of them being that
they are over-glazed. Chintz should be shiny, but not too shiny,
if required to take the place of old materials for furnishing. The
old " chints " always were executed on a plain smooth material,
not one with raised spots woven into it.
An interesting form of dyeing, though more used for hand- and
neck-kerchiefs than for decorative purposes, was the bandanna
style. The effect, which is that of white rings surrounding a
tiny spot of the ground colour, was obtained by tying waxed thread
tightly round small portions of the material, so as to prevent the
dye getting to it. The spots were either broadcast over the material
or arranged close together to form lines and patterns. This method
was often used on silk as well as cotton, and sometimes only the
border was dipped in the dye, thus giving a white-spotted coloured
border surrounding a pure white centre.
The whole tone of old Indian chints at the present day is a
rich yet soft rose colour with foliage and other parts in bluey green
and a quiet shade of blue. It must be remembered, however, that
these shades are only arrived at after years of use and constant
washing, and when a room is being furnished with the idea of
reproducing the original effect, as, for instance, a stage representa-
tion of a room in the late seventeenth or eighteenth century, a
cotton should be chosen which gives the original tones before the
yellow had vanished. Of course the yellow over the blue gave the
greens, but being the most fugitive of the dyes, it often vanished
after two or three washings, leaving the colouring perhaps more
charming, but different. The other shades, as Pere Coeurdoux
points out, are improved by washing and quite unfadable.
The main sources of the actual colours were the roots of a
J*v
11 ' ' " ■■ " ■' , III ' ' ■■ I ■— - — -
PLATE VI
Portion of Hanging, Plate IX
INDIAN « CHINTS ' AND HOW THEY WERE MADE 17
native plant containing a colouring substance similar to madder
for the red, pink, lilac and such colours, and indigo for the blue.
The Indians had many superstitions about the methods of
preparing the different substances which they employed. One
ingredient much used was sour rice-water, which was, of course,
a cheap, in fact really worthless liquid and at the disposal of anyone
who happened to want it, but there had grown up a kind of taboo
about it, and (to quote again from " Les Lettres Edifiantes ")
" There is a ridiculous superstition amongst these Gentiles on the
subject of kangi (rice-water). It is that anyone can use it himself
on any day of the week, but on Sunday, Thursday and Friday
they refuse to give it to anyone who is short of it, because they say
it would drive their God out of the house."
Then the water of certain wells and ponds was considered as
being essential to perfection of colour and absolute fastness of the
dyes, though possibly this idea was based on some mineral ingre-
dient which actually was present in the water, and not merely on
idle fancy or superstition.
CHAPTER III
INDIAN " CHINTS " — HOW THEY WERE USED IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY AND THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
I think there can be little doubt that from the early days of
trade with the East Indies " painted callicoes " were now and again
included in the consignments of strange, choice and beautiful
things that formed the cargo of the many merchant vessels whose
owners found in these distant voyages so lucrative a venture. It
would be very unlikely that such distinctive and gorgeous wares
would be entirely passed over by the keen business men who were
always on the alert to buy whatever offered good chances of profit.
Nevertheless it appears that for some reason or other they were
not in the earliest days regular articles of trade with England, though
shipped by the Company between foreign parts.
In 1 63 1, however, the East India Company was allowed by
Royal Proclamation to import into England, amongst other things,
" satins, taffetas and painted callicoes."
Amongst the letters of the East India Company referring to
these fabrics is one addressed to Surat and dated 1 641, which shows
that at that time chintzes were being put on the market, but that
the large panels or quilts were still little known, and had not taken
their place amongst the commodities regularly imported.
" The quilts of chints being novelties, produced from £5 55. to
£6 the pair; a further supply, therefore, is desired, and both as
regards these and the chintses, more should be made with white
grounds and the branches and flowers to be in colours, and not
(as those last sent) all in general of deep red ground and other
sadder colours." These dark grounds with small designs on them
18
, -,- -.— _; ..^.r-^-i^-j*.;^
cX-?i:«*:.-s--^i-j r
PLATE VII
Palampore, or Bedspread, Imported by the East India Company about 1750
(Central Portion and one Side of Border)
INDIAN 'CHINTS'— HOW USED IN ENGLAND 19
appear to have been called " Persian patterns," and " toile de
perse " is a term still used for similar stuff in France.
The sale of the chintzes and quilts imported by the East India
Company increased year by year; even the troublous times
leading up to and during the Commonwealth did not hinder the
orders. With the Restoration importations increased mightily.
How rarely for matters of interest at this time does one turn to
Pepys in vain ! Always up to date, he wished to be in the latest
fashion in all household plenishings, and on September 5, 1663,
he has an entry : " Bought my wife a chint, that is, a painted East
Indian callico for to line her new study." This is the spelling
in the MS. (see N.E.D.), the word " chintz " as usually printed
being a concession to custom.
Evelyn too, so observant and quick to note the new and unusual,
gives us another instance of this latest vagary of fashion under
another name.
" 1665 : December 30.
" I supped at my Lady Mordaunt's, where was a roome hung
with Pintado, full of figures, prettily representing sundry trades and
occupations of the Indians."
Though large quantities of cotton wool in bulk had been
imported throughout the seventeenth century, and even earlier,
ignorance still prevailed as to what it really was, and Pepys has an
amusing entry under date January 27, 1664, which bears on this
point :
" Sir Martin Noell told us of the dispute between him, as
farmer of the Additional Duty, and the East India Company,
whether callico be linnen or not, which he says it is : having ever
been esteemed so : they say it is made of cotton wool which grows
on trees, not like flax or hemp. But it was carried against the
Company." Truth does not always prevail !
Variety was a great point in favour of the " painted callicoes,"
which, being made without the use of machinery, always differed
20 THE CHINTZ BOOK
a little, and though, of course, the same patterns were used over and
over again, it was easy enough to vary colourings and designs when
required. This was, no doubt, well known to customers, and in
1682 we find it emphasised in the orders : " Everyone desires
something that their neighbours have not the like."
In 1683 there appears, amongst the correspondence of the
Company, a most interesting letter; it shows that by that time
the " callicoes " were being made for the European market in
special sizes. It was dated from London, August 14, 1683. " Send
us therefore 100 suits of painted curtains and vallances ready made
up of several sorts and prices, strong, but none too dear, nor any
over mean in regard ; you know that only the poorest people in Eng-
land lye without any curtains or vallances and our richest in damask,
etc. The Vallance to be 1 foot deep and 6| yds. compass. Curtains
to be from 8 to 9 feet deep, the 2 lesser curtains each i| yds. wide,
the 2 larger curtains to be 3^ yds. wide and 2 yds. long. Each
bed to have 2 small carpetts i| yds. wide and 2 yds. long; each bed
to have 12 cushions for chairs of the same work." These beds
alluded to were, of course, four-posters, which were in almost
universal use, hung with serge, moreen or other woollen fabrics
for plain people, and rich silks and velvets for those of the wealthy
class, who could afford the expense.
" Carpetts " was a term used in various ways at this period.
Sometimes it had much the same significance as it would have now.
Thus we read of a " Persian carpett all of silk to put under a bed,"
but it was also used for covers for tables and chests, and it must
certainly have been for such uses that these " carpetts " of chintz
were intended.
In engravings and inventories of the contents of bedrooms of
this period there generally appear two side-tables, which would
doubtless be used as toilet-table and washstand, and numerous
chairs. Beyond candlestands and the equipment of the hearth,
there was little else in the room, so with the twelve cushion covers
for chairs the entire room would be en suite. These chair-cushions
PLATE VIII
Indian Chintz, about the Middle of the Eighteenth Century
INDIAN 'CHINTS'— HOW USED IN ENGLAND 21
would probably be made up as " squabs " (or, as sometimes spelt
in contemporary documents, " sqobs "), the fine Indian fabric not
being at all suitable for tight upholstery, although it has a very long
life when used for hangings and such purposes.
The chintz hangings must have delighted all those who were
learning, about this time, to adopt the new fashions of order and
cleanliness in household matters, and who loved (as Pepys did)
" to have everything neat and handsome about them." Their
brilliancy and cleanly appearance appealed to the taste of the day,
a certain rich simplicity having become the mode rather than the
obtrusive luxury which had ushered in the early days of the
Restoration.
Queen Mary set the seal of her approval upon them by having
her own bed hung with them. Indeed in after years she was
credited (or the contrary !) with having been the means of intro-
ducing them into the country, much to the detriment of home
industries, though, as we have seen, they were in reality used earlier.
Defoe, writing in 1722 (Tour through Great Britain), in a review
of the end of the seventeenth century says :
" The Queen (Mary) brought in the love of fine East-India
Callicoes such as were then called Masslapatan, Chintes, Atlasses
and fine painted Callicoes, which afterwards descended into the
Humour of the Common People so much as to make them grievous
to our Trade, and Ruining to our manufacture, so that the Parlia-
ment were obliged to make two Acts at several times to Restrain,
and, at last, Prohibit the Use of them."
In a later edition he says, writing of Windsor Castle :
" The late Queen Mary set up a rich Atlass and Chints bed,
which in those times was invaluable, the Chints being of Massla-
patan on the coast of Coromandel, the finest that was ever seen
before that time in England; but the rate of those things have
suffered much Alteration since that time." Queen Mary also had
a chintz bed at Hampton Court.
Writing in the Weekly Review in 1708, Defoe, inveighing as
22 THE CHINTZ BOOK
usual against these imported goods, says that a few years earlier
(before their importation was prohibited in 1700) they were not
only used as " carpets " (i. e. mats and table-covers) and quilts,
but " crept into our houses, our closets and bedchambers ; curtains,
cushions, chairs, and at last beds themselves were nothing but
callicoes and Indian stuffs." Allowing for Defoe's habit of
picturesque exaggeration, he gives us a good idea of the immense
vogue which these delightful fabrics had when their use first became
general.
At first they were, in the best qualities, extremely expensive
and were held in the highest esteem, and it is interesting to note
the increasing price as they became more and more fashionable.
The following quotations from the Expense Book of John
Hervey, first Earl of Bristol, show the large sums paid for them :
" 1689, Aug. 30. Paid Mary Bishop for ye use and by ye order
of Mrs. Jane Harrison for an India quilt for a bed, £38.
" 1690, Nov. 4. Paid Mrs. Cawne for a rich piece of India
Atlass for dear wife, £13 105."
" 1701, Jan. 9. Paid Mr. Hatley for ye Atlass I gave dear
wife, £33."
The editor of the Expense Book amusingly notes (" I don't
know if this is literature or millinery. — F. H. A. H.") It was
printed satin or chintz used in all probability to make hangings
for her bed on the occasion of the birth of her son Henry, who was
born on January 5, 1701. Just at this time the Atlass bed was the
thing in fashionable furnishing, all the more so that it was prohibited
by law !
These fine Indian chintzes and painted calicoes are absolutely
the most perfect hangings for use with the veneered walnut furniture
of this time. Unfortunately there is a vast difference between the
colouring used in the old fabrics and those which are imported at
the present day, many of which are wretchedly weak in colouring
and design, while some of the more richly coloured examples now
PLATE IX
Pintado, or Painted Calico, Seventeenth Century
(See enlarged Portion, Plate VI)
INDIAN 'CHINTS'— HOW USED IN ENGLAND 23
made in India for the English market have been reproduced, not
from genuine old Indian examples of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, but from Italian early nineteenth-century prints somewhat
in the Indian style. I think this must be because the delicate
workmanship of the originals offers problems to the copyist which
do not exist in the broader treatment used in the Italian panels.
They are, however, very decorative, and though they do not bear
looking into as do their prototypes, are fine pieces of decoration.
I do not think that complete sets of valances, curtains and so
on made in the right sizes to match each other, en suite, are obtain-
able in the old patterns nowadays, but the bedspreads can be
adapted as curtains, and for valances the borders of bedspreads
give an excellent effect.
Valances were not frilled on to the bedsteads, but lined and
stiffened and set on plain. The curtains were also lined, generally
with a scarlet-crimson moreen, and heavily fringed with ornate
and complicated knotting and tassels. The general effect aimed
at was the beauty which comes from perfect rendering of numerous
minor subordinate details all blending into a harmonious whole.
Though the effect is simple it is far from being so, and this
apparent simplicity is often more difficult of attainment than
profuse gilding and sumptuous silks and velvets.
The effect of these stuffs with their specially designed borders
and panels was very different from that of ordinary material of
continuous patterns which repeat yard after yard with no beginning
and no end.
Reproductions should be selected with a rich reddish shade
of rose rather than a pink inclining to blue, and the blues should
be the rather dark tone of the old indigo than royal or Cambridge
blue. Greens should be generally rather olive, not jade or apple
green. The whole colouring should be rich and full rather than
delicate.
Naturally the fact that all fashionable people were buying these
imported cottons and pouring their money into the coffers of the
24 THE CHINTZ BOOK
East India Company had a very disastrous effect on the important
section of the community who lived by the woollen and silk trade,
especially the latter. Silk-weaving was a comparatively recent
introduction into England, and seemed at first to have a very pros-
perous career in front of it, but the market for fine silks was neces-
sarily limited to the richer section of the community, and when
fashion decreed that cottons should be used instead, the blow was a
very severe one and threatened to put an end to the growing
prosperity of the silk manufacture as well as to seriously curtail the
woollen merchants' profits. Numerous worthy and hard-working
craftsmen were being brought to the verge of starvation, and bitter
complaints were made. Sermons were preached on the subject
and representations were constantly pressed on the Government,
until finally, in 1700, the importation of all decorated stuffs from
the East Indies, Persia and China was forbidden by an Act of
Parliament, which caused great, though as it turned out unwar-
ranted, satisfaction to all connected with the silk and woollen trades.
Sit
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PLATE X
Indian Painted Calico : Tree of Life Design
CHAPTER IV
HOW ENGLISH COTTONS WERE PRINTED IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
BEFORE THE INVENTION OF MACHINERY
Our great-great-grandmothers took the greatest interest in
their " callicoes " both for gowns and furniture. The fineness of
the fabric, the brilliance and fastness of the colouring, the " ele-
gancy " of the designs were matters that concerned them deeply.
Of course if real Indian " chints " could be obtained, their highest
ambitions were realised; but if not, English drapers had a large
selection of home-printed goods to offer them. They were con-
noisseurs in the calico-printer's art, these delicate dames of bygone
days, nothing but the best contented them; not only had the stuff
to look well when new, but it had to prove its worth in wear, and it
is on record that one indignant lady took her flowered gown back
to the seller in high dudgeon because the colour had begun to
fade — two years after she had bought it. " Autre temps, autre
moeurs." How many merchants nowadays would, in answer to
such a complaint of a chintz or cretonne, replace the offending
goods with new amidst profound apologies ?
Naturally having a clientele which could distinguish between
good and indifferent, and which was not to be satisfied by superficial
qualities, the makers and salesmen were eager to produce the best
possible results. It called for a real personal interest in the work,
and the printers considered themselves very important people. I
like the way in which one of them points out to his fellows the
importance of upholding their dignity by constant study. " Merely
knowing whether work is done well or not may be sufficient for a
Draper or Salesman, but a Callico Printer ought to know why
2 5
26 THE CHINTZ BOOK
work badly done is so, and consequently how it should be done
otherwise." 1
The whole business of the calico printer in the eighteenth
century has a touch of romance about it. Every mixing of dye,
every piece of cotton bought, had in it a spice of adventure. They
had no accurate measurements or standards of purity vouched for
by learned chemists in those days, and the printers had to rely on
their own judgment, aided by good luck, as to whether a particular
mixture would or would not turn out exactly as expected.
Colour-making was carried out by the printers themselves,
and they had to make the necessary allowances for the freshness
or otherwise of the various materials, and all through the processes
of manufacture they were face to face with the difficulties which
are inseparable from the use of unrefined natural products.
For calico-printing as practised in those days was rather a
complicated matter, necessitating constant adjustment and experi-
ment in the matter both of the materials and appliances used,
because, though the colours used were based on the practice of the
old Hindoo workers, which had varied little for centuries, conditions
in England were different, and the fact that some of the colours
were printed instead of being put on with a brush or by dyeing
made matters more difficult.
The actual application of the colours 2 by means of a block
was in itself a simple matter, and was done in just the same way
as printing on silk and linen had been carried out in the Middle
Ages and very much as it is to-day by those firms who specialise
in this kind of work. There is in the British Museum a calico-
printer's trade card (illustration, Plate XI), issued at the end of the
seventeenth century, which gives a very good idea of a block printer's
workshop. The printer stands by his table, over which is spread
1 O'Brien, Charles, The British Manufacturer's Companion and Callico
Printer's Assistant, 1795.
2 As explained later, the actual colour was not applied by the printers,
but merely a preparation for it.
Jacob wtccmvc liuirio atij tjjpknortnc baLiico
Znintzr in Jxoumditck [Prints oil sorts ■£
Gaiucoa ^Inchvjt oSiLKcs Qjtiiffi oc&e/-handkerchiefs, and
though fast as far as soap and water went, to sunlight they were
fugitive. 1
The printers, in order to produce bright green, had to continue
1 See Journal of Society of Chemical Industries, 1837, P- 645 : Charles
O'Neill.
46 THE CHINTZ BOOK
to use an impression of yellow over blue, until about 1809, when
Oberkampf invented the long-sought-for solid green. The
Journal de Commerce for the 18th of July, 18 10, announces the
fact in the following tones : " We are able to make the very
important announcement that several lengths have been printed
with a solid green in one single impression. This discovery is
one of the most valuable instances of the application of chemistry
to manufacture. A neighbour nation who are rivals has offered
a large prize (two thousand guineas) to the discoverer of this
colour. However, the discovery has been made in France, so the
prize in England has not been won." This colour was brought
to England by Samuel Widmer, a member of the Jouy firm, who
communicated it to those English and Scottish firms who could
in return show him some of the processes in which Great Britain
was ahead of France. Paisley thus received the green colour, and
also Manchester, where the machine for printing three colours
simultaneously was shown to him in exchange. It was still a
novelty to him, though it had been in use here for many years.
By the same means he purchased permission to make drawings
of a cotton-spinning machine from which the first to be employed
in France was made in 1812. 1
It is useful to remember that cottons printed with a single-
colour green must be of later origin than 18 10, though the reverse
is not always the case, many block-printers using the two-coloured
green for many years after this date. Where blue and yellow
entered into the composition of, say, a group of flowers in natural
colours, it, of course, did away with the extra printing of green if
the colour were obtained by the use of the two colours super-
imposed. On the other hand, the solid green was invaluable for
single-colour green prints. A dull greyish-green had been known
previously which had been much used, but it was extremely
subdued, almost dust coloured.
Turkey red was another colour which was much used for
1 Oberkampf, by Labouchere.
PLATE XX
Fine Georgian Chintz in Full Brilliant Colouring
THE DAYS OF FREEDOM
47
printing the smaller patterns which were popular in the early-
nineteenth century. They were favoured when a hard-wearing
fabric was required, as they did not quickly show soil marks.
The patterns were generally copied from Indian " pine " designs,
and, according to our ideas, are not very beautiful. However,
for generations these prints in colour, which are known as
" Paisley " patterns, have found favour.
" Turkey red " has been known in Asia and Eastern Europe
from early times, thence spreading to green about the last half
of the seventeenth century. In 1760 Turkey red dye-works were
founded in France at Rouen, and from thence introduced to Scot-
land; a Frenchman named Papillion, founding a Turkey red
dye-works at Glasgow at the end of the eighteenth century.
An Example of a Print from Wood Blocks on Canvas.
The colours used are pigments. Dutch Seventeenth Century.
CHAPTER VII
HOW CHINTZES WERE USED IN ENGLAND DURING THE GEORGIAN
PERIOD
All through the eighteenth century chintzes were used by
well-to-do people for furnishing purposes. As we have seen,
early in the century, the favourite fabrics were the lovely imported
Indian fabrics and their imitations. The decrees against their
importation seem to have considerably lessened their use for
furniture for a time, only to be renewed with redoubled force
later. But towards the middle of the century there arose quite
a new kind of design which was entirely different from the Oriental
patterns which had so long held sway. These new-fashioned
prints were carried out in one colour only and were printed from
copper plates . They were generally decidedly pictorial in character,
and consisted of landscapes, pastoral or classical, Chinoiseries or
figures in groups or singly. They resembled the engravings in
the " Books of Ornaments " which were published about that
time, showing sketches or more finished designs, intended as
suggestions for craft workers. Individually these drawings and
motifs are not without charm, though repeated ad infinitum they
may easily be wearisome, but at their best they fall, by chance it
would appear, into a not at all unpleasing series of lines. The
resulting prints in reproductions in a soft tone of red or blue make
a not bad background if printed on a textile ground which is of a
soft creamy tone. On paper they are hard and glaring and should
never be used.
Late in the seventeenth century European dyers had learnt,
probably from India, the art of varying their work by using wax
48
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CHINTZES DURING THE GEORGIAN PERIOD 59
the copies of the Indian cottons predominate. It is natural that
they should loom large in the perspective of the producer of
cotton prints, as they were so very highly prized and constituted
the ideal of the furnishing chintz ; not only were the large palam-
pores with their fine bold designs considered great treasures, but
the smaller repeating patterns with their scrolling stems and small
and varied flowers were a constant source of inspiration, either
directly or through English embroideries based on them. They
were, of course, much easier to do than the large patterns which
required many more blocks to complete them.
There was a great liking for small panels of printed cotton
and silk which were intended to be applied to different articles
of plain material and surrounded often with embroidery. Some
central panels had borders printed to match, so that bedspreads
and hangings could be built up to the required size and shape by
stitching the ornaments on to fabric either white or coloured.
These panels appear to have come into vogue at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, when the vogue for Indian designs
was on the wane and a more severe and architectural type of
ornament was preferred.
Sheraton does not specifically mention printed cottons, though
he does suggest the use of small panels of printed silk. He illus-
trates chairs with small panels in the back in which a design of
small figures is shown. He thus describes it :
" The figures in the tablet above the front rail are on French
printed silk or satin sewed on the stuffing with borders round
them. The seat and back are of the same kind as is the orna-
mental tablet at the top of the left-hand chair. The top rail
is panelled out and a small gold bead mitred round and the
printed silk is pasted on/' The effect must have been extremely
meretricious even if well executed, and very liable to go out
of order.
The illustrations of such chairs in his books show classical and
pastoral groups. One oval has a female figure contemplating an
60 THE CHINTZ BOOK
urn. A settee is shown divided into three panels; the middle
part of both back and seat has a figure subject, on either side are
ornamental patterns, floral on the seat, and somewhat resembling
the acanthus on the back. Here again examples of the treatment
do not appear to have survived, though small panels not attached
to anything are to be found. A charming example of such print-
ing is to be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is
printed on linen from a copper plate and engraved in stipple;
inscribed " London. Engraved and Published, Aug. i, 1799, by
Madame Bove, No. 207, Piccadilly." It is a very prettily con-
ceived subject of a lady weeping, consoled by a young girl. A
small child is sitting at the side on a small stool, and there are
various Greek vases and other adornments. The colouring is
very soft and the prevailing tints are blue and yellow. Such an
engraving, however, is not anything in the nature of chintz, though
it happens to be printed on a woven fabric. It might just as well
have been printed on paper, the technique being exactly of the
same character. But though Sheraton does not expressly mention
chintzes or other cottons, they harmonise extremely well with
the type of furniture he illustrates, and were, of course, immensely
used during the period at which his books appeared.
In the illustrations to these books stripes of different widths
predominate, and the most typical furnishing chintzes of the time
are, as one would expect, based on stripes, not as a rule of a quite
plain kind, but floral patterns with a stripe effect. The designs
of this kind were not stiff but quite characteristic, and showed
very decidedly the influence of the Louis XVI style, which remained
in vogue here long after it had been abandoned in France, where
it was considered to savour somewhat of the ci-devants.
These striped effects were worked out, not only in the multi-
colour prints which were so very popular, but also in the self-
coloured designs printed from blocks. At this period Oberkampf
still sent his goods to England whenever the political situation
allowed it, but the designs were much less taking than they had
CHINTZ PANEL FOR SCREEN OR CHAIR, COMMEMORATING THE
MARRIAGE OF PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES TO PRINCE
LEOPOLD OF SAXE-COBURG, 1816.
PLATE XXVII
i. Panel in Commemoration of George III, Jubilee, 1812
2. Rectangular Panel, Indian Colouring
CHINTZES DURING THE GEORGIAN PERIOD 61
been, though the colours in which the single-print cottons could
be obtained were very rich and varied.
A great many English furnishing prints were of the " Persian '
type ; that is to say, they were small patterns on a darkish ground,
generally buff. They are very rich and handsome, as the tint is
well chosen for throwing up the brilliant colours in which the
designs are carried out. The buff colour of the ground was
probably selected because it harmonises so particularly well with
the satinwood and light mahogany which was much used during
the early years of the seventeenth century. A vermicular ground
(generally carried out in a buff shade) was also often used. The
vermiculations are, as a rule, printed all over the ground and the
design printed over them. The idea is taken from the Indian
chintzes, many of which have this ground, but in their case it is
carefully drawn so as to leave the ground where the pattern comes
clear.
CHAPTER VIII
<«
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE — OBERKAMPF AND THE TOILES DE
JOUY "
The history of French chintzes (or, as they are called in France,
indiennes) is summed up in a single name, that of " Oberkampf."
This extraordinary man, during his long life, saw the art of
cotton printing in France pass from its half-strangled infancy to
its full maturity in the early nineteenth century, by which time
it had become one of the leading industries of France.
Indian chintzes had been introduced into France in the seven-
teenth century, and their history closely resembles that of their
arrival in England. They swiftly became the height of fashion
and roused the opposition of all interested in the woollen and
silk trades. They were prohibited, but prohibition of their use
helped the weavers little, as smuggled goods and even the inferior
native copies were used on all sides. Prohibition of imports was
in turn followed by prohibition of the cotton printing trade in
France, with the consequence that smuggling and illicit printing
were more lucrative than ever.
The French prints of the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, however, do not appear to have been of good quality,
and all the leading improvements were introduced by Oberkampf
either as the inventions of members of his firm, or adopted bodily
from abroad.
The pre-Oberkampf period was principally one of copies of
Indian goods; these being very fashionable and very expensive,
it was naturally the aim of French workers to imitate them as
closely as possible, using as a ground, linen or imported calicoes.
62
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE 63
They do not appear to have attempted (as was the case in Switzer-
land and England) to obtain the effects in somewhat the same
way as the Oriental workers did, by using madder and other fast-
dye stuffs in conjunction with suitable mordants, but used the
far simpler though, of course, much less satisfactory plan of
simply printing the fabric with pigments, which, even if they
were comparatively fast to light, were fugitive if washed. Colours
thus applied always have a heavy dull look about them, by reason
of the thickening medium used to make them work, and must
from all points of view, except that of cheapness, have compared
unfavourably with the imported toiles peintes. Still, when new
and fresh, they no doubt resembled them sufficiently to enable
those who wore them and used them for furnishing purposes, to
feel that they were quite " in the mode," a consummation de-
voutly to be wished at all times by that section of the community
which prefers veneered deal to solid oak and stucco to plain
brick.
Certainly at the end of the seventeenth century all who had
any pretensions to fashion had to obtain the admired decorated
cottons, or confess themselves ignorant of the dictates of Madame
la Mode. Moliere, laughing at Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, shows
M. Jourdain displaying his ungraceful figure in a gown of Indian
chintz. 1 His tailor had said that fashionable people always wore
chintz dressing-gowns in the morning. Fashion's dictates had
to be followed. So the poor fellow had to throw off his com-
fortable bourgeois attire and make himself ridiculous in the quaint
garb which those of the Court alone knew how to wear with the
requisite aplomb.
Enormous quantities of Indian prints were poured into the
1 M. Jourdain : Je me suis fait faire cette indienne-ci.
Le maitre a danser : Elle est fort belle.
M. Jourdain : Mon tailleur m'a dit que les gens de qualite etaient comme
cela le matin.
Le maitre de musique : Cela vous sied a merveille.
(Moliere, 1670 : Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Act I. scene ii.)
64 THE CHINTZ BOOK
country and used as hangings for rooms and beds and as covers
for tables as well as for personal wear.
Some men are said to be born " in the purple." Oberkampf
may be described as nurtured in a dyer's vat ! From his earliest
years he was brought up amongst enthusiasts in the dyer's art,
who found the principal interest of their lives in the pursuit of
new methods and improved technique.
His grandfather was a dyer working at Vayhingen, then in the
Duchy of Wurtemburg, and he brought up his son to follow his
own profession. This young man, as was in those days the
custom, travelled through Europe, seeking to perfect himself in
his craft by studying it in other centres. During his wandering
he learnt to produce patterns in " reserve "; that is to say, to
print a design on the fabric before it was dyed, so that the dye
would not "take' on the printed parts, but left the pattern
showing in white on a blue ground. He interrupted his journey-
ings to teach his father this improvement on the plain colours
with which he had previously had to rest content, and resumed
his travels, settling ultimately at Wiesenbach, where he married,
and where his son Christophe-Philippe {the Oberkampf) was born
in 1738. Oberkampf pere was an enthusiast about textile printing,
however, and receiving the offer of a post in a works where woollen
stuffs were printed in one or two colours from copper plates, he
handed over his dyeworks to one of his brothers and transported
himself and his family to Klosterheilbronn (1744). Here he was
principally occupied with woollen materials, but he had oppor-
tunities of conducting experiments on cotton, and at last succeeded
in carrying his efforts to a successful issue and succeeded in printing
blue patterns on a white ground, a result long desired but hitherto
found impossible.
His discovery led to his appointment to a position in a chintz
works at Bale, and the apprenticing of Christophe-Philippe to the
same employment (1749).
The little fellow who thus started his life's work at the mature
f-.,*
PLATE XXVIII
I. Cotton printed at Nantes 2. French Cotton, " Chinoiserie "
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE 65
age of eleven by stirring the colours in the tubs soon rose to more
important duties. He was naturally intelligent and industrious,
and when his father started printing works of his own in 1752 he
was able to make himself very useful indeed. At the age of nine-
teen he felt his need for further knowledge, and in his turn set off
on his travels, though his father naturally objected to losing so
intelligent and willing a helper, and took an early opportunity of
recalling him to instruct his younger brother in the new methods
he had learnt.
Then he was once more released in 1758 and set off for Paris.
Here he found his ignorance of the French language a great
difficulty, but in spite of this he made his way to success.
He was engaged in a chintz printing works owned by a
M. Cottin, who, anxious to improve the methods he employed, had
sent to Switzerland for skilled craftsmen. His manufactory was
situated in the Clos-Paon, a privileged quarter exempt from the
restrictions which existed elsewhere. Here the work until his
arrival was all done in fugitive colours. It is curious that this
should have been the case, as sixteen years before Pere Cceurdoux
had written fully describing the Indian way of obtaining fast
dyes. However, Oberkampf soon put this matter to rights and
undertook the printing of calicoes in fast tints.
All this time prohibition was still in force, and the Customs
Officers did not hesitate to proceed to the most extreme lengths in
carrying out their duties, even tearing the forbidden stuffs from
the shoulders of ladies who had the misfortune to meet them
while thus clad. The influences of fashion must have been
strong to have nerved people to face such very unpleasant en-
counters, but no doubt there was a certain chic in thus proving to
all and sundry that the admired chintzes were the true, the beau-
tiful, and — even better — the enormously expensive imported Indian
toiles peintes I
In the face of such determined opposition and, perhaps,
realising that much of the twenty millions of francs which it was
66 THE CHINTZ BOOK
calculated was spent on imported and smuggled goods might,
instead of going to foreign manufacturers, be retained for the
profit of French pockets, the Government decided to remove the
prohibition on calico printing in France (1759).
Oberkampf's star was in the ascendant. He was released from
his contract with Cottin, who was practically bankrupt, and in
partnership set up the historic manufactory of Jouy.
It was uphill work at first, and when in May 1760 Oberkampf
printed the first piece of cloth he had to be draughtsman, engraver,
printer and dyer. The premises were tiny and the tools used in
the work had to be put aside each night in order that he might
find room to spread a mattress to sleep on, while the only place for
storage was under the table. But the works grew and prospered,
financial difficulties were overcome by taking a new partner in
1763, and the firm was reconstituted under the title of " Sarrasin-
Demaraise et Oberkampf."
In 1767 and thenceforth both ends of every piece were printed
with the stamp of the firm : " Manufacture de toiles peintes et
imprimees de Sarrasin-Demaraise et Oberkampf, a Jouy pres
Versailles. Bon teint." The Royal Arms were added in 1787.
They were removed in 1792.
By this time the works were enormously enlarged and splendidly
organised so as to permit the now numerous workpeople to carry
on their duties under suitable conditions and proper supervision.
The work was passed on from one department to another in a
manner which seems to be the prototype of modern ideals of
factory management. The different stages of carrying out the
patterns were first the " printing " (imprimer), which gave the
black outline, then the " filling " (rentrer), secondary printing,
which might consist of two, three or four blocks, each used with
a different colour, and the " painting," which consisted in applying
by hand those colours (especially indigo blue) which were difficult
to print from blocks.
Of the workpeople, the outline printers were the most skilled,
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE 67
the secondary fillings at Jouy being often carried out by women
who were specially trained and skilful. The painter girls often
made their brushes out of their own hair.
There were many other departments, such as the bleaching
works, the dying vats and the calendering shop, and at the heart
of all was the office of Oberkampf, with his famous bell which he
rang himself for nearly fifty years, summoning his people to work
and dismissing them in the evening. It is significant of the vast
extent of the business, that by 1767 it was necessary to have a
guard-room for the Swiss guards who watched over the safety of
the bleaching calico which lay spread out in the surrounding
meadows.
Oberkampf was naturalised in 1770, thus obtaining all the
rights and privileges of a Frenchman, which was a necessary
step, as his success exposed him to numerous attacks by the
little great ones of the neighbourhood, but nothing hindered the
triumphant progress of the " Toiles de Jouy " and their maker.
In 1774 Oberkampf married, and the union turned out very
successfully, though it really began rather inauspiciously.
Oberkampf had come to the conclusion that his younger
brother Frederic ought to marry and settle down, though Frederic
himself appears not to have been so certain about it. However,
the senior and his partner's wife selected a very suitable partie,
and all was settled. The two brothers paid their respects to the
young lady, with the unexpected result that the elder brother
became her husband.
Writing to his father he says : "I was married yesterday
to the lady who was suggested as Frederic's bride. She suits
me much better than she would have suited him, so I asked
him to give way to me, which he has done, to my great
joy." This was a very chivalrous way of putting it. A more
truthful account might have said that the marriage was carried
through by the elder brother in order not to break his word to
the lady's family, Frederic not caring to carry out the contract.
68 THE CHINTZ BOOK
His good faith was rewarded, as his family life appears to have
been exceedingly happy until his wife's death in 1782.
Every year Oberkampf used to go to Lorient, to London and
to Amsterdam in order to buy imported Indian cottons and to
study the new patterns and fashions. The English market was
extremely important, because there was a very large demand for
his wares, which in some ways were superior to the home-made
goods. Foreign orders poured in as well as those from nearer
home.
Trianon, Saint Cloud, Bellevue and Montreuil had decorations
of " Toiles de Jouy " which added to the demand. Marie
Antoinette took an interest in Oberkampf, perhaps on account of
his being, like herself, a stranger in a strange land. She sent for
him to Trianon and personally inspected his work.
This Royal patronage culminated in 1783, when, by letters
patent dated from Versailles, June 19, 1783, the establishment
received the title of " Manufacture Royale." This was not a
mere empty title, but carried with it important immunities and
prerogatives.
It is interesting to note that at this date Jouy despatched its
goods to the following cities : London (ten houses), Amsterdam,
Antwerp, Bale, Berlin, Brussels, Constantinople, Copenhagen,
Frankfort, Hamburg, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Madrid, Salonica,
Trieste and Ile-de-France.
In 1785 he married again, and was again most fortunate. His
second wife was a woman well suited to the position her husband
was now taking, and was qualified to uphold the new dignity
bestowed by Louis XVI, who, in 1787, conferred on him letters
of nobility. These letters were published in 1788, and the
assembly convoked to hear them read was probably one of the last
of this character.
In 1789 the partnership with M. Demaraise was finally wound
up, greatly to the regret of both partners, but the further expan-
sions which were contemplated could hardly have been carried
3&i%& *~iLV
»j,%^
■'.■>. • I «A"»*x
if V/7
PLATE XXIX
I. Design by Prud'hon
2. Red Print
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE 69
out if it had continued ; though as a matter of fact, the political
circumstances delayed the immense extensions which had been
proposed. During the early days of the Revolution commerce
was practically at a standstill. Suddenly, however, there was a
revival in the demand for printed cottons, and in 1790 the new
buildings were begun, and Oberkampf, with his keen business
sense, realising that it was better to have in stock stores of white
calico which would not go out of fashion than paper money which
was depreciating from day to day, bought every yard of imported
cotton that was suitable for printing and warehoused it for further
use. His operations were most successful, because simplicity
becoming the only fashion, no one wanted silk and everyone
dressed in cotton.
About this time he had a little difficulty about a pattern which
was in preparation. It originally represented " Louis XVI
restaurateur de la liberte." Quite of the moment when the
engraving was begun, it took a year to complete, and the outlook
was daily changing. To suit the circumstances Oberkampf had
many of the details changed. " Religion " became " Liberty "
by the simple expedient of doing away with her crucifix. Medal-
lions representing groups of Cupids were altered to representations
of the " Ruins of the Bastille," and so on.
But the general disquiet and the constant demands for money
on behalf of the Government, " Don Patriotique; Souscription
Patriotique, Emprunt Force," and so on, besides the constant
depreciation in the assignats, caused Oberkampf to be somewhat
anxious as to financial matters, especially as, in order to keep his
workpeople employed, he continued to manufacture goods and
to store them. No wonder that he was worshipped by his em-
ployees as little less than a demi-god. It was not until 1799 that
he was reluctantly compelled to dismiss some of his men, but he
was soon able to take them on again, as he found that he could
keep his hands busy by printing calico belonging to merchants
who paid him for the decoration of their cloth, and the business
70 THE CHINTZ BOOK
of building and enlarging the works was even continued. By
1805 prosperity reigned once more; there was such a demand
for cottons that they were bespoken while yet unfinished.
In 1806 yet another honour was bestowed on Oberkampf.
Napoleon and the Empress Josephine, accompanied by a suite of
thirty persons, paid a surprise visit to the factory. Napoleon
was enormously pleased at seeing the swift working of the printing
machines, one of them having been set in motion under his eyes.
The white cloth entering on one side passed under the engraved
cylinder and emerged on the other printed at the rate of seven
and a half metres a minute. Then the cylinder was changed and
another pattern was printed. The reserve cylinders, ranged in
rows to the number of two hundred, attracted his attention, and
on learning that twenty-five of them were made from the cannons
he had taken in 1798 from the Pope, he was delighted and called
his aides to him to laugh over what struck him as a great joke.
As usual Napoleon overwhelmed everyone with a storm of ques-
tions, to which Oberkampf and his colleagues Petineau and Widmer
were kept busy replying. The visit was a great success, and
at its close Napoleon, pretending to notice for the first time that
Oberkampf was not " decorated," took oil " his own Cross of the
Legion of Honour (a gold officer's crown) and gave it to him,
remarking that ' no one was more worthy to wear it.' "
In 1809 Oberkampf received the Decennial Prize— Grand
Prix de i re classe — instituted for valuable service to science and
art. The reports of the Jury and the Commission show the im-
portance attached to his work, as shown in the following extracts :
" M. Oberkampf . . . commenca son etablissement il y a
cinquante ans, et naturalisa en France l'art de toiles peintes qui
avait ete transports en Europe des plus faibles commencements.
M. Oberkampf eleva sa manufacture au plus haut degre de pros-
perity. II y porta la perfection en reunissant tous les moyens
que l'industrie avait acquis, soit par 1 'application de la chimie
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE 71
soit par les procedes mecaniques, — Parmis les nouveaux procedes,
on doit distinguer la gravure des cylindres et des planches de
cuivre, 1 'impression d'un vert solide d'une seule application, et
un grand appareil qui sert a l'application de la vapeur de l'eau a
tous les procedes de teinture."
Napoleon again visited the works in 18 10, bringing with him
the Empress, at that time Marie Louise. Oberkampf being absent,
he left commands that he should come and see him at Saint Cloud
the following Sunday for the purpose of questioning him mainly
on the subject of England and the cotton industry, his mind being
full of the prohibition of English goods and the new Customs
tariff, which amounted, in fact, to a commercial revolution.
Oberkampf was a piece on the board in the game he was playing
against England — an important piece too in the Emperor's opinion.
" Vous et moi nous faisons une rude guerre aux Anglais;
vous par votre industries et moi par mes armes." Then added
after a moment's reflection : " C'est encore vous qui faites la
meilleur." Both failed !
Jouy had seen its most prosperous days, and the last few
years of Oberkampf 's life were shadowed by grief and disappoint-
ment, though very many improvements in the mechanical side of
the manufacture were made, principally introduced from England.
Two members of the firm having received special permission from
the Emperor to visit England in 181 1, they managed to smuggle
drawings of various useful machinery into France in the binding
of a music portfolio, and they also brought patterns of new designs.
One of these novelties was the two-cylinder printing machine,
one cylinder being engraved to print the outline, the other with
the design in relief applied the filling hitherto carried out by
hand printing. But things were going badly, the workers had to
be put on short time, and even for a time production ceased.
Jouy was in the midst of military activities, and the disturbed
condition of the country reflected itself in the state of trade.
72 THE CHINTZ BOOK
The constant anxiety told on Oberkampf, by this time an old
man, and in 1815, the year of Waterloo, he died. After his death
the fabric that he had built up fell to pieces, and in 1843 the whole
of the works were pulled down and sold.
During the whole period covered by Oberkampf's work at
Jouy he was constantly introducing improvements in technique
and carrying out novelties in designs. In almost every case he
led the way both as to methods of manufacture and in providing
new patterns, other French cotton printers following him closely.
He does not seem to have desired striking originality; his aim
appears to have been to study closely the needs of his patrons and
to be ever ready with a supply of suitable goods. Similarly he
made no revolutionary invention, but seized on ideas already in
use and improved them and applied them to his own purposes;
many of his great successes were developments of ideas already
exploited in England and Scotland. The principal landmarks
relating to new styles and methods which he introduced into
France are briefly as follows :
Previous to 1759 it was forbidden to print chintzes except in
a few privileged cases, though a certain amount of contraband
printing was carried on. It was, however, done in fugitive colours
until Oberkampf introduced fast dyes in 1759.
The introduction of the chintzes with small patterns in imitation
of the imported cottons known as " Siamese " cloths. These were
printed by Oberkampf on a mixture of linen and cotton and were
known as " Toiles d'Orange de Jouy," 1763.
About 1760 the prints in red, afterwards to develop into the
best known types of " Toiles de Jouy," were introduced. They
were at first mainly Chinoiseries and were block printed.
In 1768 a new process of decoration was tried, especially on
the small patterns. It consisted of filling in spaces in the blocks
with pins or brass, which were placed in rows like bristles in a
brush— they printed as tiny dots. Designs were also carried out
entirely in picotage, as it was called.
PLATE XXX
ToiLES DE JOUY
I. Manufacturing Processes, 1783 2. The Wolf and the Lamb, 1804
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE 73
In 1769 the principal novelties were the designs en camaieux,
that is to say, designs carried out in different shades of a single
colour, at first generally china blue of fast dye.
In or about 1770 the patterns of the single-coloured prints
became more varied, and landscapes with mills, pastoral scenes and
such subjects were very fashionable.
In 1774 a new type of chintz was evolved which was a great
success; it consisted of bouquets of flowers which were printed
at some little distance from each other on a white ground expressly
made in Switzerland.
The popularising of printed cottons by the cheaper produc-
tion made possible by mechanical improvements naturally led to
the use of designs which were suited to the taste of the moment, and
numerous prints dating from about 1780 in single colours and
also in two or three tints show that Oberkampf was appealing
to a large market with less cultured tastes than before.
About 1783 an extraordinarily interesting design by Huet
printed in single-colour red was issued, giving a view of the process
in use at the factory. It shows the lengths of unprinted calico
spread on the grass during bleaching ; it is pegged out to preserve
it from being blown away; near by is the small factory and the
river — so essential to the enterprise, supplying as it did the neces-
sary constant supply of good water. Workmen are shown busy
damping and beating the cloth after it came from the boilers,
and an assistant figures as carrying the cloth which has been
prepared for printing back to the factory. These details are
subordinate to the principal portion of the design, which displays a
printer using the block-printing methods with his cloth spread on
a table. Cloths hanging out to dry complete this part of the
design.
The design " The Montgolfieres " (the Ballonists) was issued
in 1783.
The design " The Federation " was issued in 1790.
About 1 79 1 the patterns principally in use were very striking,
74 THE CHINTZ BOOK
such as large lozenges and zigzags — a very different class of taste
had to be catered for.
In 1793 there was a large sale of Persian designs introduced for
furnishing purposes in England.
In 1795 a very fashionable new style was introduced with a
bronze ground closely covered with growing plants strewn with
wild-flowers. 1
About 1806 an old fashion was revived — the printing of white
" reserve " on a blue ground by exactly the same method used
by Philippe- Jacob Oberkampf in 1749, and by him taught to
his son.
From about 1795 on there was an enormous output of those
fabrics printed in a single colour from copper plates and cylinders
which are so well known. They were exported in quantities to
England and must have had a great vogue here. The pattern
is printed from finely engraved copper plates, and the designs
are of an essentially pictorial character ; they are, however, executed
on so small a scale that they " tell " merely as a diaper and break
up the mass of large surfaces very pleasantly if used with the
right type of woodwork.
Furniture of the type which followed the Louis XVI, and
Empire furniture of the simpler type has a totally different appear-
ance in a room hung with these cottons to its appearance when
backgrounded with plain or paper-hung walls. However tightly
chintz is stretched there is always a considerable play of light and
shade, which gives a sense of style to the ensemble which is quite
lacking in the individual pieces of furniture.
The designs are carried out in various colours, red, snuff-
colour, blue, purple and dark brown all being favoured. The
classical types were evolved under the Directorate and were
among the happiest of this class of design.
In 1806 there was an Industrial Exhibition at the Louvre and
a beautiful furnishing design, " The miller, his son and his ass,"
1 Oberkampf : Labouchere.
PLATE XXXI
1. La Chasse, Designed by Horace Vernet, 1815
2. Red Print, Designed by Huet
PRINTED COTTONS IN FRANCE 75
printed in amaranth, was exhibited; it was an enormous success
and had a long life as a successful pattern.
In 1809 a solid-green colour was introduced — previously green
had been obtained by two printings, blue and yellow — but it has
not really a better effect though it was hailed as an important
invention. The broken colour produced by the over-printing one
tint on the other had a much happier effect.
The works at Jouy naturally gave employment to numerous
artists. It is not possible to connect the names of any particular
designer with the earlier work, though a Mile. Jouanon was work-
ing there as a flower painter in 1775, and was no doubt responsible
for many of the charming floral patterns of that period ; the others —
amongst them, J. G. Vitrey, Gamier, Cavet, Pierriere, and many
others — are but names, as their signature does not appear on the
prints. Later it is possible to identify the work of several artists,
as their original drawings are preserved in the Musee de l'Art
Decoratif at Paris.
The best known is Jean Baptiste Huet, who designed Travaux
de la Manufacture 1783, La Balancoire 1789, La Fountaine 1796,
Le Lion amoureux 1798, .Loup et l'Agneau 1804, Meunier, fils
et Pane 1806, Psyche et 1' Amour 18 10, and many others. His
style is freer than that of Hippolyte Lebas, who, after Huet's death
in 181 1, designed very similar patterns for one-colour printing;
they are, however, very often much cut up by his habit of
enclosing the subjects in medallions and geometrical patterns. Les
Colombes 1814, La Marchande d'Amours 1817, are among his best.
Penelli's best-known design is Scenes Romaines 181 1. Others
that can be identified are Paysage Suisse (Demarne 18 14), Don
Quixote (Hein 181 3), Monuments de Paris and Monuments de
Midi 181 8, both by Lebas, and Costumes Militaires by Lami
1 8 19, of which the decorative value is almost nil.
La Chasse by Horace Vernet shows hunting as practised at
Versailles in 181 5, while another print slightly later in date deals
with an English hunt.
CHAPTER IX
DATES AND LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF CHINTZES AND PRINTED
COTTONS
A.D.
Historical reference by Pliny ...... 70
Portuguese traveller, Pero de Covilham, visits Calicut and
describes its possibilities for European trade . . 1487
Vasco de Gama reaches Calicut ..... 1498
Capture of a Portuguese vessel laden with Indian goods,
including "callicoes," attracted English attention to the
value of the Far Eastern trade ..... 1592
Foundation of East India Company . . . . 1600
The East India Company allowed by Royal Proclamation
to import amongst other things " painted Callicoes " . 1631
Jerome Lanyer's patent ...... 1634
Pepys buys a " chint " to line his wife's new study . . 1663
Dispute between Sir Martin Noell and the East India
Company as to whether " callico be linnen or no ' . 1664
Grant to Will Sherwin of a patent for the invention of a
new and speedy way for painting broadcloth " being
the only true way of East India printing and stayning
such kind of goods " ...... 1676
Cotton first printed in England (Anderson's History of
Commerce, Vol. II. p. 154) ..... 1676
Reference by Sir Josiah Child to imported cottons being
printed in England in imitation of Indian chintzes . 1677
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ..... 1685
Callico Printing Works established at Richmond . . 1690
Neuhofer of Augsburg comes to England to learn the new
way of printing ....... 1690
76
DATES AND LANDMARKS
77
Hooke presents a piece of fast-coloured printed chintz to
the Royal Society ......
Prohibition of importation of Indian chintzes .
Excise tax of 2d. per yard on home-printed callicoes
Resist printing practised at Rouen ....
Tax on home-printed callicoes increased to 6d.
Many pamphlets for and against the " Callico trade pub-
lished : The Weavers' True Case, The Weavers' Pre-
tences Examined, A Brief Statement of the Question
between the Printed and Painted Callicoes and the
Woollen and Silk Manufacture, and others
Prohibition of English printed cottons ....
Permission granted to print on calicoes with linen warp
Wilhelm Philippe Oberkampf born .....
Publication of the letters of Father Cceurdoux fully de-
scribing the Indian processes of madder colours as
used in their painted calicoes .....
First textile printing works in France founded at Mulhouse
(Alsace) .......
Birth of the first Sir Robert Peel, the great calico printer
Mrs. Delaney visits works at Drumcondra in Ireland where
linen was printed from copper plates
Oberkampf founds the works at Jouy
Turkey red works established at Rouen .
Red print signed and dated R. Jones, Old Ford, 1761
Red print " Chinoiseries," Collins, Woolmer .
Arkwright patents water-frame or throstle
Spinning jenny patented by Hargreaves .
Taylor and Walker use wooden cylinder printing machine
First cotton printing works at Glasgow .
Repeal of prohibition of home-printed calico and excise tax
of ^d. per yard ......
Duty raised .......
A.D.
1696
I700
1702
I709
1714
1719
I720
I736
1738
1742
1746
!75°
1752
1758
1760
1761
1766
1769
1770
1770
1771
1774
1777
78
THE CHINTZ BOOK
Crompton patents the mule jenny ....
Duty again raised to 15 per cent, of value
Calico printers obliged to obtain a licence
Cartwright invents the power loom ....
Livesay, Hargreaves, Hall & Co.'s Print Works at Mornsey
near Preston founded .....
Ehrhardt's Printing Works founded at Chelsea
Copyright increased to three months
Tax of ^\d. on all linen and cotton fabrics for home con
sumption instead of former rates
O'Brien publishes Calico Printer's Assistant
Nicholson's patent improved cylinder machine
Oberkampf introduces solid-green printing
A.D.
1780
1782
1784
1785
1785
1786
1787
1787
1789
1790
1809
PLATE XXXII
Three Dress Patterns on Dark Grounds, Early Nineteenth Century
CHAPTER X
SOME BOOKS OF INTEREST TO LOVERS OF OLD CHINTZES
While there are very many books treating of calico printing
and weaving, most of them are purely technical works and of
no interest to those readers who are chiefly concerned with the
decorative qualities of the fabrics of bygone days, and there are
singularly few volumes in which much is to be found that is of
any use to the furniture collector or the lover of old-time customs.
The following in their several ways will perhaps be most likely to
be helpful :
Baines (E., jun.) : History of the Cotton Manufacture.
O'Brien (C.) : Treatise on Callico Printing, 1789-91.
Papillon (S. B. M.) : Traite historique de la Gravure en Bois,
1766.
Hepplewhite (A.) & Co. : Cabinet-Makers' and Upholsterers' 1
Guide, 1785.
Clougeot : Revue de VArt ancienne et moderne, Vol. XXIII;
Les Toiles dejouy, 1908.
Oberkampf, by Labouchere; La Toile Peinte en France, by
Depitre, 1912.
Forrer, Professor : Die Kunst des Zeugdrucks and Der Zeug-
druck. These last have most interesting and valuable
illustrations. They are in German.
Les Imprimeurs des Tissues (in French).
Leland, Hunter : Decorative Textiles.
Hadaway, W. S. : Cotton Painting and Printing.
Lettres Edifiantes, containing the account of the Indian
method of producing printed calicoes, by Father Coeur-
doux, 1742, of which a translation is given in the
Appendix to this book, p. 81.
79
80 THE CHINTZ BOOK
Baker (G. P. F.) has brought out a most magnificently illus-
trated work on Indian chints containing much very
valuable information on the subject. It is possible to
obtain an excellent idea of Indian cottons from this
beautiful book without seeing the originals.
In addition, if in any way possible, visits should be made to
the Textile Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum to
examine the collection of Egyptian printed linens and European
and other printed cottons, to the Wood-work Department, where
the Garrick bed with its original chintz equipment is on view,
and to the Indian Section, where a fine collection of Indian painted
cottons is to be found. Many of them are examples such as were
used for furnishing purposes in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
APPENDIX
Translation of the account given by the Jesuit priest, Father
Coeurdoux, of the Indian traditional methods of producing fast-
coloured decorated cottons. Included in the collection of letters
printed under the title of Lettres Edifiantes.
Aux, Indes Orientales,
c. 1 8 Janvier, 1742.
Mon Reverend Pere,
You have asked me in many of your letters to tell you
of any discoveries I might make in this part of India, and I have
not forgotten your request. You said you were sure that informa-
tion might be obtained here which ought to be known in Europe,
instancing anything which would contribute towards the advance-
ment of Science and the perfection of Art.
I should have done this sooner, if my work had not occupied
almost all my time. At last, having a little leisure, I have made
use of it to find out how the Indians make those beautiful fabrics
which are dealt in by the Trading Companies which cross the
ocean from the most distant parts of Europe to obtain them from
these remote regions.
These cloths are chiefly valuable because of the " vivacity "
(if I may so express it) and the lasting quality of the colours with
which they are dyed, which, far from deteriorating when washed,
only become more beautiful. It is this quality, which Europeans
have not yet succeeded in imitating, that I now have learned how
to obtain.
This is owing to no lack of research on the part of our able men
of science, nor of want of skill on that of our workpeople, but it
really appears that the Author of Nature, wishing to compensate
the Indies for the advantages which Europe possesses over these
G 81
82 THE CHINTZ BOOK
countries, has given them ingredients (more especially water)
which contribute to the beauty of the mixture of dyeing and
painting by which these Indian cloths are ornamented.
What I am going to tell you, Reverend Father, about these Indian
Paintings has been learnt from certain neophytes skilled in this
kind of work whom I have recently baptised. I have questioned
them on various occasions, and apart from one another, and it is
their replies that I send to you.
Before beginning to make painted linens it is necessary to make
the following preparations : —
i . Take a piece of new linen, fine and closely woven (the most
usual length is nine cubits). Half bleach it. (I will say later how
to do this.) Take about twenty-five of the dry fruits called
Cadou, or Cadouca'ie; or, to be more exact, the weight " palam."
This Indian weight equals an ounce and an eighth, hence fourteen
palams and a quarter equal a pound. Break up the fruit and
remove the stones, which are of no use.
2. Reduce the dry fruits to powder (in order to do this they
use a stone cylinder in the same way that pastrycooks do when
they roll out their paste).
3. Sieve this powder, and put two pints, or thereabouts, of
Buffalo milk to it, increasing the quantity of the milk and the
weight of the Cadou according to the quantity of the cloth.
4. Soak the cloth in it until it is thoroughly wet through with
the milk. You then remove it, and wringing it out, put it in the
sun to dry.
5. The following day you rinse the cloth in ordinary water,
wring out the water, and after drying it in the sun, leave it in the
shade for a quarter of an hour at least.
After this preparation, which may be called internal, you pass
APPENDIX 83
to another which I may call external, because it concerns the
surface of the cloth.
In order to render it smoother, and to facilitate the use of the
paint-brush, they fold it in four, or in six, and with one piece of
wood they beat it on another very smooth piece, taking care to
beat it equally all over, and when one part is sufficiently beaten,
they re-fold it, and recommence the operation.
Here, Reverend Father, it is well to make a few notes about
Cadou which you may find of some use.
1. The fruit is found in woods on a medium-sized tree. It
is found nearly everywhere, but especially in Mallaialam, a moun-
tainous district, as the name signifies, which occupies a considerable
part of the coast of Malabar.
2. This dry fruit, which is as big as a nutmeg, is here used
by the doctors, and enters especially into remedies given to newly
confined women.
3. It is extremely bitter; however, when one keeps a piece of
it in the mouth for some time it acquires, some say, a taste of
Liquorice.
4. If, after having moistened it slightly in the mouth, and
then broken a piece, you take it between the fingers, you find it
very sticky. It is largely to these two qualities — bitterness and
stickiness — that they attribute the fastness of Indian colours.
But especially to the bitterness. Such, at least, is the idea of the
Indian painters.
For a long time the art of fixing colours has been sought for
in Europe, to give them that fastness which is so admired in
Indian cloths. Perhaps it may be mine to discover the secret;
at least for some colours, by making known Cadoucaie, and
above all its principal quality of bitterness.
May we not find in Europe fruits similar to these ? Gall nut,
dried while immature; the rind of the Pomegranate may have
many of the qualities of Cadou.
84 THE CHINTZ BOOK
I add to what I have just said some experiments I have made
with the Cadou.
i. Lime, steeped in an infusion of Cadou, gives a green. If
there be too much Lime it gives a brown. If one pours on this
brown dye a large quantity of the infusion, the colour appears
whitish at first, and after a little the Lime precipitates itself to
the bottom of the receptacle.
2. White linen soaked in a strong infusion of Cadou becomes
of a very pale yellowish tint, but when mixed with Buffalo milk
the linen comes out a rather pale orange.
3. Having mixed a little European ink with an infusion of
Cadou, I remarked that in many places there was a bluish film
similar to what one sees in ferruginous waters.
It would be easy, even in Europe, to make experiments with
the Cadou itself, as it would be easy to import it from the Indies.
This fruit is very cheap, and one gets thirty of them for a sol
of our money.
The reason they prefer Buffalo milk to that of the cow is
because it is richer and more unctuous.
This milk has the same effect on cloth as gum, and the other
preparations that they use on paper in order that it may not
blot. However, I find that our printer's ink used on a cloth
prepared with Cadou does spread, and even penetrates to the
other side, and the same thing happens with the black paintings
of the Indians.
It must be noted that every kind of wood is not suitable for
beating and polishing the cloths. Generally the wood upon
which they are placed, as well as the beater, is made from the
Tamarind Tree, but sometimes they use a tree called " Porchi,"
because these woods are extremely close-grained when old.
The beater is called a Cottapouli; it is round and about a
cubit long, and as thick as a man's leg, except at the handle end.
Two workmen face each other, and beat the cloths with
APPENDIX 85
alternating strokes. The experienced eye informs them when the
cloth is sufficiently polished and lissom.
II
When the cloth has been prepared thus, the flowers and
other things to be painted on it must be drawn. The Indian work-
people have no peculiar method. They use the same as our
embroideresses. The painter draws his design on paper, and
pierces the principal lines with a fine needle. Placing the paper
on the cloth he pounces the design. That is to say, he passes
charcoal powder tied in a knot of muslin over the pricked holes,
and thus the design is transferred to the cloth. Any kind of
charcoal will do, except that of the Palm, which, say the Indians,
tears the cloth.
Lastly, they follow these lines with a paint-brush and black
or red colour, and the work is outlined.
Ill
Now comes the task of adding colour to the design. The first
which is applied is the black. This colour is not much used
except for certain details, and the stalks of flowers. It is prepared
thus : —
1. They take some iron dross, and knocking the pieces together
to cause the less solid parts to fall off, they retain the large pieces,
which are about nine to ten times the size of an egg.
2. They put with it several pieces of iron, old or new, it does
not matter which.
3. Having placed the iron and the dross on the ground, they
light a fire above it. The best fire is made with Banana leaves.
4. They put the iron and dross into a vessel which holds about
eight to ten pints, and pour on to it hot Kanji. This is the water
86 THE CHINTZ BOOK
in which Rice has been boiled, and care has to be taken that there
is no salt in it.
5. After having exposed the whole to the sun for a day, the
Kanji is thrown away and the vessel filled with Palm wine or
Coco wine, known as Callou.
It is again placed in the sun for six to eight consecutive days,
when the colour used to paint black is ready for use.
There are some observations to make on this preparation.
The first is that one must not put more than four or five pieces
of iron into eight or nine pints of Kanji, otherwise the dye will
redden and cut the cloth.
Second, with regard to the quality of the Palm, or Coco
wine, which sours easily in a very short time, they use it instead
of yeast to raise their dough.
The third is that they prefer the wine of the Coco tree to
that of the Palm. And the fourth, that failing these they use
Kevarou, which is a small grain used as food by many people of
this country. This grain resembles Turnip -seed in colour and
size, but the stem and leaves are quite different. They also
employ the Varagou, another native fruit, in preference to the
Kevarou. They take two handfuls, and cook them in water which
they pour into the vessel containing the iron and the dross. They
add lumps of Palm sugar about the size of two or three nutmegs,
taking care not to put more, or the colour will not stand.
The Fifth is that to improve the colour they mix the Callou
with the Kevarou, or the prepared Varagou.
The Sixth, and last, remark is that this colour does not appear
very black, and that it is not fast, except on a cloth prepared with
Cadou.
APPENDIX 87
IV
After having drawn, and painted with black, all the parts
required, the red outlines of the flowers, and of other things which
should be drawn in this colour, are added.
The blue, which requires a great deal of preparation, is also
applied.
Firstly the cloth is put into boiling water, and left for half
an hour. If two or three Cadous are added to the water the colour
will be improved. The cloth is soaked all night in water in which
the droppings of sheep or goats have previously been steeped.
Next day it is washed, and exposed to the sun.
When the Indian painters are asked what purpose is served
by this last operation, they reply that it removes the qualities
imparted by the Cadou, and that if this had been retained, the blue,
which is now about to be applied, would become black.
Another reason for this operation is that it whitens the cloth,
for, as before remarked, it was only half bleached at the beginning.
In exposing it to the sun, it should not get entirely dry, but should
be sprinkled with water from time to time through a whole day.
Then it is beaten on a stone, but not with a beetle, as in France.
The Indian method is to fold it several times, and to beat it heavily
with a stone, using the same movements as do locksmiths and black-
smiths, when striking their large hammers on an anvil. When
the cloth is beaten enough in one part they continue beating it in
another. Twenty or thirty blows are enough at this time. When
this is done the cloth is again soaked in rice-water. If they have
it they put some Kevarou to boil on the fire as if it were to be cooked,
and before the water thickens too much they soak the cloth, remove
it, dry it, and beat it with the Cottapouli as they did at the first
operation in order to make it smoother.
As the blue is not applied with a brush, but by soaking the cloth
in prepared Indigo, it is necessary to coat the cloth with wax all
88 THE CHINTZ BOOK
over except on those parts which are already black, and those
where blue or green are to appear.
This wax is applied with an iron brush, as lightly as possible,
on one side only, taking care that no part remains uncoated,
except those that I have mentioned. Otherwise there will be blue
marks which are uneffaceable. The cloth is then exposed to the
sun, taking care that the wax only melts enough to penetrate to
the other side. It is then turned over, and rubbed briskly with
the hand.
The better way is to employ a round-bottomed copper vessel,
which spreads the wax all over, even to those parts which on the
other side should be dyed blue. This preparation being com-
pleted the painter hands on the cloth to the blue dyer, who returns
it after some days, for it must be noted that it is not the ordinary
painters, but special workpeople, or dyers, who carry out this
work.
Having asked the painter if he knew how to prepare the Indigo,
he told me he did, and described it to me in the following manner.
Perhaps you may be able to compare it with the methods used
in the American Islands. Here they take the leaves of the Averei,
or of the Indigo, well dried, and reduced to powder. This powder
is put into a large vessel filled with water. They beat it in the sun
with a bamboo split into four which has the four extremities
extended apart.
The water is then allowed to escape through a little hole in
the bottom of the vessel, at the bottom of which is the indigo.
It is taken out and broken into pieces the size of a Pigeon's egg.
They then spread ashes in the shade, and on these ashes they
lay a cloth upon which the Indigo dries. It is then ready for use.
After that it only remains to prepare it for the cloths which are
to be dyed.
The workman, having powdered sufficient Indigo, puts it in
a large earthen vessel which he fills with cold water, adding to it a
proportionate amount of Lime, also powdered. Then he examines
APPENDIX 89
the Indigo to make sure it is not sour — in which case he adds
more Lime, as much as is necessary to make it lose this
smell.
Then taking some grains of Tavarei, about a quarter of a
bushel, he boils them in a bucket of water for a day and a night,
keeping the cauldron full of water. He then turns all (grain and
water) into the vessel containing the Indigo. This dye is kept
for three days, care being taken to mix it well together, stirring it
three or four times a day with a stick. If the Indigo again becomes
sour, more Lime is added.
The blue dye being thus prepared, the cloth is immersed after
being folded in two in such a way that the right side is outward,
and the wrong side within. It is left to soak for about an hour and
a half, then it is removed to a suitable place. You can see, there-
fore, that the Indian cloths should rather be called " dyed " than
painted.
The lengthiness and variety of the processes for blue dyeing
gave rise to a difficulty which I laid before the painter.
" Could not," I said, " all the flowers be painted blue with a
brush, especially when there are only a few of them in the piece ? "
" It certainly could be done," he replied, " but the blue would
not be fast, and after being washed two or three times would
disappear." I asked him to what he attributed the fastness of the
colour, and he unhesitatingly replied to the Tavarei seeds. This
seed is native to the country; it is light brown, or olive colour,
cylindrical, a line long, and split at the end. It is difficult to break
with the teeth, insipid, and leaves a slight bitterness in the mouth.
After the blue, the red must be added, but first the wax must
be removed from the cloth. It must be bleached and prepared
to receive this colour.
The way to remove the wax is to put the cloth in boiling water ;
the wax melts, the fire is slackened, in order that it may solidify,
and the wax is removed very carefully with a spoon; the water is
again brought to the boil, and what remains of the wax is removed.
9 o THE CHINTZ BOOK
Although the wax becomes very dirty it may be used again
for the same purpose.
In order to bleach the cloth it is washed in water, and beaten
nine or ten times on a stone, and immersed in fresh water in which
some sheep droppings have been soaked. It is again washed, and
spread out in the sun for three days, and sprinkled with water
as before.
They soak an earth called " Ola," which is used by the washer-
men, in cold water, and immerse the cloth in it for about an hour,
after which they light a fire under the vessel, and when the water
begins to boil they take out the cloth, and wash it in a pond, on
the edge of which they beat it four hundred times on a stone,
and then wring it thoroughly. Then it is soaked for a day and a
night in water in which has been mixed a little of the droppings
of a Cow, or female Buffalo. After that it is again washed in the
pond and spread for half a day in the sun, watering it slightly
from time to time. It is again put on the fire in a vessel of water,
and when the water boils it is once more washed in the pond,
beaten a little, and dried. Then, in order to make the cloth ready
to receive the red colouring, the operation of Cadoucaie must be
repeated as before. That is to say, the cloth is soaked in a simple
infusion of Cadou; it is then washed, beaten on a stone and dried ;
after this it is soaked in Buffalo milk, in which it is stirred, and
rubbed with the hands in order that it may be thoroughly wet
through. They then remove it, wring, and dry it.
Then, where it is necessary to have white marks, such as pistils,
stamens, and other details, in the red flowers, they are painted
with wax, after which the red dye, which has been previously
prepared, is painted with an Indian brush.
The red is often applied by children, as it is not a difficult
task, unless a very perfect piece of work is required.
Let us now see how this red colour is prepared. Take bitter
water, that is to say, the water of certain wells which have this
taste. Into two pints of water put two ounces of powdered Alum,
APPENDIX 91
add to it four ounces of the red wood called Vartanqui or Sapan
wood, also powdered. Let it stand in the sun for two days,
taking care that nothing falls in to soil it, or the colour will be
weakened. If the red is to be deeper add more alum, if lighter
add more water, in order to obtain the different tints and shadings
of colour.
V
To obtain a colour like wine lees, rather inclined to violet,
you must take one part of the red, made as just described, and one
part of the black described earlier. Add an equal part of rice-
water which has been kept three months, and mix it until the
required colour results.
There is a ridiculous superstition amongst these Gentiles on
the subject of sour rice-water. It is that anyone can use it him-
self any day of the week, but on Sunday, Thursday, and Friday they
refuse to give it to anyone who is short of it, because they say it
would drive their God out of the house.
When Kanji vinegar is unobtainable, they use the vinegar of
Callou, or of Palm wine.
VI
Different colours may be made based on red which it is useless
to describe here. It is enough to say that they are painted the
same time as the red, that is to say, before passing to the operation
of which I am going to speak, after I have made some observations
on the foregoing.
1 . Wells of bitter water are not common, even in India. Some-
times there is only one in a town.
2. I have tasted this water, and do not find the quality
attributed to it, but it seems inferior to ordinary water.
92 THE CHINTZ BOOK
3. Some people say bitter water is used to improve the colour
of the red, but rather more commonly it is said that it is used to
make it fast.
4. It is from Acken that fine quality Alum and Sapan wood
is brought to the Indies.
But whatever virtue lies in this bitter water it would neither
make the colours fast nor beautiful if they did not add the dye of
Imboure.
This is more commonly called Chaiaver, or Cha'ia root. But
to make use of this the cloth must be washed in the pond in the
morning, dipping it several times in order to soak it thoroughly,
which is not easy because of the slight greasiness caused by the
Buffalo milk previously used. It is beaten thirty times, and half
dried. Whilst the cloth is being prepared they also prepare the
Cha'ia root thus : It is dried, and reduced to a very fine powder
in a mortar of stone, not wood, and a little bitter water is thrown
in from time to time.
Take about three pounds of this powder and add it to two
buckets of tepid water, stirring it a little with the hand. This
water becomes red, but rather an ugly colour; its purpose is to
bring other reds to perfection. The cloth must be plunged in
this, and stirred and turned for half an hour, while the heat is
increased beneath the vessel, and when it becomes too hot for the
hand, those who take particular pains that their work should be
clean and perfect, remove the cloth, wring and dry it. The
reason of this is that during the painting of the red it is difficult
to avoid making blots here and there. It is true that the painter
does his best to remove these, as one might do when writing, but
there still remain some traces which are rendered more apparent
by the infusion of Cha'ia root, and therefore they take out the
cloth as I have said, and remove them as best they can with a half
lemon.
This done the cloth is put back into the dye, and the heat
APPENDIX 93
increased until the hand can bear it no longer, turning and re-
turning the cloth for half an hour.
At evening the fire is made up, and the dye is boiled for an
hour, or thereabouts, the cloth is removed, wrung out, and kept
damp until the next day.
Before passing on to the other colours it is well to say something
about Cha'ia. This plant is wild, and it is not necessary to sow
it to supply the quantity required. It grows about half a foot
high ; the leaf is light green ; about two lines wide and five or six
long; the extremely small flower is bluish. The seed is about
the size of that of tobacco. This little plant has a tap root running
sometimes to a depth of nearly four feet, but those that are about
a foot long are the best. Though the main root is so long, the side
roots are few and small. It is yellow when fresh, becoming brown
on drying. It gives a red colour to water only when fresh. On
this head I noticed a point which surprised me. I had made a
red infusion which was accidentally spilt during the night. On
the following day I was surprised to find that at the bottom of
the vessel some drops of yellow liquid had gathered. I suspected
that some foreign body had caused this change of colour, and spoke
of it to a painter, who told me that it only indicated that the Cha'ia
was of good quality, and that the water often takes the colour of
saffron. I also noticed a surface film of a very fine violet on the
overturned vessel. This plant is sold dry in bunches; the tops
are cut off, as only the roots are used.
As the cloth had been entirely immersed in the dye, and had
soaked in the colour, the following operations can be carried out
without any danger of damaging the reds.
They are the same that have been already described, that is
to say, the cloth is washed in the pond, beaten ten or twelve times
on the stone, bleached with sheep droppings, and on the third
day soaked, beaten, and dried, being sprinkled with water from
time to time. It is kept damp during the night, and washed the
next day, and dried as on the day before. At last, at noon, it is
94 THE CHINTZ BOOK
washed in hot water to remove all soap, and any dirt which had
attached itself to it, and thoroughly dried.
VII
The green colour is prepared thus : Take a palam, or a little
more than an ounce of Cadou flowers, as much of Cadou, a handful
of Cha'iaver, and, if a very fine green is required, a Pomegranate
rind.
Powder them, and put them in three bottles of water, and boil
them until the quantity is reduced to three quarts, and pour
into a vessel through a linen cloth. Add half an ounce of Alum
in powder, stir for some time, and the colour is ready.
Painted over blue, this colour gives green. For this reason
the worker who dyes blue is careful when painting on the wax
to leave those parts clear of wax which should be green, so that
the cloth already dyed blue should be in a proper state to receive
the green in its turn. If not painted over blue, it would give
yellow on a white cloth.
This colour, however, is not fast, like red and blue, and after
several washings disappears, leaving only blue. There is, how-
ever, a way of fixing the colour so that it will last as long as the
cloth itself.
Take a Banana bulb, peel it while fresh, and express the juice.
Add four or five spoonfuls of this juice to a bottle of green dye.
It will make the green permanent, but will spoil the beauty of the
tint somewhat.
VIII
There remains but the yellow, which will not require much
explanation. The same dye used for green by painting over
blue, serves for yellow by painting on a white ground, but it is not
permanent.
However, if but little soap be used in washing these cloths,
APPENDIX 95
or if they are washed in water acidulated with sour milk, or lemon
juice, or soaked in water in which cow droppings have been mixed
and passed through a linen cloth, these fugitive colours will last
a long time.
IX
In conclusion a few words may be said about the pencils used
by the Indians. They are made of a little piece of Bamboo,
pointed, and slit for about an inch from the end. Fastened round
them is a piece of stuff soaked in the colour they are using, which
is squeezed to make it run as required.
For wax they use an iron pencil about three finger-breadths
long, which is thinner towards the top, and is inserted in a bit
of wood which forms a handle.
It is slit at the bottom, and forms a circle in the middle round
which is fixed a bundle of hair about the size of a nutmeg, soaked
in hot wax which runs little by little down to the point of the pencil.
Such, Reverend Father, is all I have been able to gather as to
the fabrication of the painted cloths of the Indies.
I do not know if I have been more successful in my discoveries
than my predecessors, but, as they neither knew the language,
which is so absolutely necessary when conversing with the painters,
nor the customs of dealing with them, and as their position might
naturally cause suspicion in the timid natives, I doubt their having
carried out their orders as to this matter successfully.
I do not wish to guarantee the exact truth of all that I have
reported; it would be difficult to avoid allowing some errors to
creep in when dealing with those who know better how to work
than how to explain, but, as I have consulted many painters, it
would be difficult for them all to conspire to deceive me, and it
is unlikely that I am far from the truth.
I am, etc., etc.
GLOSSARY
Atlass. An Indian fabric with a cotton warp or back and a soft
silk woof with a satin surface, woven in a striped pattern.
Alum. One of the principal mordants used by the calico printers
of India.
Arkwright. Inventor of the water frame (1769) and of the power
loom (1785).
Bandana dyeing. This style of dyeing is ornamented with white
spots, by preventing the colour getting to the material by
tying it up into small tight knots.
Batiks. " Java girdles " are the chintzes called by the Javanese
batik, i.e. "painted," or rather "delineated"; as the cotton
cloth to be decorated, after first being covered with a film
of wax, poured on at the boiling point, has the design literally
delineated throughout it with a sharp pointed style, before
being dipped into the dye, which colours the cloth only
where the wax has been removed by the style. Then, when
the dye has been fixed, the remaining wax is melted off.
Sometimes this process is repeated over and over again, with a
different dye each time, thus producing wonderfully elaborate
designs; but the most pleasing results are always obtained
from a single application of it, as, for instance, in the spriggled
batiks,vnth their simple floral patterns pencilled in monochrome
on the natural cream-coloured surface of the cotton cloth.
These so-called " Java girdles," including dress pieces of
all sorts, such as robes, mantles, veils, and also curtains, have
been celebrated in India from the time of the first introduc-
tion of Hindu civilisation into the Indian Archipelago; and
in the play of Mdlate and Mddhdva (see Wilson's Theatre
96
GLOSSARY 97
of the Hindu (1871), Vol. II. p. 74), attributed to the eighth
century A.D., are expressly referred to under the phrase
chitra-Javanika, " Javanese chintz ; " in this place the
painted curtain, or peplos, suspended before the adytum or
temple into which, in the third act, Makaranda retires to
make up his toilet as a female . — The first Letter Book of the
East India Company, 1 600-1 619, p. 59, note 4.
Bleaching. The process of removing the original colour from the
calico. In early times natural means combined with air and
sunlight were used. The chloride process was invented in
the eighteenth century.
Block. A piece of wood cut endways of the grain which is used,
when carved in the necessary way, to impress the pattern
on cotton or other material.
Block-prints. Patterns printed from wood blocks. In some cases
it is something of a misnomer, only the outlines being really
printed and the other colours applied by hand or by immers-
ing the cloth in dye, the parts not required to be coloured
being protected by wax.
Boundage. The eighteenth century term for the outline, generally
printed in black but sometimes partly in red. The boundage
on a print with a black or dark-coloured field was often very
thick to simplify the task of painting in the ground.
Calendering. The calendering of Indian and eighteenth-century
English chintzes was a very different thing to the calendered
chintzes of the present day. They received a smooth polished
surface, but were quite flexible and did not crackle or break.
The fineness of the web used accounted in a measure for this,
but still more the fact that the polish was produced by pressure
and not by starch and size. This surface retains its glaze
to a considerable extent, even after several washings, though
it gradually lessens.
Calico. This word is derived from Calicut in India, whence the
first supplies were received. In early days it was most
H
98 THE CHINTZ BOOK
generally used to describe a decorated fabric, though now it
has lost this meaning. It was at times used as an adjective
to mean parti-coloured; thus " a calico mare " was a pie-
bald mare, and a " calico pig " a spotted pig.
" Callico printing." This term was used for any kind of printing
in colours, even on woollen or linen.
Carpet. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this word
was used to describe a rug, mat or a cover for a chest or table.
Chint, Chintz, Chints, Chintse. All these forms of the word
were in use in bygone times. The original spelling is
" Chint," with its plural Chints. Gradually the plural
was universally adopted and the modern spelling came into
use in the eighteenth century. It then signified a cotton
fabric painted or printed with colours in fast dyes. Now it
is reserved for glazed material.
Cceurdoux. A Jesuit priest who studied the art of calico painting
in India. His essay on the art is published in a book entitled
Lettre Edifiantes, 1742.
Cotton. Cotton is produced by plants of various species of the
genus Gossypium, to which belong common Mallows and
Hollyhocks. The fibre is contained in the fruit, which is a
3-5 celled capsule within which is contained the cotton
enshrouding the numerous seeds. There was comparatively
little trade in cotton until the last hundred and fifty years,
although it had been imported since the tenth century,
mainly, it would appear, in the earliest times for use as candle
wicks. Later it was used for mixing with wool and with
linen. English spinners were not sufficiently skilful to make
a cotton thread which was strong enough to be used as a
warp, and through all the anti-cotton legislation these old-
established mixtures were permitted as being native
manufacture.
The principal inventions which transformed the cotton
industry in the eighteenth century were :
GLOSSARY 99
Arkwright. Water frame, 1769.
Hargreaves. Jenny, 1770.
Crompton. Mule, 1780.
Cartwright. Power loom, 1785.
These inventions were only introduced in the teeth of
bitter opposition from workmen, and rival manufacturers
who saw in them a menace to the trade, but they ultimately
were, from a commercial point of view, an immense advantage
to the industry.
Crompton. Inventor of the mule machine, 1779.
Cylinder printing, or Machine printing. The mechanical method
of printing in which the design is engraved on rollers.
" Discharge " prints. These prints have a very similar effect to
the simple white or colour reserve prints, but the effect is
obtained the reverse way. The cloth is dyed blue and the
colour of the pattern bleached or discharged by the use of a
powerful chemical. In the eighteenth century the prepared
juice of lemons was employed.
" Drug." A term used in the eighteenth century for the mordant
used as a preparation for the dye. It combines with the
colour and makes it fast.
Fast colour. Colour that did not fade or run. These words
were stamped on some cottons to denote their quality. In
French the equivalent phrase " Bon tenit," was similarly
used.
Field. The term sometimes used to describe a background of solid
colour. The field in block-printed cottons was often put in
by hand.
Furniture. This word was used (and still is to some extent) to
describe curtains and bed-hangings of some textile; the
wooden part, which in the modern meaning of the word
would generally be the most important part, is not included
in the term. Thus " bed furniture " would include the
curtains and quilt, not the posts and frame.
ioo THE CHINTZ BOOK
Hat -greaves. Inventor of the spinning jenny, 1770.
Indiennes. The French term for Indian chintzes, afterwards
applied to European chintzes and dressing-gowns made of
these fabrics.
Indigo is obtained from a plant largely grown in India. Of recent
years chemical substitutes have been used, but they were not
known until the nineteenth century.
Madder. This and other plants with the same properties was
the most important constituent of all old dyeing and printing
on cotton goods, and though to a large extent the actual
plant has been superseded by chemical products, they are
essentially the same as those derived from the madder.
There are many varieties of the madder tribe, the kind
used in dyeing is Rubia tinctorum. It is a native of Asia,
and probably also of the south of Europe. The root is
also produced in Western Europe, and large quantities
are grown in New Zealand, but that which comes from
hotter climes is better. The colouring is chemically a mix-
ture of two colours— Alisarine, which gives the bright red
shades, and Purpurine, which gives the purple tones. Its
properties have been known for ages.
Maul or Mallet. A sort of wooden hammer with which a block
printer strikes the back of the block in order to transfer the
colour evenly to the calico or other material.
Mordant. A preparation for the application of the true colouring
agent, with which it combines and fixes it on to the cotton.
O'Brien, Charles. A calico printer who published a book called
The Callico Printer's Assistant. It ran through several
editions and gives an interesting account of the state of the
cotton printing trade at the end of the eighteenth century.
Palampore. Large panels of Indian chintz used as hangings or
bed-coverings. They are often twelve feet or more high by
eight or nine feet wide. They were made principally at
Masulipatam, Fatehgarh, Shikarpur, Hagara and elsewhere.
GLOSSARY 101
Sir George Birdwood says of them, " In point of art decoration
they are simply incomparable. As art works they are to be
classed with the finest Indian pottery and the grandest
carpets."
Peel. The father of the first Sir Robert Peel. About 1760 he
set up the first cotton-printing mills in Lancashire near
Blackburn.
Peel, Sir Robert. The most important figure in the history of
English cotton printing. He was born in 1750. His son,
the second Sir Robert Peel, was the great statesman.
Pencillers. The workpeople who added colours by hand to the
block-printed outline. Indigo was very often thus applied.
Petticoat valance. A bed valance that was gathered into a flounce.
So called to distinguish it from the plain stiffened valances.
Pigment. A colour that does not become part of the fabric, but
is merely fixed or cemented to it by some medium such as
gum or size.
Pins, Pinning. These words have two meanings in old accounts
of chintz prints. In the first they signify the points attached
to the block by which the printer was enabled to gauge the
position of the block. These are called pitch pins. The
second meaning is the numerous small brass pegs or nails
driven into a block and used as part of the patterns.
Pintado. An early name for the painted Indian " callicoes."
The word was used by the Portuguese, in which language
it is equivalent to " painted." The word was used in England
in the seventeenth century to describe chintzes. It was
natural that the term should be adopted, as the capture
of a Portuguese vessel by Drake at the time of the conquest
of the Armada containing many Indian calicoes and other
valuable goods was one of the principal means of attracting
English attention to the profit likely to be derived from
trade with the East Indies. It is also spelt Pintadoe.
" Pintadoes " were painted cotton cloths, that is, chintzes
102 THE CHINTZ BOOK
■ (Sanskrit, chitra, " spotted," " variegated," as in chitraka,
the " Cheeta " or " hunting leopard," Felts jubata ; and
chital, the " Spotted deer," Axis maculatus) so called from
the Portuguese " pinta" "painted," literally "spotted," as
in Pintado, the " Guinea-fowl," and, indeed, any " spotted "
bird; thus Fryer, in his Travels (1698), p. 12, writes : " Gain-
ing upon the East with a slow pace, we met those feathered
' harbingers of the Cape, as Pintado-birds, Mangosaluedos,
Albetrosses.' " — The first Letter Book of the East India
Company, 1600-1619 (Birdwood and Foster), p. 59,
note 1 .
Pique or Pinned work. Towards the end of the eighteenth century
a great vogue for patterns of this kind arose. Entire designs
were sometimes built up of rows of pins which printed as tiny
dots. Sometimes they formed only the outlines.
Pouncing. A pounced outline guided Indian calico painters in
drawing their outlines. A drawing was made on paper;
all the principal lines were followed in a line of tiny holes
pierced with a needle. Some very finely ground charcoal
was tied in a piece of muslin and dusted over the paper and
sifted through the holes, giving a faint guide line which
was drawn in with a brush and liquid colour.
Red print. A print in a single tone of red, printed from a copper
plate. The term is generally used for a special style of
printing used in the middle of the eighteenth century.
Reserve prints. In this style of printing the pattern is shown in
white on a coloured ground, often blue. The pattern has
in these cases been protected by wax or a mixture of tallow
and pipeclay. When this composition is cleared away the
pattern appears en silhouette. Many of these patterns are
extremely elaborate. The reserve process was one of the
methods adopted in carrying out the " painted callicoes "
of the East.
Resist. Another name for " reserve."
GLOSSARY 103
Selvedge. The extreme outside edge of a woven fabric.
Sieve. A shallow vessel in which the colour was held ready for
the printer's use.
Solid green. When a green was printed as a single colour, and
not by a combination of blue and yellow applied separately,
it was thus described.
Stencil. The outline of an Indian chintz is often described as
stencilled. A better term would be pounced. The outline
as it appears when finished is actually painted by hand over
a stencilled or pounced guide line.
Toiles de Jouy. French printed cottons from the works near
Versailles.
Townsmen. The old term for a commercial traveller.
Turkey red. A brilliant fast red dye introduced into England from
the Levant in the eighteenth century, probably through
France, as the first British Turkey red works is said to have
been founded by a Frenchman named Papillion at Glasgow.
Union. A material with cotton woof and linen warp much used
in the eighteenth century for printing on. It was exempt
from the Act of Prohibition.
Warp. The threads running longways of the cloth; they are
the fixed threads in and out of which the woof is alternated.
Weft or Woof. The thread running across the cloth which is
woven in and out of the warp threads by means of a shuttle.
Weld. The source of the yellow colour used in the old method of
dyeing. It was cultivated largely in England in the eighteenth
century.
Wyatt. Inventor of spinning by rollers, 1783.
THE END
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
bungay, suffolk.
STERLING & FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE
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Percival, Maclver/The chintz book
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1962 00074 0427