ANNE WANNER'S Textiles in History / publications
World exhibitions and design, 1851 - 1878, as shown in publications from Leipzig
published in: CIETA-Bulletin No 75, 1998, p. 153 - 160, by Anne Wanner-JeanRichard
page 5 of 6
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  France, Germany, Style:    
  The Brockhaus catalogues devoted to the Paris exhibitions of 1867 and 1878 (1, 15) dealt in detail with the French industry and, in particular, with the Parisian firm of Maison Blanche on the Boulevard des Capucines, whose production encapsulated all the achievements of the white thread industry. It was the world’s largest whiteworks business and its manager, Leopold Meunier, controlled a large number of very able artists and skilled workers.

The French were not the sole producers of whitework, however, and similarly embroidered linen was also produced in Germany: the linen damask with an embroidered scene based on a Rembrandt painting, was made by the firm of Joseph Meyer in Gross-Schönau and Dresden and was shown at the 1862 exhibition. Its outer border was designed by Karl Krumbholz, Professor of Ornament and Design at the Polytechnic School of Dresden (16). The accompanying text said that neither Ireland nor any other nation ever exhibited anything similar. The author reported, however, that Swiss whitework , together with that of Saxony, was the most highly rated of all.

   In 1867, a tamboured curtain, almost certainly hand-worked, was shown by Rauch and Schaefer of St.Gallen and bought by the London Department Store of Swan and Edgar, although, sadly, it has not survived. The catalogue again praised the skilful dessinateurs et décorateurs of Paris and noted that France would remain the most important supplier of designs until artistic training was provided elsewhere for industrialists and manufacturers. In the same year, Jacob von Falke of Vienna commented disparagingly on the Swiss use of rococo scrolls and naturalistic flowers in the style of Watteau, which he called naturalistische Blumistik (17), and it was in response to such criticism that a school of design was founded in St Gallen; it opened on 11 November 1867. Here questions of embroidery designs were intensively studied, particularly in relation to machine embroidery, which was gaining in importance. Six years later, in an article about the Vienna exhibition of 1873 (18), Jacob von Falke noted that, although the Swiss industry was still oriented towards the export of embroideries in the naturalistic style, the existence of the design school at St Gallen was beginning ro influence taste.
       
  Notes:
15 - W.H. Uhland, Illustrierter Katalog der Pariser Weltausstellung von 1878, published by F.A. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1880.
16 - Johannes Stauffacher, Studienreisen, St Gallen 1897, p. 133.
17 - Jacob von Falke, Die Kunstindustrien der 		 
Gegenwart, Studien auf der Pariser Weltausstellung 1867, Switzerland, p. 31.
18 - Jacob von Falke, "Die Kunstindustrie auf der Wiener Weltausstellung von 1873, die Schweiz", p. 27, in: Carl von Lützow, Kunst und Kunstgewerbe auf der Wiener Weltausstellung 1873, Leipzig 1875.
       
   

Detail of curtain by Rauch and Schaefer, as shown at the world exhibition of 1867, in the catalogue of Leipzig. The embroidery is lost today.
     
  London Designers Reports Machines Style Later 19th c.  
content Last revised July 29, 2004