Cope main textile: 1720s; hood textile: mid-17th century Dutch and Italian Until recently, products of the Dutch silk-weaving industry have been difficult to identify. The duc de Richelieu (Louis-Francois- Armand de Vignerod du Plessis, 1696 ・ 1788) collected hundreds of European textile samples between 1720 and 1736 in an attempt to document local and regional production; included in this collection are several woven silks from the Netherlands labeled “Indiennes.” This nomenclature and certain characteristics of the group have been confirmed by recent archival research in Amsterdam.¹ These fa
Cope main textile: 1720s; hood textile: mid-17th century Dutch and Italian Until recently, products of the Dutch silk-weaving industry have been difficult to identify. The duc de Richelieu (Louis-Francois- Armand de Vignerod du Plessis, 1696 ・ 1788) collected hundreds of European textile samples between 1720 and 1736 in an attempt to document local and regional production; included in this collection are several woven silks from the Netherlands labeled “Indiennes.” This nomenclature and certain characteristics of the group have been confirmed by recent archival research in Amsterdam.¹ These fabrics have a width of about 30 1⁄2 inches (78 centimeters) and feature distinctively playful patterns with exotic elements, mostly interpretations of Chinese motifs.² Dutch silk indiennes were certainly intended for fashionable womens dress, as is evident from a particularly spectacular example of Dutch silk weaving at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (no. ). The Dutch were exporting silk textiles to England, France, and Portugal (and probably indirectly to North America through the British trade) by at least the early eighteenth century. In 1707 an Amsterdam silk manufacturer was called upon to testify to the origin of several Dutch silks after such goods were stopped by English customs on their way into London because they were thought to be from India.³ Both England and France banned the import of Asian silks around the turn of the eighteenth century as protectionist measures in favor of their own silk-weaving industries.⁴Whether the Dutch silk indiennes of the 1720s to 1750s were still confused with Asian silks is not certain; to the modern eye, they are clearly examples of European chinoiserie. This particular pattern shows a compact walled garden with tiny pagodas flanked by oversize Chinese-style vases holding large flowers. In his 1769 memoirs Jacques-Charles Dutillieu (1718 ・ 1782), a French silk designer and manufacturer, dismissed the quality
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