DOI issue:
Nr. 187 (October 1908)
DOI article:Vallance, Aymer: Some examples of tapestry designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones and Mr. J. H. Dearle
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20965#0043
Tapestries designed by Sir R. Burne-Jones and J. IT. Dearie
TAPESTRY ALTAR-PIECE
DESIGNED BY J. H. DEARLE FOR MORRIS & COMPANY, LTD.
tapestries, down to and including those executed
at Merton in Morris’s own lifetime. The point is
a technical one, arising out of the nature of the
process. It should be explained that the almost
invariable custom has been, and still is, to build
up the pattern in the high loom at right-angles to
the direction in which the work is eventually to be
hung. In other words the warp threads, vertical
during execution, run in the finished work from
side to side. The result is, that while the vertical
junctions, crossing the warp and being held in
position by the latter, remain steadfast and secure,
the horizontal joints, wherever there is a sharp
transition from one colour to another, have a natural
tendency to strain open with the weight of the web.
To obviate this inherent weakness the ancient
system was, after the weaving, to run the two raw
edges together with needle and thread. The latter
availed to make the web cohere well enough when
new, but in process of time was apt to perish and
leave the tapestry a mass of disintegration. In
small panels the strain is not serious enough to
signify, but in all large pieces its gravity is in direct
ratio to the size of the web. Under Morris the
traditional plan was always followed, but the firm
have since adopted the modern French method,
whereby the horizontal joints are all secured in the
loom by intertwisting the warp wools with one
another at the back. Thus resort to thread is
dispensed with, and, while there is no ridge nor
any token of knotting to be seen on the face, the
weakest points of the web are all so firmly welded
together that it becomes a compact whole, better
calculated, ceteris paribus, to last than any specimens
whose joints are sewn together in the old-fashioned
way.
An interesting point is that, though in ancient
days, as witnesses the memorable instance of
Penelope, tapestry was undoubtedly recognised as
women’s work; in the middle ages, on the con-
trary, while the guild system prevailed, only males,
being members or apprentices of the weaver’s
guilds, were allowed to practise the craft. And
Morris himself preferred to take boys, or young
men, and train them for the purpose. However,
times have altered; and the young man of the
present day arrives, sooner or later, at an age when
he finds weaving too sedentary an occupation to
suit him. To supply, then, fora threatened dearth
of arras-weavers, the present heads of the firm have
engaged a lady to be trained with a view to her
being capable, in her turn, of training other women
or young girls as weavers, that so, in an organised
school, a succession of qualified executants may be
maintained.
In conclusion, if it be a permissible indiscretion
to refer to matters already relegated to the ob-
scurity of a Parliamentary Blue Book, it may be
21
TAPESTRY ALTAR-PIECE
DESIGNED BY J. H. DEARLE FOR MORRIS & COMPANY, LTD.
tapestries, down to and including those executed
at Merton in Morris’s own lifetime. The point is
a technical one, arising out of the nature of the
process. It should be explained that the almost
invariable custom has been, and still is, to build
up the pattern in the high loom at right-angles to
the direction in which the work is eventually to be
hung. In other words the warp threads, vertical
during execution, run in the finished work from
side to side. The result is, that while the vertical
junctions, crossing the warp and being held in
position by the latter, remain steadfast and secure,
the horizontal joints, wherever there is a sharp
transition from one colour to another, have a natural
tendency to strain open with the weight of the web.
To obviate this inherent weakness the ancient
system was, after the weaving, to run the two raw
edges together with needle and thread. The latter
availed to make the web cohere well enough when
new, but in process of time was apt to perish and
leave the tapestry a mass of disintegration. In
small panels the strain is not serious enough to
signify, but in all large pieces its gravity is in direct
ratio to the size of the web. Under Morris the
traditional plan was always followed, but the firm
have since adopted the modern French method,
whereby the horizontal joints are all secured in the
loom by intertwisting the warp wools with one
another at the back. Thus resort to thread is
dispensed with, and, while there is no ridge nor
any token of knotting to be seen on the face, the
weakest points of the web are all so firmly welded
together that it becomes a compact whole, better
calculated, ceteris paribus, to last than any specimens
whose joints are sewn together in the old-fashioned
way.
An interesting point is that, though in ancient
days, as witnesses the memorable instance of
Penelope, tapestry was undoubtedly recognised as
women’s work; in the middle ages, on the con-
trary, while the guild system prevailed, only males,
being members or apprentices of the weaver’s
guilds, were allowed to practise the craft. And
Morris himself preferred to take boys, or young
men, and train them for the purpose. However,
times have altered; and the young man of the
present day arrives, sooner or later, at an age when
he finds weaving too sedentary an occupation to
suit him. To supply, then, fora threatened dearth
of arras-weavers, the present heads of the firm have
engaged a lady to be trained with a view to her
being capable, in her turn, of training other women
or young girls as weavers, that so, in an organised
school, a succession of qualified executants may be
maintained.
In conclusion, if it be a permissible indiscretion
to refer to matters already relegated to the ob-
scurity of a Parliamentary Blue Book, it may be
21