Physical Qualities
Silk, Overall: 34 3/4 × 19 1/2 in. (88.3 × 49.5 cm.)
Framed: 39 × 31 3/8 in. (99.1 × 79.7 cm.)
Credit Line
Angelica Yonge Pearre Fund
Object Number
1999.156
A cascade of brightly colored flowers tumble across an iridescent field of white fabric. This tobine—a twilled woven silk used for dresses—follows the pattern made by Anna Maria Garthwaite, the only known 18th-century woman designer active in Spitalfields, a London neighborhood famous for textile production. Nearby is the drawing Garthwaite created to layout the design, indicating the thread colors and the diagonal weaving patterns to be implemented in the silk’s production. Noted at the top of the drawing is the name Daniel Vautier (born c. 1695), the weaver to whom she provided this design.
Garthwaite was praised for her ability to bring the effects of painting to the loom. In reference to her artistic prowess, a 1749 edition of the monthly publication Gentleman’s Magazine said that Garthwaite, “through the force of mere natural taste and ingenuity has made the English loom vie with the Italian pencil.”
Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 1999; Cora Ginsburg LLC, New York, NY
BMA, 'New on View,' June 19-Oct. 6, 2002.
Andre, Linda, and Jessica Skwire Routhier, eds. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Celebrating A Museum. Baltimore, Maryland: Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014. pg. 48