Navigating The Blog

Navigating the blog.

The links from this page should take you to the family names I'm researching. There you will find a list of family members with that name in chronological order. Links from there will take you to info I hold on that family mamber. In sddition I hope to create a further section on the Geill family and their involvement in Calico printing.

Early Days. Have an idea of what I want but working on the blog layout & design to try to make the pages look consistent:-)

Description and photos © Meg Andrews

Bannister Hall Chinoserie Curtains - c 1818

Reference No: 1206

 







The Prince Regent, later George IV, created a fashon for Chinoiserie when he decorated Brighton Pavillion in this manner, which was popular from 1805.

The Bannister Hall print works was founded in 1798 in Preston, Lancashire by Richard Jackson and John Stephenson and was the leading firm of woodblock furniture chintzes. Printing was carried out for London and Manchester merchants, who commissioned designs from skilled artists and sent them to be printed. Between 1825 and 1856 the firm was known as Charles Swainson & Company.

These lengths were almost certainly designed J.J. Pearman (English, active c. 1800-1825)

The pattern of this printed cotton has been created with an engraved metal roller, and additional colours built up using either wooden rollers or a woodblock. Roller-printing on textiles had been introduced in the late 18th century, and at first was used mainly for small-patterned dress fabrics.

The fabric is a combined block and roller print, and hand painting.  The reason why I say that is because the red/pink/white shading on things like the man holding the bird’s sleeve is so gradual it could not be achieved using blocks. Also the repeat is very tight, that is the diameter of a roller.The dark ground here does not run right up to the figural and floral motifs leaving a white margin. This is often called a blotched ground and is the second phase of the use of dark grounds.

Description

Each panel (two in each curtain) with a single repeat of a charming Chinese garden scene of a pavillion and fences with a man holding a bird beside two women holding bowls of fruits, accompanied by two children, all surrounded by exotic and colourful flowering and palm trees, block, hand  and roller printed. in shades of red, blue, green, yellow, all with white surrounds, on a dark brown glazed ground.

Each curtain made from two joined drops of fabric, each 22 1/2 in; 57 cm, edged and lined with mid green glazed cotton with piping.

Repeat 13 1/2 in; 35 cm.

Each curtain a total of 6ft 11 in x 47 in; 2.1m x 1.2 m

Condition

Excellent. Mint. The green glazed lining is a little patchy in colouring, presumably from the light, but is still lovely. With the white surround to all the motifs they look like they have been appliqué.

References

Printed Textiles. British & American Cottons and Linens 1700-1850 from Winterthur Museum by Linda Eaton.p 246 for similar border designs.

Bannister Hall Archives pattern book, Cummersdale Design Collection.

Museum of Fine Art, Boston: collections.mfa.org/objects/49630/piece-of-glazed-chintz-chinese-garden-pavilions-and-boats?ctx=4990e960-beb8-4c20-9907-a978be516896&idx=4. A chinoiserie print but not the same.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: metmuseum.org/art/collection/search?q=bannister+hall+&geolocation=England&era=A.D.+1800-1900&department=12 but nothing quite like our print.

Art Institue of Chicago: artic.edu/artworks/49033/fragment-furnishing-fabric. 1975.361

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopédie_Méthodique

 

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