Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Home Beautiful: A Design By Anna Maria Garthwaite, 1726-7

Design
Anna Maria Garthwaite
1726-1727
The Victoria & Albert Museum





Anna Maria Garthwaite was born in 1690 and went on to become one of the leading pattern drawers in the English silk industry.  Amazingly, she did not receive any of the  formal training which was typically considered necessary to take up such a profession. Anna Maria is credited as  producing as many as 80 commissioned designs each year for master weavers.

Garthwaite lived and worked in Spitalfields, London from about 1730 until her death in 1763. Her work is characterized by her interest in natural forms.

Here, we see a design (in watercolor) for woven silk which she produced between 1726 and 1727. 

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