BROCADED STRIPED SILK SATIN
European, last quarter of the 17th c.
Striped-and-patterned silks were popular for mens and womens dress in the last decades of the seventeenth century. Rare in their survival, similar extant examples show a variety of designs with stripes of both even and different widths and vertically disposed motifs including stylized birds, flowers, foliage, and fruit as well as geometric shapes. In some of these, the motifs are contained within individual stripes while in others they extend across the surface of the silk.
Originally part of a skirt, the elegant, formal composition of this panel presents two sets of alternating blue satin and brocaded gold stripes interspersed with fine, paired gold warp stripes. In one set, medium-blue stripes border an aquamarine stripe containing a symmetrically arranged column of elongated, tulip-like motifs, dense chevrons and small sprigs. In the other, aquamarine stripes border a medium-blue stripe with an asymmetric, serpentine band of offset barrettes and abstract floral sprays. The combination of two stylistically different brocaded designs makes this panel particularly unusual and visually engaging. The brilliance of the brocaded patterning is heightened by yellow silk wefts that come to the surface underneath the tightly wrapped gold-colored metal threads. At each outer edge, a single narrow gold stripe ensures the continuation of the paired rhythm of this carefully calculated design when lengths were joined side by side.
Amezzotint of Queen Mary
II (1662–1694), dating to 1690, by
John Smith after Jan Van der Vaart depicts
the queen in a gown known as a mantua made
of a comparable silk with narrow and wide
stripes with stylized florals. A loosely
constructed garment with a long train, the
mantua was ideal for the display of rich
fabrics. This opulently striped silk was
probably worn in the evening when candlelight
would have enhanced its lustrous satin sheen
and metallic glitter.
Identical panels of this silk, both from the Cora Ginsburg gallery, are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1976.152.2) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (T.427-1976).
45.375” H x 21.375” W (irregular; detail shown)