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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INTERWOVEN (Collecting, Displaying and Understanding Textiles in Decorative Arts Museums: Comparative Approaches in London and Madrid.)

Teaser

Summary

The Marie S.- Curie project Interwoven was undertaken from July 2016 until June 2018 at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London (UK). It assessed Iberian textiles in the Museum collection and considered the influence of the V&A on the Spanish National Museum of Decorative Arts (NMDA) in Madrid.
The V&A was the first museum of its kind, a model for other museums in Europe and America. Studies exist of the V&Aâ€™s relationship with Germany and France, but little has been written on its relationship with Spain. Yet, early in its existence, the V&A was interested in the peninsula and its first art curator, J.C. Robinson, travelled to Iberia and curated an exhibition of Spanish and Portuguese Art in 1881.
From its foundation in 1852, after the First International Exhibition held in London 1851, the V&A acquired important objects, including textiles from different periods, in different materials and techniques from all over the world. Textiles were among the most valuable artworks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, different collectors beginning the practice of cutting the same textile up into different fragments and selling them to different collectors and museums.
Interwoven selected five case studies. The first focused on the Museumâ€™s influence on its Spanish counterpart and studied V&A practices of displaying textiles and using them for educational purposes. The other four case studies investigated different types of textiles related with Iberia and Spain, through different research questions and methods: materials and techniques, historiography and collecting practices:
- Hispano-Moresque/Andalusian textiles and their role in education and on the creative industries
- Velvets, 1550-1700: examples of technology transfer and development
- English blackwork and its origins (14th â€“ 16th centuries)
- Ecclesiastical vestments (Renaissance to 19th century)

Work performed

The first research step for each of these case studies was the identification and selection of relevant textiles and consideration of the information recorded at the time of acquisition (available from registration records and museum files) and at subsequent times (via museum labels and the current database). This aproach traced the evolution of different terms used to classify textiles and the importance of early collectors, connoisseurs and publications in dating and contextualising textiles. Subsequently, this preliminary study of documentation was expanded and deepened for each case study, especially those on medieval textiles and early modern velvets. In many cases, the textiles selected for study has no photographic record and the classification was misleading. These textiles were then analysed first hand by material and technique. Digital photography was used to record the full piece and details, and these images are now available on the V&A online catalogue.
Case study one on medieval textiles revealed the importance of the V&Aâ€™s early collecting for understanding the extent of textile trade routes from Central Asia to Iberia and from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. Most of the medieval textiles were originally on display in the Museum, to show their patterns, even tiny fragments being framed and the missing parts of the design being drawn in on the backing board to complete the piece. This type of composition reveals the V&Aâ€™s mission to provide decorative patterns for the education of students, designers and manufacturers.
Case study 2 dealt with velvets and the transfer of knowledge in the composition of the metal threads. The selected velvets ranged from those made in 14th-century Italy and Persia to those made in 16th-century Turkey and Spain. The preliminary results show a chronological evolution in metal threads in composition and morphology: in composition, they develop from gold to gilt-silver to silver alloy; in morphology from membrane threads to metal ones and then to flat threads.
Case study three focussed on â€˜blackwork embroideryâ€™. This embroidery was fashionable in England from the early 16th to early 17th century, its introduction often being associated with the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, who married Henry VIII, the heir to the English throne in the early the 16th century and was known for her skill in embroidery. This research questioned this view about the likely origins of blackwork in Spain. The late 15th and 16th-century Spanish embroideries in the V&A were studied. Concurrently, the published historical sources and secondary publications about English embroidery were analysed, from the first catalogues published by the V&A from 1870 onwards to early 20th-century embroidery catalogues.
A different issue arises in Case study four on the collecting of ecclesiastical vestments. The V&A holds one of the most important collections of this type in the world, apart from the Vatican. The pieces, from fragments to complete garments, show the V&Aâ€™s interest in acquiring a rich assortment of objects to represent different materials, decoration and contexts. This project worked on tracing the provenance of selected garments and studying the connections between collectors and museums, especially from the last quarter of the 19th century to the Spanish Civil War, a moment at which many artworks were exported to Europe and America through the art market.
All case studies have also revealed how early museums followed the V&A model. In Spain, in the NMDA this influence can be traced through the education programmes. It was the first museum in Spain to have a Learning department. How textiles were displayed and used for educational purposes in NMDA also echoed V&A practice. Spanish curators travelled to different European museums and the report written after visiting the V&A higlighted the exhibition of work by students from the School of Arts at the V&A, and the type of artworks disp

Final results

The project received support from and collaborated with V&A curators and conservators, but also worked with an Erasmus + fellow, Dr Francisco GarcÃa GarcÃa on the study of medieval textiles and ecclesiastical vestments. Metal threads analysis and training took place at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. Finally, collaboration with the British Museum laboratories facilitated study of the dyes from a selection of medieval textiles and velvets through two different techniques, a non-destructive and portable technique (FORS), and the destructive technique HPLC. The first results suggest that FORS is a promising future method of analysis.
In general, the scope of the V&A collection allows comparative study of different places of production. The opportunity to unite archival information, old photographs and updated technical analysis has increased knowledge of this and other collections and opened new options for future researchers and the general public.