Eastern Textile Birds: 786 AD

Weekly Woodcut 6

This week I have returned to early printed fabrics with a flight of rather nice birds.

from the Met’s Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection 786 AD
Museum No T-1425
Dimensions 20.30 H x 22.20 W cm (8 H x 8 3/4 W in) see here

It is rather enigmatically described as from “China; Central Asia” and to be “printed”, dated from around 786. But no other information is provided which is a shame.

I actually found it quite difficult to find early examples printed textiles. Textiles were definitely being “printed” before the date of this piece, usually block printed with a mordant and then dyed. It may be partly because printed fabrics, while popular, were not valued. The finest fabrics were woven and embroidered and highly prized so more likely to be used in the burial sites where most textiles have been found.

However the more I read about early textiles the more I understand about the importance of trade at this time and how many early block printed textiles traveled from India to the Far East and Egypt. It seems that very little remains of the early Indian printed fabrics in India itself, possibly because of the humid climate, but fragments have been found in Egypt at sites like Fustat and Quseir al-Qadim where the dry climate had preserved them.

The Jameel Centre at the Ashmolean Museum has a large collection of these early printed textiles and lots of information including a brief piece about the Indian Trade here.
Their printing techniques were fascinating and highly skilled. Using natural dyes, often madder and indigo, together with different mordants and resists, they were able to achieve many different shades and colours.

I particularly liked this piece from the Jameel collection, for the elegant scroll work and intricate border designs.

Date: 2nd half of the 8th century – 9th century AD
Material and technique: cotton, block-printed with resist, and dyed blue; with remains of stitching in flax.
A wide band of ornate linked scrolls is followed by a narrow band with similar, but smaller scrolls. A border next to the selvedge has linked arches with dots inside. See here

As well as imported Indian fabric there is also evidence that cloth was being printed in Egypt itself. An article by Anya King in the Journal of the American Oriental Society entitled “Gilding Textiles and Printing Blocks in Tenth-Century Egypt” has some fascinating insights into the use of woodblocks, dyes, gold and perfumes to create what must have been extremely beautiful and sensuous fabric “decoration” in 10th century Egypt. (see here)

In the 19th century many ancient textiles were found in the Al-Hawawas necropolis at the ancient city of Akhmim/Panopolis.
The collector Robert Forrer (Swiss art historian, archaeologist and prehistorian (1866-1947) wrote about the finds in his 1894 book Die Zeugdrucke der byzantinischen, romanischen, gothischen und spätern Kunstepochen which contains this drawing of a printing block found at the site.

It a completely fascinating period to research and I have to admit to spending far too much time reading, but then that’s half the joy of this project!

Weekly Woodcut Number 6

I eventually got round to thinking about the print and considering the little birds in the first fragment. There is nothing to indicate what sort of bird they actually are, but I think it might be cranes of some sort?
Having now looked at so many printed fabric, they seem to me to be stamp printed, from just one block, as they overlap in places and look pretty identical apart from the inking. I know perfect inking and printing is what some printmakers strive for but the liveliness of this sketchy quality works much better for me, and it’s interesting to think about how different inkings and pressures could be used to achieve that variety in a print.

I cut just one block and printed it in few different ways.

The Paper : This project is also giving me the opportunity to use different papers and I printed some of the birds on a lovely vintage pale, duck egg blue, laid paper from W. S. Hodgkinson one of the classic UK paper mills based at Wookey Hole until the 1950’s. The mill had been making paper from 1610. Shame!
The subject of paper making in the UK will come up soon, when I get to 15th century printing but the first paper mill in the UK was Sele Mill near Hertford a watermill converted to paper production by John Tate in 1488. Paper from this mill was used by Wynkyn de Worde for his printing of “The boke of Chaucer named Caunterbury tales” in 1489.

John Tates watermark from 1489

With a backlight my Hodgkinson paper reveals a beautiful watermark with a shield, copperplate initials and the text, British Hand Made. I only use it occasionally as I don’t have much but these ancient birds seemed to deserve something a bit special.