608 - A Florentine woven border with the Annunciation

A Florentine woven border with the Annunciation Lampas fabric in dyed silk. Two attached fragments. Height 91.5, width 32.2 cm, repeat height 19 cm. Early 16th C. Although the heyday of Florentine silk weaving came during the Renaissance, the city had a tradition of silk production and processing as long-standing as that of Lucca and Venice. The guild "Arte di Por Santa Maria" was already regulating production in the 13th century. Over the course of the 15th century, silk weaving and the silk trade developed into an important sector of Florence’s economy. Almost 7,000 looms were in operation, employing nearly 16,000 people. The precious textiles were exported to major European centres as well as to the Middle East. The Florentine figurative borders are a distinctive feature among the products of Florentine silk weavers in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Their figural decoration distinguished them from the predominantly ornamental textiles. As a rule, religious scenes were depicted in the manner of contemporary painting. The designation “border” is somewhat misleading, as the repeat was woven lengthwise and then cut into narrow strips, allowing the strips to be used as trimmings for liturgical vestments. Fragments of an identical or similar border are held by the Abegg-Stiftung in Riggisberg, inv. nos. 333a-e; the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne, inv. nos. D 547 and D 551; the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, inv. nos. 65/261 and 65/260; and the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, inv. no. T 3180-1. It is likely that all these objects were produced in the same workshop. Literature Cf. Wetter, Mittelalterliche Textilien III. Stickerei bis um 1500 und figürlich gewebte Borten, Die Textilien der Abegg-Stiftung, vol. 6, Riggisberg 2012, cat. no. 57.