Indigo Resist #4: Printed in England?

 

In her 2014 update of Florence Montgomery's catalog of Winterthur Museum textiles curator Linda Eaton showed this pheasant and floral resist-style fabric, indicating that the cotton (with a bit of linen in the yarns) was "Printed in Britain 1760s-70s."

Albany Institute of History & Art Collection

https://www.albanyinstitute.org/collection/details/indigo-resist-fabric

Eaton cited that 1956 conference at the Cooper-Union Museum. Although curators Hathaway & Beer reporting on the results of that meeting were hesitant to credit a geographic source Eaton summarized conference results with the idea that the source was Britain as evidenced in the piece above. (See more about Hathaway & Beer at this post:

Barbara Brackman's MATERIAL CULTURE: Indigo Resist #2: "How Fools Rush In"

Fragment from collection of the D.A.R. Museum

in Washington, D.C.

Mary E. Gale and her advisor Margaret T. Ordoñez at the University of Rhode Island focused on the British source in Mary's 2001 thesis and two papers the team wrote about 20 years ago, in which they discussed another piece of evidence indicating British origins. In England's Baker Archive is a swatch book with several familiar prints from an English firm Baker & Tucker.

 “Eighteenth-Century Indigo-Resist Fabrics: Their Use in 

Quilts and Bed Hangings,” Uncoverings 2004

https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=page&kid=35-90-283

"The question of provenance of the [early] blue resists cannot be answered merely by the presence of a pattern book in England."

So in other words, English production is the hypothesis but very little proof is evident: The piece with the revenue stamp in Albany and the Baker pattern book in England.

Evidence of later indigo resist production in England.

 Late-19th-century English dyebook from

the William Morris & Company records. Morris

explored the complex process for authenticity in his

Brother Rabbit print.

Winterthur Museum Collection

Detail of an early wholecloth bedcover

Last Post tomorrow: So what is the current thinking about these indigo resist prints origins?

References 

Linda Eaton, Printed Textiles: British & American Cottons & Linens 1700-1850.  New York, Monicelli Press, 2014

Mary Gale & Margaret T. Ordoñez, "Indigo-Resist Prints from Eighteenth-Century America: Technology and Technique," Clothing and Textile Research Journal. vol. 22 (Jan./March 2004): 4–14.

Mary Gale & Margaret T. Ordoñez, “Eighteenth-Century Indigo-Resist Fabrics: Their Use in Quilts and Bed Hangings”  Uncoverings 2004, Volume 25 of the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group. https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=page&kid=35-90-283

Gale, M. E. (2001). Indigo-resist prints from eighteenth-century America: Production and provenance. Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Rhode Island, Kingston.

Hassler, K. (1986). Printing procedures for the historic American blue resisted cloths. Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Delaware, Newark.

Pettit, F. H. (1975, 1976). The printed textiles of eighteenth-century America. Paper presented at the Irene Emery Roundtable on museum textiles: Imported and domestic textiles in eighteenth-century America, Textile Museum, Washington, D. C.