Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Harket For Domestic And Imported Textiles In Sixteenth Century Istanbul, Yvonne J. Seng

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

When one thinks of Ottoman textile trade, the city of Bursa immediately comes to mind. As the Ottoman capital at the end of the fourteenth century/ it was known for its flourishing silk industry which exported fine brocades and velvets to Europe and the East. As it expanded, it fostered a secondary market in which Persian merchants exchanged a large part of the raw silk they carried to supply local weavers for European woolens as well as the Bursa silk fabrics. By the end of the fifteenth century, its fabrics were being exported to northern Europe: both the Russian …

Speaker Bios- 1990

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

SPEAKERS

A-Z (2 pages)

Rita J. Adrosko is Supervising Curator in the Division of Textiles, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, -D.C.

Patrida. RieffAnawalt is Director of the Center for the Study of Regional Dress at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, California.

Lisa L. Aronson is Assistant Professor at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.

Suzanne Baizerman teaches in the Department of Design, Housing and Apparel and is Registrar for the department's costume, textile, and decorative arts collection in the Goldstein Gallery at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Elizabeth Barber is …

Textile Design In The Marketplace, John E. Vollmer

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION:
As textile historians we are trained to observe physical evidence — materials, structures, methods of applying surface decoration and patterns. In brief, we deal with design. Despite our design focus, we frequently seek to explain differences within the context- of art historical research. Our conclusions, like those of the art historian, often focus on attribution and connoisseurship, rather than contributing to an understanding of textiles as cultural or economic indicators.

Although the academic study of design dates from the mid-19th century, only in recent years has this study moved from considerations of styling. Within the last three decades the …

David Simpson, Daphne A. Deeds

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Pure abstract art has always been controversial. Since the first abstractions of early modernism, to the emotional paintings of abstract expressionists during the mid century, the concrete abstraction of minimalism of the 1960s and recent symbolic abstraction, any apparent retreat from representation has been met with discourse. This consternation has been shared by both the lay public and the informed viewer, for the problems posed by abstraction refer to essential questions about reality while they appear to avoid the real world. But this apparent contradiction between non representation and content has become more obscure as both artists and viewers become …

Textiles In The Tourist Trade: Woollen Textile Production In Momostenango, Guatemala, Anne M. Lambert

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

Textile production in Guatemala has been the focus of a considerable amount of twentieth century literature in the English language. Guatemalan textiles have been avidly collected by museums, universities and private collectors in North America and Europe. Our belief as researchers and collectors is that we are recording and preserving the valuable textile traditions of the indigenous people of Guatemala.

What we often don't realize is that collectively, over time, we are saying as much about our own perspective as outsiders as we are about the Guatemalan people and their textiles. Our choices of what to document and what …

Textiles In Trade In West Africa, Brigitte Menzel

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Textiles in Africa since some time have become a topic of research, much of which is focused on aspects of art. The at least equally important economic aspects (production, consumption, and trade) are still rather neglected.

When doing field research in West Africa it is impossible to overlook the fact that most of the textiles in use could not have been produced locally. This applies not only to the colorful printed cottons but as well to handmade textiles.

In Asante (Ghana) I found woolen fabrics, which obviously were hand-woven but must have come from somewhere else as sheep and goats …

The Impact Of The Mediterranean Silk Trade On Western Europe Before 1200 A.D., Anna Maria Muthesius

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

Silk, trade and politics were common spokes in an intricate wheel, propelling Mediterranean influence towards the West. At a time when Western Europe lacked the ability to manufacture silk cloth, Eastern silken stuffs were eagerly sought for secular and ecclesiastical purposes. Byzantium in particular, in return for silks, demanded Western military and naval aid, and her silk trade concessions bore the hallmark of powerful political bargaining counters. The survival of more than one thousand silks in church treasuries of Western Europe, provides unspoken insights into the complex impact of Mediterranean silk trade on the West before 1200 A.D. The …

Of Cabbages And Kings, Ellen S. Smart

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper attempts to relate a small number of Mughal furnishing fabrics to their 17th C prices and to the purchasing power of Mughal money. There is no intent to give a comprehensive overview, but rather to see a few 17th C textiles, which today are rare and fabulously expensive, in terms of their original comparative cost. Information about the fabrics comes from the goods themselves and from contemporary Mughal paintings. Although inscriptions on the textiles contain some information about prices, several tables of textiles and prices are found in the Ain-i Akbari, a compendium on the mode of …

Trade In Hispanic Weavings Of Northern New Mexico And The Social Construction Of Tradition!, Suzanne Baizerman

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

No discussion of late 20th century trade in textiles - particularly trade in what has been called "regional" or "ethnic" textiles - would be complete without a discussion of the terms "traditional" and "authentic" for these terms inform even a lay person's evaluation of textiles on the market today.

As textile professionals, we encounter terms like "textile tradition," "traditional textiles" or even "authentic traditional textiles" in our everyday experience: a textile brought back by a collector from travel to a Third World nation or a textile on display in a museum. These textiles are subjected to discussions of their authenticity, …

The American Market For Indian Textiles, 1785-1820: In The Twilight Of Traditional Cloth Manufacture, Susan S. Bean

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A brisk trade in Indian cloth developed soon after the end of the American War of Independence in 1783 and continued to flourish until Congress enacted a prohibitive tariff in 1816 to protect the nascent U.S. textile manufacturing industry. For the period 1795-1805, U.S. trade with India well exceeded trade with all European nations combined for all commodities (Furber 1938:258). Cloth was the centerpiece of this trade: The piece goods imported in 1804-05, for instance, were about three times the value of all other goods from India, chiefly sugar, indigo, ginger, and a variety of spices and drugs (Bhagat 1970:42). …

Labor Organization And Textile Trade In Northern Thailand In The Nineteenth Century, Katherine A. Bowie

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The Thai peasant economy has frequently been characterized as a "subsistence economy" in which villagers planted their own rice and wove their own clothing. The uncritical use of the phrase "subsistence economy" has contributed to a series of significant misunderstandings about the character of the Thai peasant political economy, including the social process of cloth production.¹

Because most scholars have assumed that obtaining clothing was not a problem for villagers, they have tended to minimize the significance of differences in dress between rich and poor in traditional nineteenth century Thai society. I believe that a better understanding of the …

Preface- 1990, Mattiebelle Gittinger, Rita J. Adrosko

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

"The Textile Society of America provides a forum for the exchange and dissemination of information about the historic, cultural, socio-economic, artistic, and technical aspects of textiles." One of the ways the society addresses this mission is in its biennial symposium and the promise of quick publication of the papers presented

Although the name of the organization may suggest a Western Hemisphere orientation its membership is international and the topics for presentation global in their selection.

The themes selected for the biennial symposium are weighed with a keen eye on their ability to provide a matrix for many disciplines-those of the …

Indian Textiles For The Thai Market: A Royal Prerogative?, John Guy

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The historical trade in Indian textiles to Thailand can be well documented from the beginning of the seventeenth century. Archaeological as well as textual sources allow our understanding of this trade to the region to be pushed back to the late thirteenth century, when Indian textiles had already assumed a high status at the court of Angkor.

In the course of the Ayudhyan period the control of this trade appears to have been secured by the Thai king and nobility. The earliest European accounts of trade with Thailand refer to the central role the king assumed, as both the dispenser …

A Brief History Of The Textile Society Of America Summary Report By The President, Milton Sonday

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

After The Textile Museum decided to discontinue its Irene Emery Roundtables and die Centre International d'Etude des Textiles Anciens finally admitted it was not interested in an American branch, it became clear that an independent American group of textile enthusiasts should be formed to satisfy the many requests for such an organization. There had been an attempt to form a group which was called WHATS, but it never got off the ground. Peggy Gilfoy at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, one of the original organizers, was left guarding its small fund when it folded.

On April 3, 1987 a small …