Textile fragment
Probably Lyons, France; ca. 1700
Silk, metal
Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont 1969.4303
This fragment of a larger brocaded damask, called a “bizarre” silk because of its asymmetrical, jagged design, may have been woven in France and designed by Huguenot (French Protestants) artists. Persecuted throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Catholic France, the Huguenots’ exodus and relocation throughout Europe and America changed the practice of silk weaving. This design of budding blossoms—worked in metal-wrapped thread with yellow or white silk cores on a silk ground —does not match any of the documented bizarre silks from Italy or France. It does strongly resemble those produced in Lyons around 1700.