Textile, woven

Description

This woven silk portrait was created on a loom with a Jacquard attachment, a machine able to weave complex designs by following instructions fed into the device on a series of punch cards. This portrait depicts the machine’s namesake and inventor, French weaver Joseph Marie Jacquard, who patented the device in 1804. This textile was designed and woven by Romier Balançard in St. Etienne, France during the second half of the 19th century. The design is a reproduction of an 1834 by Jean-Claude Bonnefond. Woven recreations of paintings were common in the 19th century both for their novelty and as a demonstration of the intricate detail Jacquard looms were able to produce. The design is only a cropped portion of the painting it is after, and unlike the original this woven portrait has no background. Text beneath the image reads, in French, “J.M. Jacquard / Born in Lyon on July 7, 1752, Died on August 7, 1834.” This object is one of a large group transferred to Winterthur from the American Textile History Museum when it closed in 2017.