"In the early 1950's, my husband and I used to go to the Paris flea market." This is how Monique Levi- Strauss-wife of the most famous living anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss-begins the extraordinary account of a discovery: an adventure which began thirty years ago when cashmere shawls cost very little and did not arouse the passions that they had among the ladies of the 19th century.
The first European to visit Kashmir in 1664 wrote of his amazement at the soft and delicate woollen shawls. The wild goats lose their winter fleece on rocks and bushes: because of the altitude, the pure air and the incomparable water, the wool is so soft and light that the cloth can, according to a Moghul legend, be pulled through a ring. It takes two men up to three years to weave the precious shawls, using an incredible phantasmagoria of colours.
The cashmere shawl was discovered by English ladies at the end of the 18th century, at a time when a magical Oriental influence was visible in European fashion and art: Napoleon's soldiers, returning home from the campaign in Egypt, introduced the fashion In France, Lady Hamilton and Nelson took it to Naples and the painter, Vigée Le Brun, to St. Petersburg.
The shawl was a popular wedding present and Napolcon's gifts to his second wife, Marie-Louise, included seventeen shawls: "Many of the aristocratic ladies who formed part of the Imperial couple's wedding procession in 1810, had a cashmere shawl carefully folded over one arm as they progressed through the Great Gallery of the Louvre".
A flourishing industry developed in Europe, encouraged by the invention of the Jacquard loom. "The characteristic floral motif, with pine or cypress patterns, architectonic motifs, animal and human figures, covered the entire surface area of the shawl in an extraordinary creative development which followed all the whims and fancies of 19th century European fashion".
Monique Lévi-Strauss, with much patience, historical intuition and unfailing good taste, has followed the evolution of styles and decorative motifs, explored the hidden symbolism and affectations of the fashion, and rediscovered the splendid original designs-until now unpublished-bringing to light the "relies of an ancient treasure".
192 pages 15 black and white photographs 180 colour photographs
Monique Levi-Strauss, who studied for a degree in Science in Boston, is a fervent collector and expert on cashmere shawls, which she has classified accurately in chronological order.
From 1982 to 1984 she devised and organised three important exhibitions of cashmere shawls in Paris, Mulhouse and Lyons: in 1984 and 1985 she held various conferences on the weaving methods used for the shawls at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
For the past four years she has been working for the Direction des Musées Nationaux in France.
In the early 1950s my husband and I used to go to the Paris Flea Market, lured by our love of the unusual. In those days our purchases were of necessity mainly utilitarian But what a marvellous time that was, when we could eat our meals off a dinner service made at Creil Montereau a century earlier but which cost no more than new china, when I used to wrap a cashmere shawl (which had once been the pride and joy of some nineteenth-century aristocratic lady) around myself like a cloak in the evenings. I was able to buy these shawls very cheaply as it was not worth the dealers' while to restore them. Often all it took was a wash in cold water to bring the glowing colours back to life and restore the much sought after caressing warmth of the soft goat's fleece. Sometimes I had to try my hand at being a textile restorer, a difficult but very rewarding job. Repairing these shawls and wearing them led me to won- der when and where they had been woven. Enquiries of the dealers and even of textile experts proved fruitless, so I decided to turn to written sources for the answers, knowing how much the women of the previous century had coveted them and what an enormous expense such a purchase was for the men who had to pay for them. in those days a cashmere shawl would have cost the same price as a mink coat today.
It did not take me long to consult all the relevant catalogue entries and read all the books listed under the headings Cashmere and Shawls at the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Bibliothèque Forney, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Musée Guimet. While such travellers as François Bernier (1664), Victor Jacquemont (1831) and Carl von Hügel (1836) were not experts on the subject, they have provided us with valuable descriptions of the technique of cashmere shawl weaving. From Jean Rey (1823), a historian and shawl manufacturer, we learn how the Paris shawl industry operated and the European techniques employed to copy Oriental shawls. Another shawl manufacturer, E. F. Hébert, depicted the life of a Parisian shawl weaver in an 1857 monograph entitled "Tisseur en châles à Paris" published by F. Le Play which Mme Claudine Reinharez (an expert on costume) very kindly suggested I should read soon after I first embarked on my quest No layman could, however, hope to understand the terminology used in these descriptions of the techniques and tools of the craft, especially in the absence of any illustrations. They would only be intelligible to someone already well versed in the subject. In short, more questions were raised than answered. Three albums of shawl designs were extant, devoid of any explanatory text, compiled by Fleury Chavant (1837 and 1839) and by Victor Delaye (prior to 1867). In addition both the Cabinet des Dessins of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Musée des Techniques of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers housed good collections of drawings of shawls. No links were, however, apparent between these texts without pictures, the pictures with- out text and the unattributed shawls which we were studying. It was perhaps this gap which in 1955 prompted John Irwin (at that time keeper of the Indian Section at London's Victoria and Albert Museum), to write a book entitled Shawls, A Study in Indo-European Influences. The author traces the history of Kashmir shawls and nineteenth-century European copies of Thirty-six plates showed examples of the Oriental weavers' production, while 15 were of shawls manufactured in Britain: in Norwich, Edinburgh and Paisley. One of these British examples, plate no. 50, shows a long shawl with a white background from a private collection which is attributed to Paisley manufacture, and dates from about 1850. It is, however, identical to the pattern by the French designer A. Berrus.
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