Re-create a lovely spray of wild roses that once bloomed in abundance on an early nineteenth-century fabric. Duplicate a lush Persian floral print from a kerchief worn in the waning days of the acien régime. These and dozens of other superb royalty-free designs -- adapted from patterns on antique textiles -- are available now to artists and craftspeople in this attractive collection.
A noted artist and surface designer has masterfully rendered nearly 230 designs from French, English, German, Swiss, and Russian textiles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Featured are profusions of flowers, leaves, sprays, branches, fruits, and birds in a wide variety of formats: clusters, bouquets, single vignettes, and more. Also shown are several full-page motifs with a single large, elaborate flower. Captions supply a brief description, date, and place of origin for the designs on each page.
Among the many charming samples are floral and butterfly blockprints from Alsace in France (c. 1790), a Kashmir floral motif from England (1805), an English rose bouquet (1834), berries and flowers from Switzerland (1820), and scores of others.