Tagetes – A Swedish printed cotton from Gothenburg. 
Text Martin Ciszuk. Photo Laila Durán / Martin Ciszuk.

During this spring Duran Textiles have cooperated with Göteborgs Stadsmuseum – the Göteborg City Museum - in Gothenburg at the south west coast of Sweden. From their rich collection of 18th century textiles we have chosen to reproduce a printed cotton fabric.

The original fabric is a lining in a quilted blanket of light blue silk. The design is block printed on handspun cotton of middle fine quality, with a loom width of ca 78 cm. The style of the design with stripes, tendrils and scattered flowers is typical of the”Gustavian” neo-classical era, and dates the print to the 1780s or 1790s. The quilted blanket belonged to a family in Gothenburg, who sold it to the museum already in 1909. The printed lining does not preserve any marks of the producer, but probably the print was made in Sweden, possibly even in Gothenburg, where printing manufactories are known from the mid 18th century. The striped cotton prints imitated woven silks and were popular for furnishing as bed hangings, curtains, loose covers and blankets, but were also used for clothing as aprons, linings and everyday garments as dresses, short gowns or waistcoats.

A detail of the printed lining of the quilted silk blanket,
museum nr: GM5452.

We decided to name our reproduction Tagetes (French marigold) because the printed leaves and flowers somewhat resembles this flower. The reproduced fabric is block printed with hand carved wooden printing blocks. From this follows that even the irregularities in the original in the joins of the blocks are visible in the reproduction. When compared with the original it is only the lighter ground color of the reproduction that differ it from the original fabric. The 18th century cotton might originally have had a darker tint than the modern fabric, but mostly the brownish shade is caused by age and use.

Our block printed reproduction Tagetes compared with the original
fabric in the store rooms of the museum.

It is fascinating to experience how artifacts from museum collection are revived and adopted to modern use. We now plan to make trays and quilted blankets of the printed fabric. Duran Textiles thanks the staff and management of the Göteborg City Museum for a successful cooperation, and we are looking forward to new exiting project s of reproduction.