I love history and art, and the large terraced houses belonging to the Huguenot silk weavers have always impressed me; while I was working on Brick Lane and walked by these houses, I often wondered what the lives were like for those who lived there in the 1800s. (I know that tours can be taken at Dennis Severs' house at various times throughout the year, and although I worked on Brick Lane for just over two years, I never got around to booking a tour.) When I saw a display of textile designs was opening in Rodney Archer's house on Fournier Street, I just had to make a reservation during my lunch break on opening day (last Thursday, February 19).
Rodney Archer's house has been left with much of the original interior. He actually purchased the house in the 1980s, before Spitalfields and Shoreditch became the place to be seen, and lived there. The beautiful fireplace, photographed below, is from Oscar Wilde's house. He saw decorators removing it from the house and paid a small amount for it. It's beautiful.
More about Rodney Archer and the house on Fournier Street can be read on Spitalfields Life blog here: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/03/06/rodney-archer-aesthete/
The textile patterns on display are from the Antooine Donat Lyons factory, and they were created between 1840 and 1865. The curator, Trevor Newton, discovered the patterns in an abandoned silk mill, and they are so well-preserved and not faded because they had just been forgotten about.
The patterns have instructions on the back about how to create them on the looms, and they are dated. Some have pencil marks on them for corrections or annotations, showing that they were used in the factory. All of them are for sale.
When I visited on the opening day at noon, the house was busy with people, and many of the textile designs had already been sold. Some of the visitors were extremely enthusiastic about them and bought several of them. The house was busy with people in all of the rooms and hallways, so getting photographs without them was impossible.
Donat's textile patterns were actually on display at the Great Exhibition in 1851.
The setting for this display is perfect in an actual silk weaver's house, and each pattern is shown without a frame and hanging on the walls, framed by the architecture and the interior design of the house.
The display is available to view until March 19, and an appointment must be made in order to see the pieces. The days open are Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. For those of you who are interested, head to http://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/02/03/textile-designs-at-rodney-archers-house/ for contact information.
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