ANNA MARIA GARTHWAITE

INTRODUCTION- ABOUT ANNA MARIA

Anna Maria Garthwaite (b. Harston, Leicestershire, 14 March 1688 – d. 1763) was an English textile designer known for creating vivid floral designs for silk fabrics hand-woven in Spitalfields near London in the mid-18th century. Garthwaite was acknowledged as one of the premiere English designers of her day. Many of her original designs in watercolors have survived, and silks based on these designs have been identified in portraiture and in costume collections in England and abroad.

Cut-paper work from 1707 by the 17-year-old Anna Maria Garthwaite, who later became a designer of

patterned silks for dresses.

Her inspiration

Inspirations :

1. botanical gardens, spitalfields.

2.decorative objects in nature.

3. florals

silk design, c. 1730

silk designs, c. 1730

Garthwaite was born in Leicestershire and moved to London in 1730.a) worked freelance, produced many bold damask and floral brocade designs over the next three decades. b) interested in naturalistic floral patterns.c) adapted Revel’s points rentrés technique.

Her early career

Silk brocade, 1742The Fashion Museum, Bath

Garthwaite's work is closely associated with the mid-18th century fashion for flowered woven silks in the Roccoco style, with its new emphasis on asymmetrical structures and sinuous C- and S-curves. She adapted the points rentrés technique developed by the French silk designer Jean Revel in the 1730s for representing near-three-dimensional floral patterns through careful shading, and designed large-scale damasks as well as floral brocades From 1742-43, Garthwaite's work—and English silk design in general—diverged from French styles, favouring clusters of smaller naturalistic flowers in bright colours scattered across a (usually) pale ground. The taste for vividly realistic florals reflects the advances in botanical illustration in Britain at this time, and can be contrasted with French silks of the period which show stylized flowers and more harmonious—if unrealistic—colorations.

CHARACTERISTICS OF HER WORKS

SOME OF HER DESIGNS

Blue and silver brocaded silk,1742Portrait of a lady in a gown in imported Spitalfields silk brocade designed by Ann Maria Garthwaite in June 1743.

Source: Anna Maria Garthwaite, designer; Thomas Brant, weaver: Brocaded silk | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Brocaded silk design dated 1748Anna Maria Garthwaite (1690–1763), designer; Thomas Brant, weaverEnglish (Spitalfields)Silk

This above design is typical of English dress silks of the period: the spare sprays of flowers are set

on a white background, and the branch supporting the flowers meanders back and forth across the width of the fabric. The appearance of the truncated branch from which various types of

flowers bloom may be a nod to the chinoiserie trend in the eighteenth-century Rococo style.

The above design’s

application onto a dress.

Waistcoat, 1747; RococoTextile designed by Anna Maria Garthwaite (British, 1690–1763) and manufactured by Peter Lekeux (British, 1716–1768)British; Made in LondonPorcelain blue silk brocaded with silver-gilt foliate and appliquéd with polychrome silk

Source: Anna Maria Garthwaite and Peter Lekeux: Waistcoat (C.I.66.14.2) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Anna Maria Garthwaite, n.d.Silk damask gown

Museum at FIT, New York

Coloured pattern drawing by Anna Maria Garthwaite, 1744. and the machine

embroidered silk Tulip on red ground.

Coloured pattern drawing by Anna Maria Garthwaite, 1744.

Silk design for a brocaded damask by Anna Maria Garthwaite dated 1744

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