Comments on: Amy Cooper's handiwork

By: MARIA

MARIA — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 16:22:02 +0000

i like your phrasing – a keen stitcher: i like to think of myself as a keen stitcher too, rather than a someone who likes to sew

By: skye

skye — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:31:33 +0000

I would be very interested if you can find out more about Anna Maria Garthwaite. I live in Spitalfields and ever since seeing the Blue Plaque on her former house in Princelet St I have done extensive research into Garthwaite (Rothstein’s amazing book Silk Designs in the Seventeenth Century is one of the best resources), and she remains an enigma to me. How she acquired her technical skills and professionalism (as a relatively well-to-do clergyman’s daughter), why she moved to London from York with her sister, and why she is so curiously absent from the correspondence of the day, when others like Mrs Mary Delany feature prominently. I look forward to seeing the results of your research into this fascinating character!

Regards,
Skye

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:58:49 +0000

Obituary in today’s Guardian of Natalie Rothstein who did so much to chart London’s silk history.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/apr/20/natalie-rothstein-obituary

Online version has a lovely colour photo of one of Anna Maria Garthwaite’s designs.

By: Joan

Joan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:15:34 +0000

That’s lovely news. Your blog posts are much appreciated here.

Joan

By: the gentle author

the gentle author — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:35:54 +0000

In reply to Joan. Dear Joan, You might like to know that research is already underway to bring you some features here about this extraordinary eighteenth century silk and textile designer, Anna Maria Garthwaite.

By: Joan

Joan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:32:27 +0000

Just seen that today’s (10th Feb) post on the Persephone Post blog is a new American edition of ‘Howards End’ with a cover of a woven silk design by Anna Maria Garthwaite.

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:51:36 +0000

Thankyou so much for that. I shall look forward to seeing the photos.
Best wishes, Joan.

By: the gentle author

the gentle author — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:42:36 +0000

In reply to Joan. Dear Joan, I will go the V&A to find the Spitalfields silk and photograph it for you.

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:32:27 +0000

When I was growing up in Stepney in the 1960s and 70s (a time when my grandad was trading in caged birds and then, once that became illegal, second hand tellies in Brick Lane) there used to be a collection of Spitalfields silk on display at the Bethnal Green Museum. I would regularly visit it and it was instrumental in my decision to go on and study textile technology. I guess that when the museum decided to concentrate on childhood items the silk was relocated to the V and A.

Many thanks for your blog. Am exiled now in E15 but regularly revisit Tower Hamlets – especially as my children have discovered the delights of Carom and beigels.

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:58:14 +0000

It’s amazing what can be found in local history collections and how wonderful it is that somehow these things survive down the centuries. I have a sampler my Great Grandmother worked in 1888 but when I hear of things from earlier in the century and back to the 1700s that someone has kept/saved it’s very humbling. It’s only by reading about and looking at these things that we can truly understand ourselves. What a great experience it must have been to be at such close quarters to such beautiful objects.