These luxury painted silks were produced in China for the export trade. Their use in the west was as wallpaper in room decoration and expensive dress fabric. Throughout the 18th cent there were successive waves of crazes for everything Chinoiserie.

First a white lead base is applied accurately onto the silk in selected areas then the blossoms, tendrils and decorations are painted directly to the areas of the lead platforms ( rather than directly to silk ). The pigments were ground from semi precious materials for instance the green is from malachite.

Just as with porcelain very specific orders were communicated via the European East India Companies and precisely executed.



The example here clearly shows very careful white tailoring marks. The textile survives in this form as the intended garment
was never made up. This small piece was accompanied by 4 large wall panels.
Provenance Powderham Castle , Exeter , Devon , England , UK
Date: circa 1760
-----------------------------------------------------------------
further reading on these painted export silks:

Chris Paulocik & Sean Flaherty
The Conservation of 18th Century Painted Silk Dress
published 1995
The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Graduate Studies, New
York University.

http://www.gutenberg-e.org/lowengard/C_Chap43.html