Printed fabric (furnishing fabric) - With ”The Sicilian”, or ”Bird and Boat” design

The velveteen is printed in dark red on a light red ground the whole surface is covered by the pat-tern which is arranged in horizontal rows and slightly shifted above each other. There is a chained hunting leopard and a hawk with spread wings standing in a boat facing each other. The boat is surrounded by ducks swimming in the water. Beyond them there is a palmet with a curved stem, springing out of the boat. The pattern was modelled on a silk fabric from Lucca, made around 1400 and bought by the London South Kensington - today Victoria and Albert - Museum in 1875. The pattern was published and illustrated in Fischbach 1874 (plate 58/b). The printed pattern was registered on September 21st, 1883 and February 22nd, 1884 (see Wardle, T.: Patternbook, No. 181. - Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery. Inv.No. 14007, pp. 139-140). A differently coloured variant of the piece described above is also in the collection of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts (Inv.No. 14657, Cat. No. 126), as well as in the Krefeld Textilmuseum, in the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm and in the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.