Gallery
“La Toile de Penelope—Penelope at Her Loom, 1731” by Bernard Picart. Private Collection.
The day is stark and stiff as a linen shroud. But it will soften; it will warm.
–Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Flax Field, Debb Collins.
Linen day dress, ca.1901–1902. Made by Sarah Leonard and Minnie Leonard, Minnesota Historical Society, 6396.36.1A-B.
Stays, ca. 1730–1750, England, linen and cane, Noel Paton Collection, National Museums Scotland. A-1905.983.
What’s passion but a battering of stubborn stalks,
Then a gentle combing out of fibres like hair
And a weaving of these into christening robes,
Into garments for a marriage or funeral?
–Michael Longley, “The Linen Industry”
William Hincks, 1752–1797, Plate IV: representing the common Method of Beetling, Scutching and Hackling the Flax, 1791, Stipple engraving. Courtesy, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Old French proverb:
Il fault laver son linge sale en famille
“Don’t wash your dirty linen in public”
Woman Worker And Various Styles Of Arrow Collars, United States. Photographed by Geo R. Lawrence Co., 1906, Wallach Division Picture Collection, The New York Public Library.
Joel Robinson (1915-2012). Ovals textile, ca. 1951. Manufacturer: L. Anton Maix Fabrics, New York, n.y. Screenprinted linen. 34 x 50". Committee on Architecture and Design Funds. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, ny, u.s.a. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by scala / Art Resource, ny.
Common Flax (Linum usitaissimum), Bulgaria, Europe. Alamy Stock Photo.
The monuments of Egypt and Nubia designed by the Tuscan scientific-literary expedition in Egypt; distributed in order of subjects interpreted and illustrated by Doctor Ippolito Rosellini—Lasinio, Carlo, 1759–1838 is the engraver.
