Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Plates bright and vivid. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> In the early 1950’s my husband and I used to go to the Paris flea market…”. This is how Monique L?vi-Strauss- wife of the famous anthropologist Claude L?vi-Strauss -begins the extraordinary account of a discovery: an adventure which began thirty years ago when cashmere shawls cost very little and did not arouse the passions that they had among the ladies of the 19th century. The first European to visit Kashmir in 1664 wrote of his amazement at the soft and delicate woollen shawls. The wild goats lose their winter fleece on rocks and bushes: because of the altitude the pure air and the incomparable water the wool is so soft and light that the cloth can according to a Moghul legend be pulled through a ring. It takes two men up to three years to weave the precious shawls using an incredible phantasmagoria of colours. The cashmere shawl was discovered by English ladies at the end of the 18th century at a time when a magical Oriental influence was visible in European fashion and art: Napoleon’s soldiers returning home from the campaign in Egypt introduced the fashion in France Lady Hamilton and Nelson took it to Naples and the painter Louise-Elisabeth Vig?e Le Brun to St. Petersburg. The shawl was a popular wedding present and Napoleon’s gifts to his second wife Marie-Louise included seventeen shawls: “Many of the aristocratic ladies who formed part of the Imperial couple’s wedding procession in 1810 had a cashmere shawl carefully folded over one arm as they progressed through the Great Gallery of the Louvre” A flourishing industry developed in Europe encouraged by the invention of the Jacquard loom. “The characteristic floral motif with pine or cypress patterns architectonic motifs animal and human figures covered the entire surface area of the shawl in an extraordinary creative development which followed all the whims and fancies of 19th century European fashion. (MP)