51st Annual Delaware Show

Pillement, whose designs can be found on ceramics, furniture, silver, tapestries, and wallpaper in addition to printed cottons. Similarly, Peter Casteels, who was well known in London as a painter of flowers and exotic birds, was the source of designs for a wide range of products through his involvement with the publication of the iconic Twelve Months of Flowers. Those prints were copied extensively and were even sent to India to serve as patterns for palampores imported back into London. The earliest printed cottons and linens, called “indiennes” in France, were consciously designed in imitation of popular imports from India. Those fantasy floral designs have been revived on a regular basis ever since, but real flowers were also depicted on printed textiles, often copied or adapted from botanical illustrations and publications on native plants of the period. For example, Flora Londinensis by William Curtis, published in 1777, was the source for numerous copperplate designs printed at Bromley Hall. Calico printer Joseph Talwin, a partner in the firm, was a subscriber to the first edition of that publication. Many designs with flowers, birds, and other animals were also taken from books published specifically for pattern drawers (an early name for designers), such as Robert Sayer’s New Book of Birds (1765). This, in turn, was indebted to Francis Barlow’s engravings published from the early 1650s to 1694, generally known as “Barlow’s Birds.” These are regarded as the first British ornithological prints— — 147 —