51st Annual Delaware Show

lively and accurately rendered. The Winterthur collection contains numerous Barlow-style birds among the printed textiles. Sayer also sold Various Birds and Beasts Drawn from the Life by Francis Barlow and included Barlow prints in his own mid-eighteenth- century publications, all of which found their way onto textiles printed in the second half of the century. “It was really only with the publication of images by John Audubon [Birds of America] and others in the second quarter of the nineteenth century that Barlow’s birds were supplanted.” 1 No matter the design source, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, quality and cost were at the forefront of discussions by those advocating copyright protection. William Kilburn, one of the leading supporters of acts passed in 1787 and 1794 alleged that he lost £1,000 per year because his popular patterns were being reproduced by others. Lancashire printers were usually blamed for such transgressions. It was claimed that they saved costs by using cheaper materials and copying only those designs that were known to be successful. DATING DESIGNS Dating printed textiles can be problematic, as few have survived with an accurate provenance. With the help of pattern books, however, scholars have been able to identify many examples. Such has been the case particularly for the nineteenth century, for which patterns and design trends are documented in unusually complete extant records. Bannister Hall records exist for the 1790s through 1840, and the Stead McAlpin archives begin in 1835 and continue into the 1900s. Joseph Lockett’s records of engraved designs for the years 1806 to 1840 survive in the form of cylinder — 148 —