DESIGN AND COLOR IN ANCIENT FABRICS 



419 



exhibit of the successful designs. Per- 

 haps, at a later date, an exhibition may 

 be arranged of hand-decorated textiles, 

 and later still a large exhibition of the 

 products of our great mills, the inspira- 

 tion for which has been suggested by 

 the art objects in the American Museum 

 of Natural History. 



During the summer, representatives 

 from many silk concerns and one or two 

 cotton houses making fine novelty goods, 

 visited the Museum and made at least a 

 beginning of a careful research into the 

 elements of primitive design. A very 

 enterprising concern of silk printers was 

 especially active, and there is in course of 

 manufacture at this time a large number 

 of patterns which were created from the 

 specimens on exliibition. A well-known 

 retailer came several times and is now 

 using on ladies' wearing apparel the 

 designs which he took from the same 

 source. This aid to American designers 

 came at a most opportune time, for the 

 condition abroad made it impossible for 

 our great industry to get decorative 

 suggestions from the usual sources. It 

 was therefore judged that this was the 

 psychological moment to exert effort 

 toward the development of a typically 

 American school of design. It can be 

 said that the practical progress being 

 made is already astonishing. 



The actual wo\'en fabric is by no 

 means the only class of objects which 

 can suggest textile design. Basketry, 

 pottery, carved wood, and many other 

 objects, display designs which require 

 only a little adaptation to become appli- 

 cable to modern fabrics ; but it would be 

 impossible even to suggest the extent of 

 these resources at this time and I must 

 confine myself exclusively to fabrics. 

 In these, Peru is easily the most valuable 

 source — in point of beauty, technical 

 interest, and number of specimens. 

 About three years ago I undertook the 



textile analysis of the wonderful Peru- 

 vian collection of the American Museum, 

 and while I am now more familiar than I 

 then was with the other collections in the 



Fragment of the border of an lea shawl, in which a 

 basic fabric is completely covered with embroidery. 

 The design represents the puma god destroying a man. 

 The large shawl-like garments from lea, Peru, in the 

 Juilliard collection of the American Museum, present 

 grotesque animalistic designs, in which however the 

 color combinations are incomparably beautiful 



