Printing Paisley

        In a bit of bonus Word of the Month, the ornamental textile design called paisley uses the Persian boteh, that curved teardrop shape, and its repeated patterns originated in India.  But in English we call it paisley after the Scottish textile-manufacturing town famous for producing such patterns (especially on shawls) in the 19th century.  (That makes the word an eponym.)  The better paisley shawls were woven, but cheaper ones, and patterns on cottons for other uses, were printed.  At the National Museum of Scotland this summer we saw some of these printing blocks.

        First of all, here’s a dress made of cotton printed in India.  This one, from c 1740-60, isn’t paisley, but is representative of the sorts of fabrics that the Scottish mills were interested in copying.  At the same time, though, this Indian design was made for export, and was thus influenced in its turn by British tastes.

        Now for the blocks.  There is a shawl in the background which is printed on silk, but not, as far as I can see, printed from the particular blocks in the foreground.  According to the caption, they are a set for a five-color design, and as there are four blocks in the set, I take the fabric background to be the fifth color.

        In a little fun with photoshop, I tried to recreate how this particular boteh might look.  The upper right block prints a solid background color.  You can see that the entire boteh shape is carved away and the entire background is left behind to print what I have made red in my recreation up above.  Next I “printed” the lower left block, in blue.  Third, the lower right in yellow.  The final block, upper left, tricked me.  When I went to add its design, it didn’t match up at all - I’ve put it off to the right, where you can see that it’s facing the wrong direction.  Then I noticed that there was another shape also on the same block, obscured behind the blocks in front, and that’s the one that matches up with the boteh I was previously building.  So I reconstructed it as well as I could and added that in white.  (I assume it has something with the little branch going off to the left, but as that’s entirely hidden, I don’t know what it might have looked like.)  Of course I could be totally off on the colors, although I tried to deduce from the stains on the blocks, but it gives you at least an idea of what those four blocks would look like when all printed together.

        I’ve never done too much with designing and printing multiple blocks for separate colors.  It just isn’t something I’ve been as enticed to work with.  Still, it’s cool to see how this design builds up.

[Pictures: Block printed cotton and linen textile from India, dress British, c 1740-60;

Set of hand printing blocks for Paisley pattern, and shawl of printed silk from Paisley, c 1870 (Photos taken by AEGN at National Museum of Scotland);

Photoshop design based on printing blocks, by AEGN.]