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Object Timeline

1962

  • We acquired this object.

2004

2013

2014

2015

2025

  • You found it!

Woven Portrait (France)

This is a Woven portrait. It was manufactured by Michel-Marie Carquillat. It is dated mid-19th century and we acquired it in 1962. Its medium is silk and its technique is jacquard woven: warp-faced plain weave (white) with supplementary weft patterning (black). It is a part of the Textiles department.

At the beginning of the century, Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) introduced a revolutionary new weaving technology, controlled by punch cards--a precursor to twentieth-century computer technology--that by 1840's had become widely used to weave astonishingly detailed images in silk. Jacquard fabrics--scarves, shawls, tablecoths, hangings--proliferated in middle-class homes throughout Europe. This meta-portrait of Jacquard and his invention was woven on a loom equipped with a Jacquard mechanism.

This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled Meet Monsieur Jacquard.

This object was bequest of Richard Cranch Greenleaf (American, 1887–1961). It is credited Bequest of Richard Cranch Greenleaf in memory of his mother, Adeline Emma Greenleaf.

  • Textile, Cloned Line
  • cotton.
  • Museum purchase through gift of Mrs. Florence Matthews, Mrs. Edward Stern,....
  • 1996-105-1

Its dimensions are

Warp x Weft: 44.5 x 34.3 cm (17 1/2 x 13 1/2 in.) Loom width: 17 1/2 in.

Cite this object as

Woven Portrait (France); Manufactured by Michel-Marie Carquillat (Michel-Marie Carquillat (French, 1803–1884)); silk; Warp x Weft: 44.5 x 34.3 cm (17 1/2 x 13 1/2 in.) Loom width: 17 1/2 in.; Bequest of Richard Cranch Greenleaf in memory of his mother, Adeline Emma Greenleaf; 1962-56-39

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Faster, Cheaper, Newer, More: The Revolutions of 1848.

This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian’s Terms of Use page.

If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18445621/ |title=Woven Portrait (France) |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=9 March 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>