Dear Andrea

what a wonderful guidon this is!

From my limited experience working with British military guidons,
colours and standards and from the references it seems that indeed
taffeta (plain weave) silks often glazed were mainly used for the
background fabric - this is in Britain.

However, for Prussian guidons,  a type of fabric called 'gros de
Tours' fabric, which is a rep type fabric, is being mentioned as used
for Prussian Cavalry Regimental Standards and Guidons:
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/de-prc%5E.html.

If this is the case,

I wonder if guidons from the Kingdom of Prussia were used as a
prototype for this one since this military unit was formed by
expatriate Prussian personnel, hence the choice of fabric? this sounds
like a possibility.


Gros de tours is called grosgrain in English. The terminology of
ribbed fabrics is complicated and the same name is often used across
different woven structures. I tried looking in the Oxford English
Dictionary to see which term appeared first and would likely apply to
the date of 1805 or earlier but it takes a while to sieve through
that. There was another term for ribbed fabrics called 'faiile' (or
'fail') which appears to be older than gros de tours...

There are many types of ribbed structures, some examples can be found
here: http://weavinglesson.blogspot.com/2010/05/ribbed.html. Look, for
example, at faiile francaise, it may be of a very similar structure to
guidon’s.

I am looking forward to hearing more about this project!

hope this helps

best wishes

Luba Dovgan Nurse


(woven textile designer and weaver in the past)

currently A. Mellon Fellow, Conservation
National Museum of the American Indian





On 21 July 2011 05:40, Andrea Lang <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> does anybody know the weave of these two woven fabrics?
> They are from a guidon belongs to a regiment of the King’s German Dragoons.
> The legion (King’s German Legion) was founded in Great Britain 1803, when
> the electorate of Hanover dispersed because of the Napoleonic Occupation. It
> is made in England, probably between 1805 and 1807. The dragoons had colours
> from plain silk, while the colours of many other units are from damask. But
> it seemed to be, that these fabrics are not typical  for British Colours. I
> will attach some photographs.
>
> The green/blue one here is the ground textile of the guidon.
> The red one  is this one in the middle of the colour. The silk is rep weave
> with added linen threads in the weft system.
>
> I am looking forward and would be pleased to get some answers.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Andrea
>
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