Antinous was the Greek favourite of the emperor Hadrian, renowned for his beauty and, in the end, the subject of a tragedy. Luke Edward Hall has long been drawn to the figures of the ancient world and has set this one down as a portrait head, repeated across the cloth at a very small interval: 5 cm by 8.5 cm. From any distance that reads as a fine all-over field, and the face only resolves when you are close to it.
It is a cotton lampas working on the contrast between matt and lustrous, which is the old way of getting a figure to appear in a weave without printing anything on it. 140 cm wide, 370 g, 20,000 Martindale rubs, suitable for upholstery. Five colourways, made in Italy.
