Rubelli | China

European aristocrats of the early eighteenth century wanted Chinese porcelain, and when they could not get enough of it they had its decoration copied onto everything else. This velvet comes from an original of that moment: motifs Chinese in origin, recomposed by European silk designers to a rococo sense of arrangement, which is a third thing again and not quite either.

Rubelli reproduces the original by the old method, cutting the pile by hand. Eleven percent of the cloth is metallic weft, running through the ground so it lights the figure from behind rather than glinting on top of it. The repeat is 50 cm on a 60 cm width, so a single unit fills nearly the whole cloth.

Two colourways, 280 g. Woven at a few centimetres a day, which settles the question of use: a cushion, a panel, the back of a chair. Made in Italy.