Age has been woven in deliberately. The ground is irregular, marked the way an old cloth is marked, and the pattern sits on it without the crispness a new damask usually has. Three fibres do the work, acetate, linen and silk, each taking light differently, so shine and matt alternate across the surface with no change of colour involved.
The original is an eighteenth-century piece in the Fondazione Rubelli. Here it comes at 300 g on a 39 by 23 cm repeat, tight for a damask, so the figure recurs often and the aged ground never reads as a single stain. Six colourways, and no abrasion figure is published, so keep it to curtains, blinds and cushions. Woven in Italy, 140 cm wide.
