Joel Greifinger
August 19th, 2020, 05:54 PM
As collectors of nomadic, tribal and village textiles and rugs we are frequently awed and delighted by the craft and artistry of anonymous weavers, many from cultures about which we have a paucity of reliable information for the period when the pieces were woven. Occasionally, a rug will have what appears to be a date woven in, but we have little reason to believe that it accurately records the date that it was woven, since it is at least equally likely to have been copied from a high-status object in order to add something special, like a few knots of silk amongst the wool pile. We can enjoy speculating about the weaver’s world and intentions for the weaving, but it’s unusual to reach beyond the level of mere plausibility.
So, when I began collecting antique Swedish folk textiles some years back, undoubtedly one of the attractions was that they were woven in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in a culture with widespread literacy and numeracy; where the dates and initials woven into household weavings were dependable evidence of their creator. This was a society where record keeping at the parish level provides a rich record of the lives and families of the female weavers from farm households, particularly in Skane and other areas in southern Sweden, where these were produced for dowries and to celebrate weddings and holidays and, preeminently, to show off the weaver’s skills to her community.
The handiwork of the women in these relatively prosperous farm households began being chronicled and collected by crusading advocates and textile historians like Lilli Zickerman and Emelie von Walterstorff by the end of the 19th century, laying the groundwork for studies filling out their social history by Ernst Fischer and Viveka Hansen in more recent years. Massive collections, like the Hemslojdens Samlingar and Nordiska Museet are available online (digitalmuseum.se) to find regional and local design and technical variations. For the collector looking for reliable details about a new acquisition, it’s a treasure trove.
What brought this pleasure to a new level for me was obtaining a weaving where, through research, I have been able to identify the weaver and reconstruct a bit of her family and social circumstances. It is a bankdyna or banklangd (bench cushion), used on built-in benches along the walls in typical farmhouses of the region in that era, woven in rolakan or double-interlock tapestry technique. This one measures 93" x 25" (236 x 64 cm) Such pieces were often woven for dowries and only used on holidays and for celebrations. The rest of the year, they were stored in large, painted wooden trunks that are themselves now keenly collected.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/BenchesJG.jpg
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Chest1841.jpg
This one was woven by Hanna Hansdotter in the village of Jamshog, in the harad (county) of Listers in Blekinge Province. Blekinge was the province east of Skane at the southern tip of Sweden where these folk weavings proliferated at the end of the 18th century, until tapering off after the middle of the nineteenth. Jamshog, which has a current population of about 1,500, is in an agricultural area right at the border with Villands harad in next door Skane Province. In 1805, the Listers harad contained nineteen inhabitants per square kilometer, for a total of 10,429 in the county.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Full-sideways.jpg
Hanna was originally from Harlunda harad in Smaland Province about 50 kilometers north of Jamshog. She was born on May 14, 1822, the illegitimate daughter of Hans and Elin, the latter a maid in the village of Ingemarsholm. Her father's occupation is unknown and records for her mother only go back a single generation, to her grandparents, Ola and Karin. We don?t know when or why she moved to Jamshog, but it is there that she married Sven Olsson (b.1819) whose great-great grandparents had come to Jamshog in the early 18th century. Sven worked as laborer and later as a carpenter for the more affluent farm households, as he and Hanna maintained a modest household of their own. They had two sons and two daughters born between 1847 and 1855. Their oldest child, Ola, was the grandfather of the 91 year old woman, who lives in Jamshog, from whom I obtained her great-grandmother Hanna's bankdyna.
The drawing of the rosette in the bankdyna is characteristic of Listers harad as is the palette including the green, saturated blue and brilliant cochineal-dyed red. The patterns were handed down between the women in the community and the bankdynas, akdynas (carriage cushions), jynnes (seat cushions), and tackes (bed covers) that were on display at special gatherings were a source of both status and, as evidenced by household registers of the time, an important portion of the family's accumulated wealth.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/RosettesJG.jpg
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Flower-web.jpg
As I mentioned, the primary technique used in this piece is rolakan (double-interwoven tapestry weave) with wool wefts on linen warps with a warp density of about four per centimeter, which is quite typical. Rolakan produces clean transitions between colored weft sections on the front, and these sorts of ridges on the back.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Bank-back.jpg
The backings of these cushions were often in a single-colored plainweave, but in other cases were decorated in a number of techniques. This one has a very small remnant of a decorative technique called tvistrander that has survived at one end.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Tvistrander-edge.jpg
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Lilli Zickerman began to photograph and catalog the weavings still stored in family chests throughout the southern Swedish countryside. She eventually donated 24,000 photographs and illustrations to the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, many of them hand-colored by Lilli and her brother, Sven. Here are hand colored photos of bankdynas that had come from Jamshog.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Jamshog-1.jpg
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Jamshog-2.jpg
Hanna's bench cover is now hanging in my bedroom, between two windows. It’s often the first thing that I see upon waking.
If you know something of the story of any of the rugs and textiles that you have collected, I encourage you to share it with us in this thread.
Joel Greifinger
So, when I began collecting antique Swedish folk textiles some years back, undoubtedly one of the attractions was that they were woven in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in a culture with widespread literacy and numeracy; where the dates and initials woven into household weavings were dependable evidence of their creator. This was a society where record keeping at the parish level provides a rich record of the lives and families of the female weavers from farm households, particularly in Skane and other areas in southern Sweden, where these were produced for dowries and to celebrate weddings and holidays and, preeminently, to show off the weaver’s skills to her community.
The handiwork of the women in these relatively prosperous farm households began being chronicled and collected by crusading advocates and textile historians like Lilli Zickerman and Emelie von Walterstorff by the end of the 19th century, laying the groundwork for studies filling out their social history by Ernst Fischer and Viveka Hansen in more recent years. Massive collections, like the Hemslojdens Samlingar and Nordiska Museet are available online (digitalmuseum.se) to find regional and local design and technical variations. For the collector looking for reliable details about a new acquisition, it’s a treasure trove.
What brought this pleasure to a new level for me was obtaining a weaving where, through research, I have been able to identify the weaver and reconstruct a bit of her family and social circumstances. It is a bankdyna or banklangd (bench cushion), used on built-in benches along the walls in typical farmhouses of the region in that era, woven in rolakan or double-interlock tapestry technique. This one measures 93" x 25" (236 x 64 cm) Such pieces were often woven for dowries and only used on holidays and for celebrations. The rest of the year, they were stored in large, painted wooden trunks that are themselves now keenly collected.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/BenchesJG.jpg
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Chest1841.jpg
This one was woven by Hanna Hansdotter in the village of Jamshog, in the harad (county) of Listers in Blekinge Province. Blekinge was the province east of Skane at the southern tip of Sweden where these folk weavings proliferated at the end of the 18th century, until tapering off after the middle of the nineteenth. Jamshog, which has a current population of about 1,500, is in an agricultural area right at the border with Villands harad in next door Skane Province. In 1805, the Listers harad contained nineteen inhabitants per square kilometer, for a total of 10,429 in the county.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Full-sideways.jpg
Hanna was originally from Harlunda harad in Smaland Province about 50 kilometers north of Jamshog. She was born on May 14, 1822, the illegitimate daughter of Hans and Elin, the latter a maid in the village of Ingemarsholm. Her father's occupation is unknown and records for her mother only go back a single generation, to her grandparents, Ola and Karin. We don?t know when or why she moved to Jamshog, but it is there that she married Sven Olsson (b.1819) whose great-great grandparents had come to Jamshog in the early 18th century. Sven worked as laborer and later as a carpenter for the more affluent farm households, as he and Hanna maintained a modest household of their own. They had two sons and two daughters born between 1847 and 1855. Their oldest child, Ola, was the grandfather of the 91 year old woman, who lives in Jamshog, from whom I obtained her great-grandmother Hanna's bankdyna.
The drawing of the rosette in the bankdyna is characteristic of Listers harad as is the palette including the green, saturated blue and brilliant cochineal-dyed red. The patterns were handed down between the women in the community and the bankdynas, akdynas (carriage cushions), jynnes (seat cushions), and tackes (bed covers) that were on display at special gatherings were a source of both status and, as evidenced by household registers of the time, an important portion of the family's accumulated wealth.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/RosettesJG.jpg
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Flower-web.jpg
As I mentioned, the primary technique used in this piece is rolakan (double-interwoven tapestry weave) with wool wefts on linen warps with a warp density of about four per centimeter, which is quite typical. Rolakan produces clean transitions between colored weft sections on the front, and these sorts of ridges on the back.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Bank-back.jpg
The backings of these cushions were often in a single-colored plainweave, but in other cases were decorated in a number of techniques. This one has a very small remnant of a decorative technique called tvistrander that has survived at one end.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Tvistrander-edge.jpg
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Lilli Zickerman began to photograph and catalog the weavings still stored in family chests throughout the southern Swedish countryside. She eventually donated 24,000 photographs and illustrations to the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, many of them hand-colored by Lilli and her brother, Sven. Here are hand colored photos of bankdynas that had come from Jamshog.
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Jamshog-1.jpg
http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Jamshog-2.jpg
Hanna's bench cover is now hanging in my bedroom, between two windows. It’s often the first thing that I see upon waking.
If you know something of the story of any of the rugs and textiles that you have collected, I encourage you to share it with us in this thread.
Joel Greifinger