Individual Kitchen, Tea, and Dish Towels
- Border Prints
- Canvas Tapestries
- Cloth Tapestries
- Cotton Panels by Juliette Mairel
- Cross Stitch
- Four Matching Cloths of La Fontaine’s Fables
- Two Matching French Dish Cloths
- Individual Kitchen, Tea, and Dish Towels
- Embroidered Napkins
- Embroidery Hoop Cloths
- Felt Activity Book
- Full-Length Tapestries
- Molas from Panama
- Quilt Panels
- Runners
- Samplers
- Stackers
- Individual Cloths
- Needlepoint Patterns
1980? French kitchen towel. TH. 18˝" x 27". Cotton. Where and when?
This is one of the less flattering portraits of La Fontaine, I would say. The bright yellow is attractive, but there is not much spirit in this design.
1990? French dish towel featuring five fables: MM; 2P; WL; FG; and OF. $17.887 from froufrouretro through Etsy, Dec., 20.
Our first dish towel! I can find no markings about its date or origin. As with many French materials, the colors are lovely. The present image is temporary.
2000? Cloth presentation of Edward Bawden’s “Aesop’s Fables: The Hare and the Tortoise.” Created from Bawden’s color linocut, published by Curwen Prints. Cloth from the Royal Academy of Arts. 28” x 18”. Unknown source.
This lovely piece has brought some answers and then more questions. I was surprised to find that it is done from a famous, rare, expensive linocut by Bawden. I am surprised that this cloth is 18” x 28”, whereas Bawden’s original was 18” x 22”. One question has not been answered. What kind of cloth is this? Dishcloth? Hanging? Are we meant to begin from the lower left to follow the back-and-forth route? The hare moves from energy to sleep, while the tortoise does not change much along the way. At the end he awaits the hare. Well done!
2000? TH Castell Coch Linen Tea Towel. 55% linen, 45% cotton. Made in Ireland. 17.3” x 13.5”. Source unknown.
As the web tells us, the design is inspired by the wall paintings in the octagonal drawing room of Castell Coch, a Victorian Gothic Revival castle in Wales. Perhaps the most fascinating feature of this colorful presentation, based on murals at Castell Coch, is the frog perched above the race with a bottle in his hand. At first I thought he might have bet on the wrong racer. After viewing more of the Castell Coch wallpaper, I believe that he is the quack doctor who promises to heal others, even though he cannot heal himself.
2000? Tea towel "Sly as a fox." 32.5" x 25". Hand-stitched? Unknown source.
Was beautiful work like this meant to be used as a dish towel? Here the sly fox has the grapes he could not get in the fable. The thread used for the skin of the fox is combined of two strands, orange and black. The design appears on the web in places like Etsy; it may come originally from "oregonpatchworks."