CHINTZ has been called the tapisserie d’Aubusson of the cottage home. Its place in the affections of the collector of antiques and curios has long been secure. For fully fifty years and more lovers of household ancientry have gathered to their appreciation bits of old printed fabrics. Originally the word “chintz” was applied to the printed cotton fabric from India, each piece being called in early days a chint, a name which was derived from the Hindu cint, Bengal cit, and Sanscrit chitra, meaning spotted or variegated. Afterward it came to be applied to the glazed printed calicoes of European and American manufacture, gaily patterned with flowers and birds and figures in diverse colors on a white ground. Its calendered dust-shedding surface made the material a great favorite with careful housewives. Cretonne, the French substitute for chintz, a heavier material, was not introduced until somewhere around the year 1860.

The old-time chintzes are not so easily picked up nowadays. However, there are still excellent chances of occasional “finds,” even in antique-combed America, where, happily, collecting has come to be one of our chief pastimes. I know one collector who has been so fortunate as to obtain many quaint specimens of old printed fabrics at small cost, from an upholsterer in his own town. From time to time chairs and sofas were brought to the upholsterer to be re-covered. Often these had several layers of material under the outer one, and below those of later days he would find, now and then, coverings of old printed cotton fabrics. Among these were a lovely spray-pattern chintz of the Queen Anne period and a hand-print of pastoral design by one R. Jones, manufacturer of Old Ford, London, who produced patterned chintzes about the year 1760. Many of the new printed cotton fabrics have borrowed their patterns from these interesting textile ancestors, though nowadays, in the case of monochrome and duochrome prints, the color effects are somewhat richer than those that obtained in the printed fabrics of the eighteenth century, with their cold chocolate browns, bottle-greens, and ox-blood reds. For the collector there will naturally be an inimitable charm about the original pieces, not to mention their historic interest, while old multicolored chintzes cannot be surpassed in loveliness.

Chintz attained a beauty and a distinction of its own when it attracted the fancy of the fashionables of the eighteenth century. To maintain its favor, it did not rest content with being imitative but developed its own resources with a consequent richness that marks its place among decorative fabrics of the early days.

A sixteenth-century Portuguese writer, by name Odoardo Barbosa, gives us an interesting early reference to printed fabrics: “Great quantities of cotton cloths, admirably painted, are held in highest estimation.” But even some two hundred years before his time the narrators of the romance of commerce were celebrating the chintzes of the Coromandel India coast. Doubtless these printed fabrics of the earlier centuries attained an intricacy and beauty that were long denied the European printed textiles which they inspired. Early examples of the latter are in no way comparable, artistically or technically, with contemporary India prints. Even to-day it would be difficult to improve esthetically on the beautiful printed stuffs that come to us from the countries of the Orient.

We do not know with certainty the circumstances attending the introduction into Europe of the manufacture of printed fabrics. Long before English weavers had undertaken the industry, the printing of fabrics flourished on the Continent. The sixteenth century references to printed cottons in England are so few and so vague that we are virtually without knowledge of the earliest manufactories of these fabrics. We do know, however, that veritable legions of skilled craftsmen in the textile arts settled in the British Isles during the latter half of the seventeenth century. It is to them, probably, that the art owes its introduction there.

The Print Room of the British Museum exhibits a quaint old trade card—itself the impression of a wood-block such as the cloth-printers used—which bears the representation of a cotton-printer at work. In the costume of his time—the reign of James II—he stands before a long, broad Jacobean table, lengthwise of which lies a piece of cloth, one third showing the pattern which the printer has impressed on it. Behind the left end of the table is set a Jacobean stool on which rests a circular basin containing the color, which a boy is waiting to apply to the wood-block for printing. The master printer is in the act of impressing a section of the pattern on the white cloth by means of the wood-block, which he is hammering with a wooden mallet. The text (in script of the period) reads, “Jacob Stamps living at ye sighn of the Callicoes Lineings Silkes Stuffs New or Ould at Reasonable Rates.” This old mode of block-printing obtained for fully two hundred years until the inventive genius of the nineteenth century joined hands with commerce, to the craft’s almost complete discouragement. However, a revival of interest in the old arts was inspired by such enthusiasts as William Morris. The hand-printed fabrics have been restored to favor, and to-day they again play an important part in the decoration of the modern home.

Richmond, Bow, and Old Ford, London, became the earliest centers for printed chintzes in England. The few extant specimens of seventeenth-century chintz show us that the early printed cottons were crude enough. At first more than one color was not attempted. The next step appears to have been to add to the monochrome effect by applying washes of dye, either freehand or stencil application, to the outline pattern. This was done by brushing the color on as required, a process slow, laborious, and fraught with uncertainties. An examination of these early pieces, treasures though they are from an antiquarian point of view, reveals a smudgy appearance resulting from the thickness of the dye-inks with which the patterns were printed. The early materials were very coarse canvas-like cloths.

With the advent of the eighteenth century the cloth for receiving the printed patterns was much improved, and it was not long before finely woven textures supplanted the cruder ones. This greatly facilitated the development of textile color-prints, and the Queen Anne chintzes were in consequence infinitely superior to those of the Charles II, James II, or William and Mary reigns. So popular did these improved patterned fabrics become that the chintz industry not only rivaled that of the silk-weavers but for a time threatened to drive the latter out of business. Indeed, so bitter became the feeling on the subject, between the two crafts, that riots resulted and an appeal was made to Parliament, by the silk-manufacturers of Spitalfields, for protection. History records that the silk-workers were so enraged because Westminster did not immediately forbid the wearing of chintz that the delegation which had carried the petition to London, gave vent to its wrath by tearing off all chintz gowns whose wearers were encountered on the homeward journey. Finally, in 1736, Parliament passed an act prohibiting printed cottons and linens, an act which was soon repealed and followed by an increased vogue in chintz. In France as well it was at one time considered expedient to forbid the manufacture of printed textiles; the restriction extended until 1759.

Authorities seem to be agreed in considering the middle of the eighteenth century as the golden age of old-time printed chintzes. Collectors eagerly seek specimens of this period, though they are all too rare to encourage hope in this direction except for occasional finds. It was during the years around 1760 that multicolored patterns were so beautifully and satisfactorily wrought with superimposed woodblock impressions. Chippendale furniture of the time naturally led to the popularity of Chinese motifs in design, and lovely indeed these were. The intertwining flower sprays that marked the printed fabrics of Queen Anne’s day now gave way to motifs in separated positions. The famille verte, famille rose, and famille noire porcelains of China furnished many a motif for the chintz designers of the seventeenth century. In the Chippendale period buff grounds were introduced, whereas in the earlier chintzes the grounds had been white or untinted.

The third quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed an innovation in the manufacture of printed fabrics. Various mechanical devices were perfected and led to an enormous increase in chintz manufacture. Cotton-printing was taken up in the northern counties and soon the trade center shifted thence from London, its old cradle-town. Engraved copperplates and roller-printing came into use. Still, as has already been said, hand-printing was destined to survive.

The collector of these various printed cottons will find the historical group especially interesting. Take for instance, the “Apotheosis of Washington” or the “Allegory of Washington and Franklin” subjects. In both, the figures of Washington were taken from the famous Trumbull portrait. In the “Apotheosis” chintz the medallions containing portraits of thirteen famous personages of early American history are after engravings by Du SimitiÈre. “William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians” forms the subject of another patterned chintz of especial interest to American collectors. Then there are the later political subjects which the nineteenth century’s early history inspired. The printed kerchiefs also came within the province of the collector of printed cottons. Many of these kerchiefs are especially well adapted for framing. Such as the “Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor” kerchief and the one bearing the title of “The Token or Sailor’s Pledge of Love.” Some of these old kerchiefs and also many examples of printed chintzes of historic interest have found their way into American public collections.