Damask

For other uses, see Damask (disambiguation).

Italian silk polychrome damasks, 14th century.

Damask (Arabic: دمسق‎) is a reversible figured fabric of silk, wool, linen, cotton, or synthetic fibers, with a pattern formed by weaving. Damasks are woven with one warp yarn and one weft yarn, usually with the pattern in warp-faced satin weave and the ground in weft-faced or sateen weave. Twill damasks include a twill-woven ground or pattern.

History

Damasks used one of the five basic weaving techniques of the Byzantine and Islamic weaving centres of the early Middle Ages, and derive their name from the city of Damascus, which at the time was a large city active in both trading and manufacture. Damasks were scarce after the ninth century outside of Islamic Spain, but were revived in some places in the thirteenth century. The word "damask" is first seen in a Western European language in the mid-14th century in French. By the fourteenth century, damasks were being woven on draw looms in Italy. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, most damasks were woven in a single colour, with a glossy warp-faced satin pattern against a duller ground. Two-colour damasks had contrasting colour warps and wefts, and polychrome damasks added gold and other metallic threads or additional colors as supplemental brocading wefts. Medieval damasks were usually woven in silk, but wool and linen damasks were also woven.

Modern uses

The Comtesse de Tillières by Jean-Marc Nattier (1750)

London, Wallace Collection

A damask covers the chair.

As of 2011 damask weaves are commonly produced in monochromatic (single-colour) weaves in silk, linen or linen-type synthetic fabrics which feature patterns of flowers, fruit, and other designs.^{[citation needed]} The long floats of satin-woven warp and weft threads cause soft highlights on the fabric which reflect light differently according to the position of the observer . Damask weaves appear most commonly in table linens, but also in clothing and furnishings. Modern damasks are woven on computerized Jacquard looms.

References

• Jenkins, David, ed.: The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0521341078
• Kadolph, Sara J., ed.: Textiles, 10th edition, Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2007, ISBN 0131187694
• Monnas, Lisa. Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings 1300-1550. London and New Haven, Yale University Press, 2008

See also

• Diapering (damask patterns in heraldry)