ON THE WRITINGS OF ROBERT FORRER IN THE CONTEXT OF STUDYING THE HISTORY OF PRINTED FABRICS
In recent decades, there has been a rise of interest in the history of Russian textiles, a poorly studied area of decorative and applied arts. Studying the history of the Russian textile printing industry is impossible without knowledge of foreign material since fabric printing in Russia appeared and developed with the direct participation of specialists from the leading European art textile centers, such as France (Alsace), Switzerland, England, and Germany. All the more important is addressing to the works of foreign researchers, who almost witnessed the development of textile printed production in the 19th century. The name of the Swiss collector, art historian, and archaeologist Robert Forrer (1866-1947) is now undeservedly forgotten. There are very few publications about him, and most part of his collection is inaccessible to a Russian researcher. Using the materials of his own collection, R. Forrer published two monumental monographs devoted to the history of textile art and was the first to distinguish printing on fabrics as a separate section of art history. In fact, Forrer became the founder of this section of the history of applied art. These works have not been published in Russian yet; for which reason, the author of this publication translated them. It was N. Y. Biryukova, who approached the heritage of a Swiss scientist for the first time while preparing a catalog of European textile printed fabrics from the Hermitage collection. The first publications about Forrer in Russian were articles by T. A. Dolgodrova, an employee of the RSL, where a part of Forrer’s collection of printed fabrics was transferred in the spring of 1946 in compensation for the damage to Russian culture during World War II. T. A. Dolgodrova was engaged in cataloging and studying this collection. Our past publications covered the significance of Forrer’s legacy for the study of the history of Russian textile printing, as well as a number of questions left by T. A. Dolgodrova. This paper is devoted to the analysis of the data provided by Forrer in his writings on the establishment of the textile printing industry in Western Europe, the appearance of Indian calico in the European markets, copying of oriental designs and creating original patterns, ornaments and types of fabrics. This clarifies the arrival of European samples in Russia, despite the fact that the Swiss researcher did not deal with Russian production in detail. The report will examine the origins of the most popular types of calico fabrics in Russia, the Adrianople Reds in particular. Information about the first European enterprises and the names of the printers who began to create red-color chintz are scattered in different sections of R. Forrer’s monographs, who did not allocate this type of printed fabrics in a special section. “Adrianople fabrics” appeared in Europe in the early 19th century, and after 50 years, they began to be produced in Russia in large quantities at manufactories of Baranov merchants. Today they are known as Baranovsky chintz, and became part of the national Russian style. Forrer’s monographs have not lost their scientific relevance to this day. They represent a storehouse of factual information but the presented data require a detailed analysis, which primarily concerns the comparison and juxtaposition of the main stages of the development of a textile printing industry in different countries.