The hand woven velvet using ancient looms coveted by the rich and famous скачать в хорошем качестве

The hand woven velvet using ancient looms coveted by the rich and famous

(19 Feb 2022) LEAD IN:   It can take months to prepare and years to weave, but velvet produced by a workshop in Venice using ancient wooden looms is coveted by the White House, the Kremlin and stars and popes alike. STORY-LINE: In a small workshop in Venice lies an ancient world where precious velvets are woven with skill and patience. The end product is shipped to the rich and powerful: from the White House to the Kremlin, from the Vatican to fashion houses, and the villas of Hollywood stars.   Of the approximately 6,000 looms used by weavers in the 16th century in the lagoon city, today only 18 remain. They are operated by seven skilled artisans, the last custodians of an ancient art.   Alberto Bevilacqua is CEO of Bevilacqua Weaving. The piece of tiger velvet he is holding was used to upholster chairs in singer Mariah Carey's mansion.   "(Velvet weaving) was one of the most important economic activities (in Venice) and people came to Venice from all over the world to buy velvets. Then, obviously, there was a decline in this production, but it was important to preserve this excellence because if knowledge is not passed on, it is lost, and a very important artistic and cultural heritage is lost," he says.    Venice is famed not only for its architects, sculptors, painters and writers, but also for its textile artisans, who in the past produced fabrics that are inimitable for quality and refinement. Between the 13th and 18th centuries the velvet produced in the lagoon was used to make the most luxurious clothes for European nobility.    Production of velvet, alongside silk, began in Venice thanks to some 300 artisans (weavers, spinners, and dyers) who fled the Tuscan city of Lucca for political reasons.   By the 16th century, the precious fabrics produced in Venice had become the most important source of wealth for the city of canals.   But the galloping industrialisation of the 19th century quickly erased centuries of tradition. It was not until towards the end of the century that Europeans started recovering the know-how of the ancient decorative arts, including weaving. In 1875, Luigi Bevilacqua dusted off the old looms. Six generations later, his company continues to jealously safeguard the secrets of this ancient craft.   It is by no means a simple art form, requiring a lot of time, patience and physical effort.   "To prepare a loom for weaving takes several months, sometimes even a year. For example, when we made this fabric for the Kremlin, we worked for a year before we did it," explains Bevilacqua. When the Russian government commissioned them to make this fabric to upholster some chairs in the Kremlin, the Bevilacqua weaving mill didn't know if it would make it. The pattern was a French design from nearly 300 years ago, but the loom used to produce it had been out of action for 50 years. So the weaving technicians had to modify one of the looms, and it took six months just to set up the machine, punch cards and thread spools. The weaving itself was also particularly complex, because it was the only case in which two weavers worked on the same loom at the same time.   Normally, only one weaver works on each fabric, setting the loom according to their strength, the length of their arm and the tension they need for the threads. The velvet for the Kremlin, however, had so many threads that every time the weaver pressed the pedal that moved them she had to lower a weight of 30 kg - for eight consecutive hours. So two weavers took turns, working in as similar a way as possible.   Giulia Incipini has been working at Tessitura Bevilacqua for seven years. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...