This nice little antique woven silk portrait of the French inventor JM Jacquard was created using the punch card loom attachment he created back in 1804. His automated system using prepared punch cards to ‘programme’ the design into the loom was not only an important advancement in the history of the industrial Revolution, but retrospectively serves as an important early milestone in the history of computing.
Jacquard Loom woven silk portraits like this are usually based on a portrait painting by the artist Claude Benefond and would have been retailed in quite limited numbers around the 1840s shortly after his death. These original portrait silks are prized by collectors today. While this is quite a small simple example, larger full renditions of the original Benefond painting are also known. In the image Jaquard is wearing the ribbon for the Legion d’Honneur which he was awarded in 1819.
This example is offered in decent original condition and has been newly re-mounted. The silk bears some light foxing overall and old glue stains around the edge which are concealed by the current mount.
Approx dimensions of mount: 17cm wide x 24 cm high
Dimensions of visible image: 10.3 cm wide x 15.1 cm high
