18th Century French Jaune Bouton D'or/yellow Silk Bourette Pillow

A big splash of color with this brilliant lemon yellow French 18th century silk bourette named Jaune Bouton d'Or a wonderful hand-woven nubby silk woven from the rough outer parts of the cocoon in clean mint condition.       (2 available)

In 1461 Louis XI, king of France, established a new chateau in the Loire region named Plessis. Rather than furnish it with expensive imported Italian textiles Louis brought 17 Italian weavers to nearby Tours in 1470 to make hangings for his new castle thus launching the French silk industry. The raw silk eventually came from Cevennes region of France which developed sericulture or silk production from the worm to the fiber. The long inner strands of the silkworm cocoon were sent to Tours and to La Grand Manufacture in Lyons. The rough outer strand was dyed and woven locally to produce bourette or soie sauvage (wild silk), a rough weave, hard wearing silk textile used primarily for bed hangings and bed covers. Bourette takes and retains dyes beautifully as you will see from this offering.