French 18th Century Soft Raspberry Silk Bourette Pillow

A soft raspberry colored pillow made from an 18th century French silk bourette a pure silk with slight nubs woven from the rough outer parts of the cocoon in Cevennes in clean mint condition.        (5 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.