A pair of passementerie curtain tiebacks in the French manner, each carrying a single tassel on a long twisted cord.
Each head is a turned mould wrapped in fine ecru silk thread laid in close horizontal courses, banded with rose and coral corded verticals, and overlaid at the waist with a diamond lattice of burgundy cord through which a band of gold silk shows in the openings. A ruff of dense moss-green cut velvet sits above the head and a second, deeper ruff below it, giving the tassel its stepped profile.
The skirt is worked in ecru bullion — tightly twisted silk cords hanging free — interleaved with looped picot braid in burgundy and gold and hung with a ring of small ornamental drops, each a miniature tassel with a wrapped ball head in gold, coral or olive. The suspension cord is a two-tone twist of sage and rose.
This is deep, layered passementerie work of the kind made for formal curtain treatments, with every element built up by hand: wrapped moulds, laid courses, netted lattice, and a skirt assembled in tiers rather than cut from a single fringe.
The colours have mellowed with age into the soft moss, ecru and faded rose that make old passementerie worth having; the palette is quieter now than the day it left the workroom, and that is the state collectors and decorators look for.
Sourcing: acquired as part of a French château group, and attributed by the source to the nineteenth century. Offered here on that basis. The tiebacks themselves carry no maker's mark, label or date.
MEASUREMENTS
Tassel: 7 in / 17.8 cm
Fringe skirt: 4 in / 10.2 cm
Widest point: 2.5 in / 6.4 cm
Cord: approximately 60 in / 152.4 cm
Sold as a pair, one tassel to each tieback
CONDITION
Sold in used antique condition. Both tassels are structurally sound with the heads firm, the wrapping intact, the lattice unbroken and the skirts mostly full. Colours throughout have softened and toned with age. There is reddish-brown patching across the moss velvet ruffs on both tassels, general dust and soiling, and scattered loose and lifted threads through the bullion and the ornamental drops, with one longer loose thread at the skirt of one tassel.
Photographed and sold as found. Please review all images, which form part of the condition description.
A pair of passementerie curtain tiebacks in the French manner, each carrying a single tassel on a long twisted cord.
Each head is a turned mould wrapped in fine ecru silk thread laid in close horizontal courses, banded with rose and coral corded verticals, and overlaid at the waist with a diamond lattice of burgundy cord through which a band of gold silk shows in the openings. A ruff of dense moss-green cut velvet sits above the head and a second, deeper ruff below it, giving the tassel its stepped profile.
The skirt is worked in ecru bullion — tightly twisted silk cords hanging free — interleaved with looped picot braid in burgundy and gold and hung with a ring of small ornamental drops, each a miniature tassel with a wrapped ball head in gold, coral or olive. The suspension cord is a two-tone twist of sage and rose.
This is deep, layered passementerie work of the kind made for formal curtain treatments, with every element built up by hand: wrapped moulds, laid courses, netted lattice, and a skirt assembled in tiers rather than cut from a single fringe.
The colours have mellowed with age into the soft moss, ecru and faded rose that make old passementerie worth having; the palette is quieter now than the day it left the workroom, and that is the state collectors and decorators look for.
Sourcing: acquired as part of a French château group, and attributed by the source to the nineteenth century. Offered here on that basis. The tiebacks themselves carry no maker's mark, label or date.
MEASUREMENTS
Tassel: 7 in / 17.8 cm
Fringe skirt: 4 in / 10.2 cm
Widest point: 2.5 in / 6.4 cm
Cord: approximately 60 in / 152.4 cm
Sold as a pair, one tassel to each tieback
CONDITION
Sold in used antique condition. Both tassels are structurally sound with the heads firm, the wrapping intact, the lattice unbroken and the skirts mostly full. Colours throughout have softened and toned with age. There is reddish-brown patching across the moss velvet ruffs on both tassels, general dust and soiling, and scattered loose and lifted threads through the bullion and the ornamental drops, with one longer loose thread at the skirt of one tassel.
Photographed and sold as found. Please review all images, which form part of the condition description.
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