The Khalili Collection of Swedish Textiles is a private collection of textile art assembled by the British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser D. Khalili. The collection was built up over a period of 25 years and contains 100 works. It is one of eight collections assembled, conserved, published and exhibited by Khalili, each of which is considered among the most important in its field. In 2008 it was described as "the only extensive collection of Swedish flatweaves outside the country". The collection consists mostly of textile panels, cushion and bed covers from the Scania region of southern Sweden, dating in the main from a hundred-year period between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries. The majority of the pieces in the collection were made for wedding ceremonies in the region. While they played a part in the ceremonies, they were also a reflection of the artistry and skill of the weaver. Their designs often consist of symbolic illustrations of fertility and long life. Khalili writes that he created the collection because of the tendency of art historians and the public to undervalue art whose creators are anonymous.
Background: the high era of Swedish textile art
Handwoven textile art flourished in Scania from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Employment in Scania was mainly in farming, and the early eighteenth century was a time of relative peace and prosperity for farmers, with far fewer epidemics than previously. The women of land-owning families, with the skills for making clothes and furnishings, thus had the leisure time and materials to make textiles with a focus on beauty rather than for use as covering. These textiles would usually be kept in a wooden chest, only brought out for special occasions or for airing. Wealthy farms would often have a dedicated chamber for these chests.
The creators of these works were exclusively women: farmers' wives, other female members of the family, or occasionally maids. Some works bear initials, but the identity of the creators is unknown. The creation of a dowry was an important tradition, and for each wedding the bride would demonstrate her skill by creating unique textiles with symbolic decorations. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the collections were mostly sold off and put to everyday use, subjecting them to wear. Only a few thousand works from this period survive intact to the present day.
Techniques and designs
Dove-tail tapestry, also called ("Flemish weave"): these are named for the joins between areas of colour, where weft threads of different areas connect around the same warp thread. This technique was common among wealthy Malmö households from the mid sixteenth century to the mid eighteenth. Many tapestries from this era have been lost in war and in fires. These tapestries are usually pictorial, depicting people, animals or flowers on a dark background. Religious scenes, especially the Annunciation, were common subjects. Hunting was another common subject. Interlocked tapestry or (various spellings): double interlocked tapestry, in which the weft threads interlock on the reverse of the textile, was a common technique in southern Sweden. Designs of these tapestries were typically geometrical, including stars, rosettes and octagons. Zig-zag patterns representing lightning, in a variety of colours and widths, were commonly used as both a motif and a background pattern. Interlocked tapestries mostly used linen for the warp threads and wool for the weft, with other fibres like hemp, jute, and cotton used much less frequently. Simple weaves: simple weaves with little or no pattern were normally used for parts of fabrics, including backings or foundations to which more decorative layers would be added. Weft patterning: in continuous weft patterning, weft threads do not turn at the edge of a motif. In extra-weft patterning, the pattern is produced by an additional set of weft threads. This is an old technique, dating back to Viking times, and was often used for the backs of textiles whose fronts were created with interlocked tapestry. There are several distinct styles of extra-weft patterning, including ("crab-snare"), ("half-crab"), ("monk's belt"), ("up-catch") and ("table-path"). Knotted-pile weaves: (piled weavings) were common as cushion or bed covers from the eighteenth century onwards. Coloured wool was wrapped around pairs of warp threads to create the pile surface, either by being cut or left as loops. Embroideries: these can be ("wool embroidery"), which have an embroidered pattern on a plain background, or ("cross-stitch") and ("twist-stitch") which involve a fully-embroidered surface.