Table Carpet

Bradford table carpet. Linen canvas, embroidered with silk thread in tent stitch, England, early 17th century. Bradford table carpet. Linen canvas, embroidered with silk thread in tent stitch, England, early 17th century. Copyright Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. T.134-1928.

A table carpet may be a thick, decorative textile placed over a table. Although called a carpet, it needs neither to be made with a pile nor placed on the floor. Such ‘carpets’ were removed or covered with a linen cloth when the table was in use. This type of table covering was popular in Europe from at least the fifteenth century onwards.

Famous English examples of embroidered table carpets are the Bradford table carpet and the Tobit table carpet.

See also the Needles entries on table cloth and table runner.

V&A online catalogue (retrieved 22 June 2016).

GVE

Last modified on Wednesday, 15 March 2017 15:08
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