Fabrique de Saint Ruf, Lyon, France - Design for Embroidered or Woven Motifs of the Fabrique de St. Ruf - 1805–1815 - T-Shirt

This small horizontal study gathers a single floral group in pale, lilac-tinged white against a warm ochre-brown ground.

Visual Elements & Composition

Ochre brown fills most of the sheet, with the white forms reserved within it. At the left, a simple daisy with a ring of pointed petals sits at the end of a slender stem with a small bud. Beside it, a fuller rose-like bloom has rounded petals layered around a centre shaded with fine crosshatching. Two large serrated leaves sweep upward and curl toward the right edge, their margins picked out with short notched strokes. A circular stamp is impressed in the lower right corner, and a narrow pale border frames the whole.

Meaning & Symbolism

The contrast between the open daisy and the fuller bloom gives the group its rhythm, and the curling foliage anchors it. The motif belongs to the naturalistic floral vocabulary of the early nineteenth century. It is dated 1805 to 1815 and linked to the Fabrique de Saint Ruf in Lyon, where silk workshops produced figured and embroidered goods for the fashionable market. Studies like this were the working material from which such patterns were built, a unit a designer could repeat or combine into a larger design.

Designed to Be Read Up Close

Because the composition is a self-contained unit rather than a continuous field, it suits a garment that is seen as a whole. On this Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee, the group sits as one complete arrangement, its daisy, bloom and curling leaves legible at a glance. The pale forms on the dark ground stay crisp at close range, so the stem, bud and crosshatched centre can be picked out by anyone standing near the wearer.