Ways of Seeing Early Modern Decorative Textiles

This article reviews and analyses the activities and findings of an AHRC research network, Ways of Seeing the English Domestic Interior, 1500-1700; the case of decorative textiles (2012-13). Critically evaluating the results of four network events, the paper situates them within a broader investigation of the central role of decorative textiles in shaping the experience of domestic interiors in the past and present. In the first publication of its kind, we explore the historiography and current range of approaches to the study, interpretation, and exhibition of historic textiles and analyse the insights offered by bringing together different disciplinary and professional perspectives. We argue for the key significance of these textiles for both historical and modern perceptions of the domestic interior, and contend that it is necessary to pursue innovative, collaborative, cross-disciplinary approaches to researching them in order to understand how they functioned in the early modern period and to inform new directions for their display and presentation in the present.