LIGETUHR ARBEIT: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY COMPOUND MOUNTING

AND A FAMILY OF ASSOCIATED WEAVES

Patricia Hilts

One section in Marx Ziegler's Weber Kunst und Bild Buch of1677 gives directions for weaving with an unusual compound mounting. Ziegler's discussion is almost the only detailed working description of a loom mounting to be found in any weaving book published in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. 1 An examination of the loom mounting described by Ziegler may shed light upon the origins of and relationships among several weave structures that have recently attracted the attention of textile historians.

Ziegler entitled the section on weaving with a compound mounting "Ligetuhr Arbeit", which translated literally means "bound work". However, the term Ligetuhr referred to the manner in which pattern wefts were integrated into the cloth structure, and Ligetuhr Arbeit must not be confused with modern bound weave. "Ligetuhr" is related to the Italian word "legatura" (to bind) and to the Italian weaving terms "licci della legatura"(binding harness) and "punto di legatura"(binding point).2 Ziegler's discussion evidently reflected the influence of northern Italian silk weaving traditions in south Germany. Ziegler's home city of Ulm had very strong trade relations with northern Italy, and some histories of Ulm note that during the sixteenth century Italian silk weavers were brought to Ulm to help establish silk weaving in that city. Further reflecting the influence of Italian weaving was the fact that Ziegler specified "Orsoy" for the warp to be used in weaving Ligetuhr Arbeit. Commonly known in English as organzine, Orsoy is a silk especially twisted for warp; in Italian it is called either "organzino" or "orsoio".3

Northern European weavers in the seventeenth century were adapting silk-weaving techniques to fibers other than silk. Ziegler suggested that a variety of fibers might be suitable for weaving with the Ligetuhr Arbeit compound mounting. According to him, a weaver could use all silk or a mixture of silk and wool; or he could use a linen ground warp, silk binder warp, wool pattern weft, and either a silk or linen ground weft. I have examined several all-silk and partly-silk textiles ascribed to the seventeenth century that seem

ARS TEXTRINA 7 (1987), pp. 31-60

to have been woven in the manner that Ziegler described. Among these are a silk panel attributed to seventeenth-century Spain and several fragments from seventeenth-century Holland that are in the collections of the Art Institue of Chicago. The latter fragments were woven with a linen warp, a wool pattern weft and a secondary binder warp of silk. The pattern of one of the fabrics from Holland is closely related to the "flaming heart" pattern that Ziegler included in his section on Ligetuhr Arbeit. (Figure 1). In A History of Textile Art, Agnes Geijer cites another mixture, a sixteenth or seventeenth- century Italian lampas with a silk tabby ground and a cotton pattern weft bound in tabby.4 In the nineteenth century many fabrics in related structures were woven with a cotton ground warp and a wool pattern weft.

Ligetuhr Arbeit in Marx Ziegler's Weber Kunst und Bild Buch

Ziegler introduced Ligetuhr Arbeit by calling it "an entirely different mode [of weaving] and, moreover, a figured work," thus differentiating it from the twills and block patterns that occupied the greater part of his volume. In seventeenth-century German weaving terminology the word for figured was "geblumte", which had the general meaning of flowered. The technical meaning of geblumte implied a loom with a compound mounting — that is, a loom with a set of shafts at the front to control the fabric structure and an additional set at the rear to control the pattern. In such a loom the rear set of pattern shafts or mailes and leashes is called the "figure harness"5 . Ziegler devoted four of the fifty pages of his Weber Kunst und Bild Buch to Ligetuhr Arbeit; in these pages he included written instructions, threading diagrams, and tie-ups for several patterns. Ziegler noted that Ligetuhr Arbeit required two warps. He also wrote, somewhat enigmatically, that "you must weave like a ribbon maker".

[Ligetuhr Arbeit] must have 2 warps, one from linen thread or [other non-silk] yarn ... the other from Orsoy or good clean silk. [The silk warp] must be warped longer than the one from yarn ... . When you warp 5 ells of yarn you must warp 6 ells of silk .... The silk must be wound on a separate little beam.

When the work is black and white, you must have a black silk warp and a white linen warp; and likewise

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[you must have] a black and a white weft. The black weft should be of wool and will give the pattern; the white weft [should be] from silk or [non-silk] yarn and will give the background.

In the pattern mounting you must have 2 threads in a heddle, or still better, in 2 adjacent heddles. In addition [to the pattern mounting] you must have 2 front mountings. The one next to the pattern mounting holds the silk warp and has 2 shafts. The other front mounting also has 2 shafts and must have heddles with eyes 3 inches long.

To weave Ligetuhr Arbeit you must weave like the ribbon maker. Treadle the pattern with your right foot, the ground with your left; and when you treadle the pattern, put in the heavy weft. Treadle with the left foot, which has only 2 tabby treadles, and throw the counter weft of silk or [non-silk] yarn.6

Ligetuhr Arbeit brought the advantages of a compound mounting to shaft loom weavers.7 Modern weavers of complex fabrics are familiar with compound mountings, particularly those that are used for damask and interchanging free double cloth. However, the mounting that Ziegler used for Ligetuhr Arbeit was one that many twentieth-century weavers might find unusual. (Figure 2). In the compound mountings for damask and double cloth, all of the front shafts (five in the case of damask; four in the case of double cloth) are equipped with long-eyed heddles. Ligetuhr Arbeit also called for four front shafts, but only two were set up with long-eyed heddles. Ziegler specified that the first pair of shafts in the front mounting was to be equipped with long-eyed heddles, and that the remaining pair of shafts in the front mounting was to be equipped with regular heddles. Ziegler's distinction between the way that the two pairs of front shafts were set up was dictated by their function. The first pair of front shafts carried the main warp, which formed the tabby ground. The main warp was also entered into the pattern shafts at the back of the loom. The second pair of front shafts carried a secondary warp, whose special function was to "bind" down the pattern wefts into the tabby ground. Undoubtedly Ligetuhr Arbeit received its name because of the secondary or "binder" warp.

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In the passage quoted above, Ziegler gave explicit instructions for entering the two warps into the compound mounting. Pairs of ends from the main warp were first entered into one of the pattern shafts. Ziegler specified that in Ligetuhr Arbeit, contrary to the practice in ordinary weaving, both threads of the pair must be entered into the same shaft, either through a single heddle or through adjacent heddles. Once the ends of the main warp were entered into the pattern shafts, they were to be picked up again and entered tabby fashion into the long-eyed heddles on the front two shafts. Between pairs of main warp ends, a single end of binder warp was entered into a regular heddle on one of the binder shafts in the front mounting. The binder warps were entered sequentially so as to form a tabby independent of the main warp. A series of three diagrams in the Weber Kunst und Bild Buch illustrated the step-by-step sequence for entering the two warps. (Figure 3). The process began in diagram N37 with the entry of the main warp into the pattern shafts. The second diagram, N38, indicated how the ends of the binder warp were passed between pairs of ends from the main warp. The third diagram, N39, showed the completed warping sequence with the ends of the main warp entered into the long-eyed heddles.

Ziegler was less precise with respect to the details of the tie-up and treadling than he was regarding the loom mounting and the manner of entering the warp. In diagram N40, (Figure 3), Ziegler indicated a tie-up that joined each column, which represented a treadle of the pattern harness, alternately to one or the other of the two shafts that controlled the binder warp. Although this tie-up would give a workable cloth structure, the pattern would be squashed vertically unless the pattern weft were very heavy. Ziegler's diagram probably meant that the shafts carrying the binder warp were to be tied up to form a tabby independent of the pattern shafts. This arrangement is consistent with Ziegler's treadling instructions and allows for a well proportioned pattern.^ Diagram N40 gave no tie-up for the pair of shafts with long-eyed heddles, but the threading of these shafts also indicated that a tabby was intended. The net result of tieing up two independently-acting tabbies was that each of the four front shafts was tied individually to a treadle. Treadling of the pattern sheds required two feet, and perhaps this is what Ziegler meant by his phrase "you must treadle like the ribbon maker". With the one-shaft- to-one-treadle tie-up, a complete treadling cycle consisted of four sheds, two for tabby and two for pattern. The sequence began with the first ground weft put into the first tabby shed (shaft #1, Figure 2), and continued with a pattern weft inserted into a shed formed by

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a pattern treadle and the treadle controlling the first binder shaft (shaft #3). The next step in the treadling sequence was a ground weft in the second ground shed (shaft #2). The cycle was completed with a second pattern weft in the shed formed by treadling the pattern treadle again along with the second binder shaft (shaft #4).

In order to discover the outcome of Ziegler's instructions, I added a Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting to my own loom and wove a fabric sample. (Figure 4). The resulting fabric was a double cloth with free and tied areas whose face and back differed noticeably in appearance. The face of my sample showed a clean tabby background with a slightly raised pattern: the tabby was formed by the ground warp and its matching weft; the pattern was formed by a heavy weft floating over the tabby and bound by the secondary warp. The reverse side of the cloth showed a prominent ribbed effect wherever the ground warp and its weft were visible. Areas on the reverse side where the pattern weft was visible had a different structure from the pattern weft areas on the face. On the reverse side of the cloth, pattern weft areas formed the bottom layer of a free double cloth "pocket". On the face of the cloth, however, the pattern weft areas were bound down by binder warps coming up from the back.

My sample turned out to be structurally identical to the seventeenth- century Spanish silk in the Art Institute of Chicago. (Figure 5). Because of the fineness of the threads, much of the detail of the Spanish silk cannot be seen in ordinary viewing but must be examined under magnification. When examined closely, however, the face of the silk shows a clean tabby background with a pattern formed by heavy weft threads. As in my sample, the pattern wefts are bound into the tabby background by a fine binder warp in a matching color. The back of the Spanish silk shows a ribbed effect in the light colored ground areas, and, as in my sample, the heavy pattern wefts interact with the binder warps to create a separate layer that forms double cloth "pockets". The double cloth pockets give a noticeable three- dimensional effect when the entire fabric is viewed.

Textile historians have given the name Beiderwand 2:1 to coverlet fabrics having the same structure as that which results from following Ziegler's instructions for Ligetuhr Arbeit. The only difference between either my sample or the Spanish silk and Beiderwand 2:1 is that the Beiderwand pieces use the tabby areas as visual pattern and the heavy weft areas as visual ground, the exact reverse of the arrangement in Ligetuhr Arbeit.9 Ziegler's discussion proves not merely that the Beiderwand cloth structure was known in

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the seventeenth century, but more importantly that Beiderwand was woven on a compound mounting at that time. Because most modern weavers who have woven the Beiderwand structures have used a loom without a compound mounting, the role that this mounting played in earlier periods has not always been appreciated.

The Ligature family of weaves.

Although textile historians seldom have an opportunity to analyze how technology may have led weavers to create different types of fabrics, the kinds of looms available at particular periods must have played a role in the historical development of cloth structures. 10 We are thus led to speculate about the subsequent use of the loom mounting that Ziegler described in 1677. Evidence indicates that looms with a divided front mounting similar to the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting were known in ancient times. 11 However,we cannot be sure how familiar seventeenth-century weavers may have been with a specialized compound mounting having two shafts for carrying a binder warp and two shafts with long-eyed heddles. Roughly one hundred years after the Weber Kunst und Bild Buch, the article on silk in Diderot's Encyclopedic included a great many com - pound mountings with the front shafts arranged into two, three and even four functional divisions. One of the mountings in the Encyclopedic for weaving "simple figured tabby" resembled the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting, but the set-up in the Encyclopedic was used to produce pattern with a heavy warp thread rather than with heavy wefts as in Ligetuhr Arbeit. 12 The fact that the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting and others similar to it were associated with silk weaving suggests that the mounting might have been widely known through the diffusion of silk-weaving technology. The survival of many historical fabrics in the Beiderwand structure is also consistent with the widespread use of the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting.

The Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting possesses certain virtues that may have ensured its continued popularity long after the publication of Ziegler's Weber Kunst und Bild Buch. Compound mountings in general produce complex patterns with relatively few shafts, but the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting has additional advantages. It is easier to weave any given pattern in Beiderwand 2:1 on the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting than to weave the same pattern in interchanging double cloth on a double cloth mounting or to weave that pattern in damask on a damask mounting. Like the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting, the double cloth mounting has four shafts in the front harness, but the mounting for interchanging double cloth requires twice as many

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shafts in the pattern harness. Although a pattern woven in damask on the damask mounting needs only one more shaft than it does when woven in Beiderwand 2:1 on the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting, Beiderwand 2:1 on the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting is easier to enter and to treadle. Both damask and double cloth require all warp threads to be entered first into the heddles of the pattern harness and then into the long-eyed heddles of the ground harness; in Ligetuhr Arbeit, by contrast, the binder warp — one third of the total warp ends —needs to be entered only once. Treadling Beiderwand 2:1 on the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting puts less strain on the warp threads than does treadling damask or double cloth on their respective mountings. In the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting the long-eyed heddle shafts remain stationary and allow the pattern shed to be opened unhampered, rather than acting in opposition to the pattern harness as do the damask and double cloth mountings, which require some lifted threads to be pulled down and other non-lifted threads to be pulled up.

The above discussion leads to further speculation. If European weavers had, indeed, been accustomed to weaving with the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting, they almost certainly would have been led to create several different but related cloth structures. For reasons that I hope to make clear, I will call these structures members of the "ligature family". 13 (Figures 11 and 12). The Ligetuhr Arbeit loom mounting is the simplest case of a compound mounting that has a divided front harness with shafts reserved for carrying a separate binder warp. Since it has only two shafts on each front harness, a loom with a Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting cannot weave all fabrics with a binder warp, but it can advantageously weave several fabrics with a tabby ground and a pattern bound in tabby. Following textile historians who use the term lampas to describe a broad category of fabric structures with a binder warp, the ligature family may be considered a subset of the lampas weaves. 14 Such a classification brings together weaves with quite different structures, and the ligature family includes both fabrics that are generally considered to be double cloth and fabrics that are not double cloth. The ligature family even includes some weaves where the separateness of the binder warp is debatable.

Small changes in the tie-up and threading of the front harness of the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting yield the various members of the ligature family. As has been noted, the Beiderwand 2:1 structure arises directly from a tie-up in which each treadle of the front harness is

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tied up to a single shaft. The ribs on the reverse side of Beiderwand 2:1 appear because both the pattern shafts and the shafts carrying the binder warp are inactive when the tabby ground is treadled. Hence each binder thread floats along the underside of the cloth to create a rib. The distinctive double cloth pockets of Beiderwand 2:1 result from the fact that the binder warp and the pattern weft interact differently depending on whether the pattern weft floats over or under the ground warp. Whenever the pattern is treadled, some of the ground threads are lifted while others are not, and at the same time one binder shaft is lifted. In forming the pattern, the non-lifted ground threads are especially important. Where the pattern weft goes over the non-lifted ground warp, the lifted binder threads are trapped on top of the pattern weft. Where the pattern weft floats under the ground warp, there is nothing to trap the lifted binder warp threads, and they fall back to the underside to form a separate tabby layer with the pattern weft and the non-lifted binder threads. (Figure 6). With slight threading changes the one-shaft-to-one-treadle tie-up produces classic Beiderwand 4:1 and Beiderwand 3:1. (Figure 11). In these structures the binder warp behaves as in Beiderwand 2:1.

A minor change in the tie-up of the shafts in the front harness of the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting produces a fabric structure that has neither ribs nor pockets and thus has not usually been discussed by historians concerned with Beiderwand. Because Janet Gray Crosson seems to be the first to have described this structure in a historical context, I will call it "Crosson". 15 Coverlets in the Crosson structure are not uncommon in German areas of Pennsylvania, and the Moravian Museum in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has several examples. (Figure 9). The seventeenth-century fragment with the flaming heart design from the Art Institute of Chicago may be the same structure as Crosson since the double cloth pockets are not evident. However, the deterioration of the silk binder warp does not allow for a positive analysis of the weave. 16 Crosson weave is produced by tieing up the treadles for the ground weave so that a binder shaft rises along with each of the long-eyed heddle shafts. With this new tie-up each binder thread is paired with its adjacent ground thread so that the two rise and fall together. (Figure 7). As a consequence of this paired action, the binder and the ground threads do not form a true tabby, and the fine binder threads bury themselves in the ground, where they make their presence known only by faint vertical streaks. In some cases the streaks can disappear so completely that the weave could be mistaken for an interchanging double cloth whose layers were of different textures. Although

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Beiderwand 2:1 may legitimately be termed a double cloth, it is uncertain whether Crosson should be considered a double cloth. In favor of calling Crosson a double cloth is the fact that both binder warp and pattern weft can be removed and yet leave the tabby ground weave intact.

Retaining the tie-up used for Crosson and making a slight change in the threading (Figure 11), will give a structure in which the ground warp and binder warp interweave with the ground weft to form a true tabby. This weave has been described by Anderson, Gordon and Towner under the heading of the tied Beiderwand 2:1, and by Janet Gray Crosson under the heading 2 + 1A. 17 Examples of this structure survive from the seventeenth century, and during the nineteenth century many coverlets in tied Beiderwand 2:1 were woven in different areas of the United States and Canada. A good example from Pennsylvania is now in the collection of the Berks County Historical Society in Reading, Pennsylvania. (Figure 10). The ratio of one binder warp thread to two ground warp threads that Ziegler specified for the original Ligetuhr Arbeit is preserved in tied Beiderwand 2:1, but the order of entering the ground threads into the long-eyed heddles is changed so that the threading sequence reverses on each side of a binder thread. When forced into the ground weave as part of the tabby, the binder threads can no longer disappear by burying themselves as in Crosson, and their dual role as part ground and part binder causes ribs to form on both sides of the cloth as pattern wefts are drawn down into the ground weave. (Figure 8). Tied Beiderwand 2:1 is not a double cloth, and the separateness of the binder warp may not be apparent since the binder warp can no longer be removed without damaging the ground fabric. In both tied Beiderwand 4:1 and tied Beiderwand 3:1 the binder warp interweaves with the ground in the same manner as it does in tied Beiderwand 2:1. The tie-up for tied Beiderwand 4:1 is the same as for tied Beiderwand 2:1, and the threading reverses in the same manner as for tied Beiderwand 2:1, but tied Beiderwand 4:1 has an additional pair of ground warp threads between each pair of binder threads. In tied Beiderwand 3:1 the tie-up must be changed to accommodate the imbalance caused by using three ground threads between each pair of binder threads.

Another weave, tied Lithuanian, may be considered a member of the ligature family. Tied Lithuanian results from arranging the binder threads so that they lie next to each other and are followed with several pairs of ground threads. The tie-up for tied Lithuanian is the

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same as that used for Crosson. (Figure 11). Tied Lithuanian has prominent vertical ribs on both sides where the binder warp threads hold down pattern wefts, and, as with the tied Beiderwand structures, the binder warp threads are part of the tabby. In Keep Me Warm One Night, the compound mounting that Burnham and Burnham suggest for weaving their example of tied Lithuanian strongly resembles the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting. 18

The fact that different fabric structures can easily result from small changes in threading and tie-up of the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting is in itself no proof that these structures were connected historically or that any of them were first woven on that mounting. Ziegler's discussion proves only that Beiderwand 2:1 was woven on the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting, and I am aware of no comparable historical information regarding any of the other weaves. Yet, weavers may have been led from one weave structure to another as they experimented with different tie-ups and treadlings. No single one of the ligature structures is ideal for all purposes. The main advantage of Beiderwand 2:1 woven according to Ziegler's specifications is the clean appearance of the tabby ground and the sharp distinction between pattern and background. A serious disadvantage of Beiderwand 2:1 is that the take-up of the binder warp is uneven. Where large areas of pattern occur along the length of the warp, the uneven take-up of the binder warp becomes pronounced and leads to difficulty in beating up the ground. The Spanish silk from the Art Institute of Chicago shows an unevenness in the ground tabby caused by the difficulty of beating in the ground weft against differently tensioned areas of the warp. In a piece of my own weaving, which had large areas of vertical pattern, the disparities between different areas of pattern became so great that each block had to be weighted separately.

Weavers seeking to overcome the uneven take-up problem of Beiderwand 2:1 might naturally have been led to make the slight tie- up change that gives the Crosson structure. Crosson solves the uneven take-up problem, and the ground weave is almost as clean as Beiderwand 2:1; as an additional bonus, the back is free of ribs and presents the same clean background as the face. However, Crosson works well only if the binder threads are much finer than the ground threads. With binder threads approaching the size of the ground threads, the imperfect tabby of Crosson becomes noticeable. Arranging the threading draft so that the binder warp interweaves with the ground weft to form a perfect tabby gives tied Beiderwand

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2:1. Tied Beiderwand 2:1, however, has ribs on both sides and thus looses the clean background provided by Beiderwand 2:1 and Crosson.

Several different lines of reasoning might have led weavers to develop structures with widely spaced binder threads. The 4:1 and 3:1 spacing in the tied Beiderwand weaves may have been an attempt to give a cleaner looking ground by having fewer ribs. Beiderwand 4:1 and 3:1 could have arisen as seventeenth-century weavers sought to economize on the expensive silk that Ziegler recommended for the binder warp. On the other hand, perhaps, the longer pattern weft floats that result from more widely spaced binding points were intended to better display the sheen of silk or metallic pattern threads. The side-by-side arrangement of binding threads in tied Lithuanian may have come from an attempt to simplify the entry of brocading wefts.

Unfortunately, there is little written evidence either to confirm or to disconfirm the possible historical development that I have suggested. Nor, if weavers had, in fact, originated some of the above weaves on a loom with a Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting, is it entirely clear when the same structures began to be woven by other means. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, some weavers in northern Germany had begun to use a straight, i.e., non-compound mounting, to weave simple patterns in the ligature structures. Evidence for the change to a straight mounting exists in the very few conventional drafts for ligature structures that appear in manuscript pattern books. The pattern book of Greta Katrina Asmussen of Boel, dated 1796, contains a draft and tie-up that would appear to give the structure that 1 have called Crosson. The nineteenth-century pattern book of J.A.Imhoff in the Landis Valley Farm Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, contains a conventional draft and several matching block pattern tie-ups for the Crosson structure. Given the number of textiles woven in the ligature structures, one might have expected still more conventional drafts by the end of the eighteenth century. The Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum in Schleswig possesses a modest number of block-pattern textiles in Beiderwand 4:1 even though no draft for that structure appears in any of their substantial collection of weaving manuscripts. 19 A paucity of conventional drafts may indicate the continued use of the compound mounting even at the end of the eighteenth century. Weavers using the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting for patterns like those in the Weber Kunst und Bild Buch would need only the point paper tie-ups like

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the one for the flaming heart. (Figure 1). Similarly, those who wished to weave the ligature structures as block patterns on the compound mounting would need only the profile drafts and an indication of how the blocks were to be combined. Imhoff seemingly needed only one model draft for the Crosson weave; all of his remaining block pattern drafts were in profile, and he only indicated the detailed conventional tie-up for combined-block patterns.20

Conclusion.

One might wish for more documentation with regard to compound mountings. Historians interested in the ligature structures would do well to search manuscripts for evidence of conventional drafts for members of the ligature family as well as for evidence of the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting. Ligature fabrics should be sought in areas other than North America and northern Germany, and fabrics in all fibers should be examined. In analyzing textiles one should pay particular attention to the binder warp since in weaves like Crosson the binder threads can easily disappear into the ground. Finally, advanced weavers might find it useful to weave on a variety of compound mountings as a conceptual aid to understanding weave structures and their relationships to each other. Quite aside from their bearing on historical problems, compound mountings open up a multitude of design possibilities.

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END NOTES

1. A reprint of Ziegler's section on Ligetuhr Arbeit appeared in Nathaniel Lumscher's Des Neu-erfundenen Weber Kunst und

BildBuch, Vierter Theil, of 1736, and the only other discus - sion of a loom mounting in the eighteenth-century German weaving books was a description of a drawloom in Lumscher's Neu-eingerichtetes Weber Kunst und Bild Buch, Vormahls heraus gegeben von Marx Ziegler, published in 1708.

2. An additional related term is "catena di legatura" (binder warp). See Dorothy K. Burnham, Warp and Weft: A Textile Terminology, (Toronto, Canada: Royal Ontario Museum, 1980), pp. 6-7.

3. Burnham, Warp and Weft, p. 93. Max Heiden, Hand - worterbuch der Textilkunde, (Stuttgart, Germany: Verlag von Ferdinand Enke, 1904), p. 376 and p. 384.

4. Agnes Geijer, A History of Textile Art, (London: Southeby Parke Bernet, 1979), Plate 52B.

5. Harness is used in the sense of a set of shafts or mailes together with their lifting mechanism and not in the sense that many North American weavers now use the term.

6. In this case, ground seems to refer to the binder warp.

7. Although Ziegler's discussion of Ligetuhr Arbeit is entirely based upon shaft looms with treadles, he also mentions the possibility of using some sort of draw harness arrangement. Regarding one pattern requiring 25 shafts and 40 treadles, he noted, "This must be drawn".

8. In examining several seventeenth-century textiles I have not been able to confirm whether the tie-up suggested by Ziegler was actually used. The Beiderwand 2:1 interlacement would result whether or not this tie-up, which requires the pattern combination to change with each change of the binder, was used.

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9. One fragment in the Art Institute of Chicago indicates that the heavy weft was used for visual pattern in the seventeenth century. The piece is a block pattern showing green pine trees in red pots alternating with red pine trees in green pots. The colored pattern wefts make conspicuous stripes at the back which do not work well visually to give white pine trees on a striped red and green ground. (Catalogue #1907.556). In Warp and Weft, Dorothy Burnham cites brocatelle as a lampas-woven fabric with a ground formed by heavy wefts. Perhaps later Beiderwand pieces were woven according to the brocatelle model.

10. Milton Sonday speculates on the role of looms in the development of fabric structures in, "What can we learn from a fabric about the loom on which it might have been woven?", Looms and Their Products: Irene Emery Roundtable on Museum Textiles, 1977 Proceedings, (Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum, 1979), pp. 242-256.

11. M.M. El-Homossani, "Double-harness techniques employed in Egypt", Ars Textrina 3 (May, 1985), pp. 229-268.

12. Diderot Encyclopedia, the Complete Illustrations1762-1777, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1978) Vol. IV, Plate 2796.

13. The word ligature has been used for some textiles that may differ in structure from the members of the ligature family mentioned in this article. Max Heiden, Handworterbuch der Textilkunde, p. 330. Encyclopedic ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des Sciences, des Arts et des Metiers, Nouvelle Edition, (Geneva, 1773) Vol. 20, p. 14.

14. Burnham, Warp and Weft, p. 82.

15. Janet Gray Crosson, Let's Get Technical: An Overview of Pennsylvania Jacquard Coverlets: 1830-1860,(Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Janet Gray Crosson, 1978), pp. 10- 12.

16. During the Fourth Annual Conference on Textiles and Complex Weaves in Winnipeg, Canada (1986), Clarita Anderson commented on the fact that she and an Art Institute of Chicago staff member were unable to find the pockets that would indicate the Beiderwand 2:1 structure.

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17. Clarita Anderson, Judith Gordon, Naomi Whiting Towner, Weave Structures Used in North American Coverlets,(Olney, Maryland: Clarita Anderson, Judith Gordon, Naomi Whiting Towner, 1979), pp. 52-55. Crosson, Let's Get Technical, pp. 8-10.

18. Harold B. Burnham and Dorothy K. Burnham, Keep Me Warm One Night, (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1972), p. 281.

19. The collections of the museum include the manuscript of Greta Katrina Asmussen.

20. However, it is also easy to convert profile drafts into the conventional form for the ligature weaves.

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Lig

etuh

r Arb

eit s

ectio

n.

1987

Art

Ins

titut

e of

Chi

cago

. C

atal

ogue

#19

70.6

42.

Figu

re I

B.

Flam

ing

Hea

rts

patte

rn.

Thi

s is

num

ber

46A

fro

m Z

iegl

er's

Lig

etuh

r Arb

eit.

The

patte

rn r

equi

res

25 s

haft

s an

d 40

"tr

eadl

es".

Z

iegl

er s

tate

d th

at th

is p

atte

rn "

mus

t be

draw

n",

poss

ibly

indi

catin

g th

at th

e 44

tre

adle

s re

quir

ed (

4 tr

eadl

es f

or th

e fr

ont h

arne

ss a

nd 4

0 fo

r th

e fig

ure

harn

ess)

wer

e m

ore

than

wer

e av

aila

ble

on lo

oms

then

in u

se.

LIGETUHR ARBEIT LOOM MOUNTING1 1

~^-——— (

1

1

— —~,

H

,•

•

P^

•

•

H

i

i

H

I

1

^

•

GROUND SHED

£main warp beam ,

\. dshafts with long—eyed heddles

binder pattern ,. , ,, .. ^, ., binder warp beamshafts shafts

PATTERN SHED

LJ

o—— ground warp — — binder warp

Figure 2. Ligetuhr Arbeit loom mounting. The diagram at the top shows the loom action when a ground shed is treadled. Only the long-eyed heddles carrying the ground warp are active. The diagram at the bottom shows the loom action when a pattern shed is treadled. The long-eyed heddles remain stationary and allow the pattern shed to be opened unhampered. The binder threads pass only through the regular heddles of the binder shafts. The ground warp threads pass both through the heddles on the pattern shafts and through the long-eyed heddles on the shafts of the ground harness.

48

A ]

Figu

re 3

A.

Zieg

ler's

dia

gram

for e

nter

ing

and

tiein

g up

Lig

etuh

r Arb

eit.

The

first

pair

of sh

afts

(at t

he b

otto

m) a

re la

bele

d "f

ront

har

ness

with

long

eyes

". Th

e se

cond

pai

r of

sha

fts (

mid

dle)

is la

bele

d "f

ront

har

ness

for

silk

". A

ll of

the

rem

aini

ng s

hafts

(top

) are

for p

atte

rn.

N37

show

s ent

ry o

f the

gro

und

war

p in

to

the

patte

rn h

arne

ss;

N38

sho

ws

entry

of

the

bind

er w

arp;

N39

sho

ws

the

com

plet

ed th

read

ing

with

the

grou

nd w

arp

ente

red

thro

ugh

both

pat

tern

har

ness

an

d gr

ound

har

ness

. Zi

egle

r exp

ecte

d hi

s rea

ders

to u

nder

stand

that

pai

rs o

f end

s w

ould

be

ente

red

on a

ll of

the

shaf

ts of

the

patte

rn h

arne

ss.

(The

dra

win

g co

ntai

ns s

ever

al e

rrors

.) N

40 is

the

tie-u

p fo

r the

pat

tern

trea

dles

. Th

is tie

-up

impl

ies o

nly

one p

atte

rn w

eft f

or ea

ch p

atte

rn co

mbi

natio

n, a

n ar

rang

emen

t tha

t w

ould

wor

k str

uctu

rally

, but

coul

d di

stort

the p

atter

n un

less t

he p

atte

rn w

eft w

ere

very

hea

vy in

rela

tion

to th

e gr

ound

thre

ads.

Figu

re 3

B. M

oder

n th

read

ing

diag

ram

for L

iget

uhr A

rbeit

. H

oriz

onta

l lin

es ar

e sh

afts;

ver

tical

line

s are

war

p th

read

s. Ea

ch d

ot in

dica

tes a

thre

ad en

tere

d in

to a

sh

aft.

The

grou

nd w

arp

pass

es th

roug

h bo

th th

e pa

ttern

sha

fts a

nd th

e sh

afts

with

long

-eye

d he

ddles

. Th

e bin

der w

arp

pass

es th

roug

h on

ly o

ne se

t of s

hafts

.

LIGE

TUHR

ARB

EIT

THRE

ADIN

G

grou

nd •

war

p

patte

rn

shaf

ts

bind

er

shaf

tslo

ng-e

yed

hedd

le s

haft

s

bind

er w

arp

B

Figure 4(a). Face of a sample woven to test the outcome of Ziegler's directions for weaving Ligetuhr Arbeit. The resulting fabric is a double cloth with free and tied areas. The face shows a clean tabby ground (light) with a slightly raised pattern (dark).

50

Figure 4(b). Back of a sample woven to test the outcome of Ziegler's directions for weaving Ligetuhr Arbeit. The ground areas of the back show the ribbed effect and double cloth pockets that characterize Beiderwand 2:1.

51

Fig

ure

5(a)

. Se

vent

eent

h-ce

ntur

y Sp

anish

silk

. A

— F

ace.

The

face

of t

his

blue

and

ye

llow

Spa

nish

silk

has

a c

lean

tabb

y gr

ound

wea

ve w

ith a

slig

htly

raise

d pa

ttern

bou

nd in

tab

by.

The

unev

enne

ss in

the t

abby

gro

und

is ca

used

by

diffe

rent

rate

s of t

ake-

up in

the

bind

er

warp

. 19

87 A

rt In

stitu

te o

f Chi

cago

. Ca

talo

gue #

1926

.141

58.

en ui

Fig

ure

5(b)

. Se

vent

eent

h-ce

ntur

y Sp

anish

silk

. B

— B

ack.

Th

e ba

ck h

as a

rib

bed

appe

aran

ce w

here

the

grou

nd w

eave

is v

isibl

e. Pa

ttern

wef

t are

as o

n th

e ba

ck a

re th

e bo

ttom

la

yer o

f fre

e dou

ble c

loth

poc

kets.

198

7 A

rt In

stitu

te o

f Chi

cago

. Ca

talo

gue #

1926

.141

58.

BEIDERWAND 2:1Face

Background AreaPattern Area

Back

GROUND WARP Q GROUND TOFT

BINDER WARP • PATTERN WEPT

Figure 6. Cross section of Beiderwand 2:1. The left side shows the interaction of the binder warp and the pattern wefts as they form pattern areas on the face of the cloth. The right shows how the double cloth pockets are formed where the pattern weft floats at the back of the cloth. The long convoluted path that the binder warp takes in the pattern areas on the face of the cloth explains the need for the extra length ratio of 6:5 that Ziegler recommended for the binder warp. Note that although the binder warp passes up and down between pairs of ground wefts, it never actually interweaves with the ground weft. See Figure 11 for threading and tie-up.

54

Pattern Area

CROSSONFace

Background Area

Back

GROUND WARP Q GROUND WEFT

( \ BINDER WARP • PATTERN WEFT

Figure 7. Cross section of Crosson. This weave structure results from tieing up the front shafts of the Ligetuhr Arbeit mounting so that the binder warp threads rise and fall together with their adjacent ground threads. The binder warp interweaves with the ground weft but does not form a perfect tabby. The fineness and position of the binder warp threads allow them to bury themselves and thus disappear in the ground. Face and back of the cloth are the same. See Figure 11 for threading and tie-up.

55

TIED BEIDERWAND 2:1Face

Pattern Area Background Area

Back

GROUND WARP O GROUND TOFT

( \ BINDER WARP • PATTERN WEFT

Figure 8. Cross section of tied Beiderwand 2:1. This structure results from arranging the threading so that the binder warp interweaves with the ground wefts to form a perfect tabby. The binder warp thus becomes part of the ground; and in its dual role as binder and ground, the binder warp forces pattern wefts into the ground to form ribs. Face and back of the cloth are the same. See Figure 11 for threading and tie-up.

56

Figure 9. Susana Harris coverlet. This coverlet is woven in the Crosson structure. The binder warp threads can be seen clearly at the center of the picture where the pattern weft has worn away. The faint vertical streaks in the ground are the only indication that the binder warp threads interweave with the ground. See Figure 7 for the cross section. Courtesy, Moravian Museum and Tours, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Catalogue #A269-1.

57

HMfflr

flHi

ii

Figu

re 1

0. G

. Ren

ner a

nd P

. Lei

dig

cove

rlet.

This

cove

rlet i

s wov

en in

Tie

d Be

ider

wan

d 2:

1. In

Tie

d Be

ider

wan

d 2:

1 th

e bi

nder

war

p th

read

s int

erw

eave

with

the

grou

nd to

form

a p

erfe

ct

tabb

y, a

nd th

e ve

rtica

l rib

s ar

e fo

rmed

by

the

bind

er w

arp

pulli

ng p

atte

rn w

efts

into

the

tabby

gr

ound

. Se

e Fi

gure

8 f

or th

e cr

oss

sect

ion.

Co

urte

sy,

Berk

s Co

unty

Hist

oric

al S

ocie

ty,

Read

ing,

Pen

nsyl

vani

a. Ca

talo

gue #

74.9

.

THE

LIG

ATU

RE

FAM

ILY

OF

WEA

VES

NAM

E

Bei

derw

and

2:1

Cros

son

Tied

Bei

derw

and

2:1

Tied

Bei

derw

and

3:1

Tied

Bei

derw

and

4:1

Beid

erw

and

3:1

Beid

erw

and

4:1

Tied

Lith

uani

an

TIE

-UP

THRE

ADIN

G E

= r

egul

ar h

eddl

es

[±l=

long

— ey

ed h

eddl

es

1 \ 3 4 > 1 \ 4 1 1 4 1+ 0 + 0 •*• + 0 + + + o ++ 0 + 0 •i- 0 0 +_ a _+ + + D +

B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 n 0

4- 3 2 1 ^ 4- 3 2 1 j 4 q )! -

/ 1- 4 2 1 H

4C 3 2 1 H

< "

J- t 3- 4 i-+ •»•h

•1- ^ •fh

+ +h

+f

•••f

) 0 D + + + + +

+ •)• + D + ? + +

+ + + + 3 •»• C 0

) 0 u + •f + + 0

+ + + + +

0 •f 0 + •(•

+

0

+ •»•

0 +0

0

STRU

CTUR

AL C

HARA

CTER

ISTI

CS

POCK

ETS

RIBS

CO

MM

ENTS

yes

no no no no yes

yes

no

yes

no ye»

yes

yea

yes

yes

yes

ribs

on b

ack

slig

ht s

trea

kine

st

in g

roun

d

ribs

on b

oth

sides

libs

on b

oth

side

s

ribs

on b

oth

side

s

ribs

on b

ack

ribs

on b

ack

ribs

on b

oth

side

s

Figu

re 1

1.

LIG

ETU

HR

AR

BE

IT

WIT

HIN

TH

E LA

MPA

S FA

MIL

Y

LAM

PAS

OR

TISS

UE

SATIN

GRO

UND]

TA

BB

Y

GR

OU

ND

LJBE

IDE

RW

AN

D

2:1

BE

IDE

RW

AN

D

3:1

BEID

ERW

AND

4:

1

TIE

D

BE

IDE

RW

AN

D

2:1

TIE

D

BE

IDE

RW

AN

D

3:1

TIE

D

BE

IDE

RW

AN

D

4:1

TIED

LIT

HU

ANIA

N

Figu

re 1

2.