About toile

Remember a while back when I was talking about how I needed to look up the definition of toile, because I was confused? Well, I never did remember to do that, but these nice people did it for me.

The term toile is French for cotton fabric printed by any process. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the word became the generic term for the cottons printed with engraved metal plates, and later, rollers. The printing technique was begun near Dublin, Ireland, by Francis Nixon in the early 1750s and was further imporved upon by the French in the 1770s. At Jouy-en-Josas near Paris, the Oberkampf factory established an international reputation for fine toiles know as Toiles de Jouy. Printing ceased at Oberkampf in 1843.

Generally there were two categories of designs: people and places (ladies and gentlemen, children playing, pastoral scenes) and flora and fauna. These prints were only briefly popular for women's dresses (circa 1790) but were used for furnishings, bed and window coverings, pillows and quilts.

Early design elements were very large. The etched plates were often three feet square and the figures could be a foot high while entire scenes filled the plate. When the process moved to copper rollers rather than plates, the designs became "squashed" in order to fit onto the rollers.

Printed toiles were often one color. The copper plates were not inked but had finely ground mordants in the etched lines of the plates. The mordant was transferred to the surface of fabric. The length of the 'printed' fabric was then run through a madder dye bath. Depending on the mordant used, the design was red, violet, pink or brown/tan on an off-white or cream ground. A very finely ground indigo mixture produced a blue or green print on the light colored ground.

Once again, toiles became popular decorating fabrics early in the twentieth century during the Colonial Revival. Today toiles are used extensively for quilts, duvet covers, pillows, curtains, and handbags and once again for garments!