The story of the reconstruction of the canvas as used by Diego Velázquez for 'Saint John in the Wilderness'

The story of the reconstruction of the canvas as used by Diego Velázquez for 'Saint John in the Wilderness'

Once we dive into research we find more and more...( see my earlier post)
After being excited that El Greco had painted on a canvas with a pattern I found a publication by Frank Zuccari in which was published a graphic of the pattern of the canvas as used by Diego Velázquez for 'Saint John in the Wilderness'
So now I had to write the weaving draft by myself, but I was lucky to find the German weaving manual 'Marx Ziegler's Kunst und Bild Buch' of 1677 with similar patterns as the canvases.
Chris Bruland (handwaving.net) wrote these patterns as a Weaving Information Format and that made it easier for me to find the correct draft for the canvas pattern as used by Diego Velázquez.

I have successfully reconstructed the canvas that stood in front of Diego Velázquez before he started painting 'Saint John in the Wilderness' with the thread counts as given in the article.
A sample of the textile, handwoven @ Lab O is in the assumption file of the Art Institute of Chicago

reconstruction of the support canvas

source

graphic of the pattern

weaving information draft created on Weavelt software

reconstruction woven in linen on wooden hand loom @ Lab O

'Saint John in the Wilderness' by Diego Velázquez,
175,3 cm x 152,5 cm Art Institute of Chicago

..Great Masters have been very important in the process of my research and reconstructions @ Lab O !!! One of them is my master teacher and friend Julie Holyoke. I was her student in 1999 for the first time at the Lisio Foundation in Florence, Italy. It has been her great knowledge and capacity to teach the Jacquard textile design that fascinated me to go deeper in the complex world of textures. I stayed with the her Dobby loom, the one that she has been involved in to construct in the 1985's; the first AVL computer aided Dobby loom. The canvases I am weaving now are on that loom; it works perfectly with a Mac Plus computer and I am keeping it up in that combination. During the years I had the priviledge to learn more and more from her about textile design in shorter or longer term periods. It was in November 2017 that she encouraged and prepared me to apply for membership of CIETA, the highly recommended organisation for study of ancient textiles. Thank you so much Julie, without you I would never have come so far

Helena Loermans has been a weaver since 1960. Self-taught, she has also studied at the highest technical levels. Now a member of CIETA, she has run a studio in Odemira, Portugal since 2000 for the purposes of creative experimentation, exhibition, teaching, research, and private sale.

Lab O, a research laboratory focusing on the hand- woven patterned canvases used by the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Old Masters.

Lab O opens the possibility for painting conservators to assist a workshop to understand how a linen canvas is woven on handlooms.

The very first reconstruction was of the diamond pattern textile seen by El Greco before he painted 'The Burial of the Count of Orgaz', and was presented in the 'Igreja Misericórdia' in Odemira on 17 June 2016.

The most recent study is about Diego Velázquez

'Supper at Emmaus' , painted on a patterned canvas. I am analysing the x-ray image, courtesy of the Department of Paintings Conservation.

Earlier are the handwoven reconstructions of the the canvas Diego Velázquez saw before painting 'Saint John in the Wilderness'; and what Titian had in front of him as he painted 'the Vendramin Family'

The project follows in the footsteps of the old masters and weavers, connecting craft, art, history and science and has developed since 2015, when Marta Pokojowczyk attended Helena Loermans Handwoven Textiles Atelier in Portugal under the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Programme.