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Art Weaving in Valdres–Part Four

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By Karin Mellbye Gjesdahl 

The following is part four of an article by Karin Melbye Gjesdahl, “Weaving in Valdres” [“Vevkunst I Valdres”] published in Valdres Bygdebok, Vol. 5, 1964, pp. 59-74. (A bygdebok is a compilation of local history.) Translated by Lisa Torvik, 2021. (Part one. Part two. Part three.)

From Øystre Slidre there is also a cushion and a pillow cover on which a vase with stylized flowers, grape bunches and clusters of leaves are represented. (O.K. 8038 and 6041).  This was a favorite motif during the 1500s and 1600s but these [examples] must be relatively later works since the motif is highly stylized and disorganized.  It is even doubtful that the cushion cover is of Norwegian origin at all.   That is to say it is woven with interlocking technique, not the usual hatching technique which is for the most part used in Norwegian tapestry weaving.  The yellow-brown and blue-green colors in which it is woven are in any case associated with more urban-influenced works.

We have also preserved a number of pillow covers from Valdres with almost geometric patterns.  It will be going too far afield  to discuss each one separately. – We have eight-petaled roses in octagonal frames (fig. 29) or placed in a stair-stepped rectangle set on edge (fig. 30) and crossed lilies arranged in the same way (fig. 31).  The one with the stair-stepped rectangles has essentially the same motif as the borders on the dated virgin-design covers.  Even though these geometric motifs are ancient in textile art, all these pillow covers are of a relatively later date.  One is from Skogstad, and another from Nygard [both] in Vang.  The latter is very monotonous in tones, using only gold and blue colors with a little black and white, while several of the other [covers] are woven in bright colors.

Fig. 29.Pillow cover in tapestry weaving (40 x 45 cm.)  Valdres Folk Museum (1295). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021025595820/putetrekk

Fig. 30. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving. (47 x 41 cm.) Valdres Folk Museum (701). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021025595783/putetrekk

Fig. 31. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Skogstad, Vang (57 x 48 cm.) Valdres Folk Museum (3879). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028601845/putetrekk

A couple of the pillow covers are designed with large, nearly octagonal frames with an eight-petaled rose in the center and S-shaped figures all around (fig. 32).  The octagonals consist of a broad striped border, a motif which we often find on the pillow covers from Trøndelag.  One of these pillow covers comes from Vang [in Valdres] (NF 224-99).  We also find the same striped frames on another pillow case, constructed of rectangles set on end with crosses and S-shaped figures (fig. 33).  All in all it appears that we can detect in the Valdres works certain features that are characteristic of tapestry weaving in South Trøndelag. The large, pointed crowns on some of the virgin-design pillow covers and the stair-stepped borders, for example, are features which we also find in tapestry weaving from South Trøndelag. Has there been a connection here, or is it just a result of both districts depending on models from Gudbrandsdal? 

 

Fig. 32. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Vang [in Valdres] (54 x 47 cm.) Norwegian National Folk Museum (224-99) .https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023126629/putetrekk

Fig. 33. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Valdres (60 x 55 cm.)  County Museum in Skien [Telemark Museum] (2707).

Lastly we will mention a pillow cover from Lomen [Vestre Slidre, Valdres], now at the Norwegian National Folk Museum (484-97), which is entirely unique with its strongly stylized pattern, roses bound with some comb-like ornamentation, which most likely has vines as the original model (fig. 34).  It is probably based on a pattern from nature, but here it is given an almost geometric form and has to that extent adapted itself to the language of textile design.  On the other hand, the colors do not work entirely comfortably with gold, brick red, dark blue and green and some natural black and white.  Both the color selections and the motif’s strong stylization indicate that the pillow cover is probably a later work.  

Fig. 34.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Lomen [Vestre Slidre, Valdres] (47 x 57 cm.) Norwegian National Folk Museum (484-97).

If we therefore will summarize the conclusion we have reached, after having gone through the essential [works] which survive of tapestry weaving in Valdres, it is that there are not many concrete results we can point to.

But we must in any case be allowed to believe that there has been tapestry weaving in Valdres.  Not all of this can be imported.  For the most part and in any case the same patterns and motifs found in other tapestry weaving districts are also found in Valdres.  The only works which really stand out as a singular group are the 3 dated virgin-design pillow covers (fig. 21, 22 and 23–in Part Three). In addition, the pillow cover with the 10 virgins (fig. 11–in Part Three) stands out amongst our tapestry weavings and can possibly be considered an original Valdres creation.  If we dare believe that the three holy kings tapestry ringed by animals in the Nordiska Museum (see figure X in Part Two)  and the virgins tapestry at Valdres Folk Museum (fig. 9–in Part Three) are created in Valdres, ones which belong to the earliest development of these motifs, the [Valdres] valley must have been involved relatively early, as Kielland says. (Thor B. Kielland: Norwegian Tapestry Weaving 1550-1800, Vol. I, pg. 103.).

Moreover it is of course possible that research with a closer analysis of technical details, materials, etc. can achieve more definite results.

In terms of geography it appears that of the 28 works that have been tied to a particular location [in Valdres], 11 are from Vang, 8 are from Øystre Slidre, 7 are from Vestre Slidre, 1 is from Bagn and 1 is from Hedalen. It is first and foremost the upper districts [in Valdres] which are represented.  Of course, chance could play a part here.  Most of these works now are found in museums and very many of them were acquired by speculative buyers.  They can have concentrated their efforts in the upper districts.  Or is it conceivable that the upper districts did not fall under the influence of urban society and industrialization and preserved their distinctive qualities and their keepsakes from the older culture? One might in any case believe that when the preponderance [of artifacts] is so great for the upper districts that it must rest on something more than an accident.  It also appears that Eilert Sundt [1817-1875, theologian and pioneer in folk life research] as early as 1867 has made the same observation in his book Regarding Home Craft in Norway [Om husfliden i Norge].

Works in other weaving techniques are also preserved in Valdres.  Close to tapestry weaving in choice of motif and pattern are the pillow covers in half-pile [halv-floss] though the technique is entirely different.  And since pile weaving is to a large degree bound to the weave’s structure, it is especially the simpler, geometric designs which are used.  The pattern of the yarn knotted into it stands out in relief against the rep-woven ground fabric.  The technique is for the most part the same as with rya or cut pile rugs except that here the yarn Is knotted in rows the entire width of the weaving with a few shots of ground weft in between.  We have seen in the estate settlements that such rugs have been in use in Valdres, but none of these are preserved.  However there are 8 pillow covers in half-pile from Valdres.  These must be what the estate settlements call “bumpy cushions” [noppete hynder].

A red ground color appears to have been common.  In any case it is found in 5 of these pillow covers.  On a couple of them, heart-like figures are the main motif (fig. 35). 

Fig. 35.  Pillow cover in half-pile (ca. 47 x 39 cm.)  Valdres Folk Museum (698). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021025595770/putetrekk

One from the Norwegian National Folk Museum depicts a double cross , approximately the same design as on the double weave in Ulnes church (fig. 36). It is essentially the same motif which in coverlet [åkle] weaving goes by the name “nine-rose” [nirosen]. 

Fig. 36.  Pillow cover in half-pile from Røn, V. Slidre (55 x 54 cm.) Norwegian National Folk Museum (133-95). https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023121527/putetrekk

Highly stylized trees in different shapes are also found on a couple of pieces (fig. 37). 

Fig. 37.  Pillow cover in half-pile from Bagn [South Aurdal, Valdres].  Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] (21.595). Photo: Nord. Mus. https://digitaltmuseum.se/011023342340/stolsdyna

On a pillow cover from Øystre Slidre in Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] we find a motif that is much used in double weaves from Gudbrandsdal, divided squares with hooks in the corners (fig. 38).  [This is] a pattern which we find on 6 pillow covers in half-pile from Gudbrandsdal but those are without borders, while ours [from Valdres] are surrounded by squares set on end. 

Fig. 38.  Pillow cover in half-pile from Ø. Slidre (56 x 56 cm.) Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] (21.484). Photo: Nord. Mus. https://digitaltmuseum.se/011023341996/sladdyna

A couple of pillow covers in the County Museum in Skien [now Telemark Museum] look very primitive.  The one has a blue square set on end inside a rectangular area and surrounded by a zig-zag border in blue, yellow and red on a moss-brown ground (fig. 39). 

Fig. 39. Pillow Cover in half-pile from Valdres (64 x 62 cm.)  County Museum in Skien [Telemark Museum] (2528).

The other has a delicate pattern with crosses, dots, squares and zig-zag lines in natural black, white and red on a yellow ground (fig. 40).  The ground fabric here is not the usual woven in wool on a linen warp, but instead both the warp and weft are thin wool woven in twill.  I think that the overall effect is remarkably old-fashioned but the pattern is however so simple that it could easily be either an early or later work.

Fig. 40. Pillow cover in half-pile from Valdres. (59 55 cm.) County Museum in Skien [Telemark Museum] (2705).

For the most part, the patterns on these pillow covers are so simple that they are almost timeless, so I think we will refrain from any attempt at dating them.  Two of these works are from Bagn, one is from Vestre and one from Øystre Slidre.  The others have not been traced to more precise locations. 

With what we know of the close contact between Valdres and Western Norway, we would expect to find a great many western-style coverlets in Valdres.  Just as [pictorial] tapestry weaving had its center in Gudbrandsdal, the geometrically woven coverlets [ruteåklær] have had their widest dissemination in Western Norway.  However, remarkably, we do not find many such coverlets from Valdres.  Valdres Folk Museum has a few, a severely damaged one is found in Bagn Bygdesamling [South Aurdal] and the County Museum in Skien [Telemark Museum] has a couple of geometically patterned pillow covers, i.e. in rutevev.  A few are also preserved on farms in the area.  The catalog of a textile exhibit at Valdres Folk High School in 1951 mentions some coverlets and pillow covers, but it appear that they were for the most part more recent works, probably the result of weaving courses which were started up at the end of the [19th] century to revive Norway’s national art weaving.

The coverlet in the Bagn Bygdesamling [local collection now under the umbrella of the Valdres Folk Museum] belongs to a group of coverlets which are very uniform in regard to technique and pattern, and tapestries of this type are widespread over all of Western Norway.  The majority of the rest of the western-style coverlets can, on the other hand, be divided into distinctive local types.  Common for this western group is that they are very painstakingly woven, with almost no mistakes and are identical on the front and back sides.  That is to say they are woven with single interlocking technique where the colors are changed so that no distinct back side is created as in most of the others.  They are also thinner and lighter than the other coverlets because they are woven with thinner yarn, and the warp is also often wool.  The motif is an eight-petaled rose in an octagonal frame, which is often repeated 4 times and arranged in 2 rows, one above the other.  The tapestry in the Bagn Bygdesamling is made with this format but the colors diverge somewhat from the usual.  They are brick red, white and natural black with blue-green frames while the background color is yellow.  Red-violet and brown-gold colors are, however, the most commonly used in the rest of this group.  In addition there is a little peculiarity with this [Bagn] tapestry.  The lowest part of the coverlet is much more uneven and more crudely woven than the rest of the tapestry and it is woven with double interlocking technique.  The uniform appearance and painstaking technique which otherwise characterizes this group indicates, I believe, that we see here a professional weaver or weaving studio, perhaps continuing through several generations.  A couple of the dated [works] show that they span a longer period of time.  It could be that a weaver has traveled around from farm to farm and woven, as we know certain women weavers did in the rural districts of Trøndelag.  Our [Bagn] tapestry which belonged to the Islandsmoen family and perhaps originates from Brøta [farm] in Bagn can therefore possibly have been started by a professional traveling weaver but for some reason been left unfinished in the [upright] loom, and later finished by a more unskilled person at home on the farm.

The coverlets at Valdres Folk Museum are all constructed according to a simple, purely geometric pattern with concentric, stair-stepped squares, one of the oldest compositions we know of.  The size of the squares can vary and sometimes they are extended more in width, but the basic pattern is the same.  One of the coverlets has a somewhat smaller, cramped character which leads one’s thoughts to the Hardanger tapestries (fig. 41).  It appears a bit stark in its colors with a lot of black and white, besides some red, blue, yellow and olive green.  It too is probably a later work. 

Fig. 41.  Coverlet in geometric tapestry weaving [rutevev]  (162 x 140 cm.) Valdres Folk Museum.

Calmer and more muted in color is another, created according to the same pattern, but where the figures are smaller as there are not as many rows with squares within squares (fig. 42). 

Fig. 42. Coverlet in geometric tapestry weaving [rutevev]  (162 x 148 cm.) Valdres Folk Museum (697). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028399767/teppe

This one is mainly red, blue-green, a little blue and white on a yellow ground.  The top and bottom are finished with narrow rows of red and gray on a yellow ground, and broader hatched borders [kerringtenner] and inlayed patterns (fig. 43).  Besides the concentric squares, the top and bottom borders are in zig-zag patterns.  Colors are yellow, red, brown, white, gray and a little blue. 

Fig. 43. Coverlet in geometric tapestry weaving [rutevev] at Valdres Folk Museum (196 x 120 cm.) (2334). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028404633/teppe

One coverlet, almost like ours [in Valdres], is found at the Hallingdal Folk Museum.  John Leirhol in Vang [Valdres] also has one that is made with the same design, though the zig-zag borders have disappeared and the square pattern has instead been repeated three times.  The measurements here are the same as for a common coverlet 171 x 128 cm.  What is unusual is that the warp is of wool.  Otherwise, this is the same type of composition that is used on certain Sogn tapestries with division into a number of horizontal borders.  The two pillow covers at the County Museum in Skien [Telemark Museum] and one belonging to John Leirhol are woven in the same simple pattern with stair-stepped squares (fig. 44).

Fig. 44.  Pillow cover in geometric weaving from Valdres. (65 x 53 cm.) County Museum in Skien [Telemark Museum] (2708).

Aside from the two works in the possession of John Leirhol in Vang and the coverlet from Bagn there is no further information about where some of these weavings originate.  The uniform choice of pattern could perhaps indicate that some of this work is woven in Valdres.   But we also must of course figure on importation from Western Norway.  Here again it is difficult to ascertain dates.  Such simple geometric patterns have certainly been used again and again for generations and have belonged to the treasury of textile motifs throughout history.  Perhaps the choice of colors can tell us something.  In Western Norway the preponderance of geometrically woven coverlets appears to have been woven in the 1700s, but continued into the 1800s.

Though the geometrically woven coverlets have not been especially numerous in Valdres, another group of tapestries has on the other hand been very widely found in Valdres, the so-called “christening tapestries”, woven in an overshot technique called skillbragd.  In some parts [of Norway] these tapestries are called Swedish tapestries [svensketepper].  A number of the Swedish tapestries listed in the estate settlements must surely be such tapestries woven in skillbragd, although, as mentioned earlier, they could also have been woven in other techniques.  In the estate settlements they are described as bed clothes, coverlets or tapestries and they were often used as covers [on one side] of sheepskins or pile rugs.  We don’t know when they were first used as christening tapestries [kristnetepper], but the custom is also known in other districts.  Several people in Valdres report that a tapestry like this was hung over the high seat [at table] during Christmas, usually with a special Christmas cloth over it.  It appears that there is nowhere in Norway this was so common as in the northernmost districts of Valdres [Øystre and Vestre Slidre and Vang].  This is certainly not only the result of Swedish import, but because such tapestries were actually woven in the valley.  Eilert Sundt, in his book “Regarding home craft in Norway” of 1867, tells us of two women weavers in Vang, Ambjør Olsdatter Berge and Randi Knutsdatter Gaasedeilden, “both of whom weave for sale over all of Valdres and especially in Sogn the so-called Christian tapestries, a type of tapestry of beautiful weaving which is used to wrap children when they are carried to baptism.”  At the textile exhibition in Valdres in 1951 there were a number of christening tapestries and the names of the weavers were displayed on several of them.

The pattern of these coverlets is fairly uniform.  The ground is commonly of natural [unbleached], handspun linen, woven on two harnesses, and the pattern is formed by loose threads laid in [i.e. overshot] with thin, single strand wool yarn. On some tapestries, the linen can be replaced with cotton.  The most common pattern appears to be a division of the entire piece into quadrangles and rectangles which in turn are divided into squares by a simple twill pattern, small squares on edge [“goose-eye”], pointed oval figures or similar (fig. 45). 

Fig. 45.  Tapestry in skillbragd.  “Kristneteppe” from Reien, V. Slidre. (162 x 124 cm.) Owner Margit Skogstad. 

But there are also tapestries with other patterns.  Less common is a tapestry which appears to have a wave-like water pattern, divided into horizontal borders (fig. 46)  

Fig. 46. Tapestry in skillbragd.  «Kristneteppe» from Vang (124 x 155 cm.)  Owner Johannes Leithe.

Some rather later examples show the entire piece filled with eight-petaled roses.  One such from Vang is reported to be woven in the 1860s-1870s by Margrethe Tørstad (fig. 47).  The ground of this one is woven in cotton. 

Fig. 47.  Tapestry in skillbragd.  «Kristneteppe» and «Christmas cloth» [julehåndkle] from Vang.  (126 x 168 cm.)  Owner M. Thune, Grindaheim [Vang in Valdres]

The colors of the weft can vary.  No doubt most common are red, green, natural black, yellow and some blue.  Other colors such as violet and blue-green can appear in some later tapestries.  All are woven in two lengths of approx. 60 cm. wide [and sewn together, side by side.]  The length can vary from about 150 to 170 cm.

On some of these tapestries, a rectangular area in the middle is woven in using lighter shades (fig. 46).  In certain locations tapestries with lighter area such as this are called “mirror coverlets”.  They are known in several parts [of Norway] and also in other techniques, such as double weave.  This “mirror” has been interpreted in different ways.  Originally, this certainly was tied to the use of these tapestries.  In both Sweden and from other parts [of Norway] it is reported that they were used as coffin coverlets, either laid over the coffin or with the coffin set upon them.  In Sweden this “mirror” is in some places called “the minister’s square” [prestrutan] and some believe that the tapestries have been used as table cloths and the square indicates the minister’s place at the table.  Combined use as both coffin coverlets and christening tapestries is also known in some districts here [in Norway.]  Helen Engelstad has suggested in Double Weave in Norway (Dobbeltvev i Norge, 1958) that it was possibly believed that these tapestries had protective power and could shield against evil spirits.  As far as I know, there is no such tradition in Valdres of using these tapestries as coffin coverlets, but there are many reports, on the other hand, that they were hung over the high seat during Christmas.

These skillbragd tapestries appear to be especially in use in the northern part of Valdres.  There they are still found on most of the farms, while they are not common in South Aurdal or Etnedal.  Which of these tapestries are imported and which are woven in the local community is difficult to determine.  For that matter they are too little researched both here [in Norway] and in Sweden.  Date determination is also difficult.  Largely the same patterns have been woven again and again right up to the present day.  Some of the tapestries are said to be from the [19th] century and certain ones woven in the 1700s, but such dates are often unreliable.  Even how old the skillbragd technique is in Scandinavia has not yet been properly researched.  Here [in Norway] we have a couple of examples of this technique from the 1500s but whether these pieces were made here is uncertain.

“Drill”-patterned coverlets [dreiel in Norwegian, dräll in Swedish] in wool are another category of thin, light coverlets which are very widespread in Valdres, and these too especially in the northern districts.  They are woven of single-ply, thin wool yarn, both in the warp and weft in 3-harness twill and sewn together from two lengths.  Many of them are in very beautiful colors.  Usually they are of somewhat darker shades, as for example black, red and green.  But more multicolored tapestries are also common.   We see the same dreiel patterns as are woven in tablecloths: squares and rectangles put together in different ways.  A certain variation can also be achieved by creating squares with different colors in the warp and the weft. (Fig. 48 and 49)

Fig. 48. Tapestry in dreiel from Dale [farm], Ø. Slidre (179 x 123 cm).  Owner Anna Kvien, Vang.

Fig. 49. Tapestry in dreiel from North Aurdal (169 x 148 cm). Owner Målfrid Ranum, Ulnes [V. Slidre]

Such coverlets were often used as the top side of padded bedcovers, and the textile exhibition in Valdres also had a sheepskin backed with a cover in dreiel.   One single time such a textile has been termed “kristneteppe”, so it appears that skillbragd tapestries and dreiel tapestries have in part been interchangeable.  I do not dare say that these tapestries are unique to Valdres.  I have not found them in other places.  In the textile catalog for Valdres, one of these coverlets is listed as coming from “grandmother in Hallingdal,” but such tapestries are in any case not known there today.  It is not easy to say how far back in time we can trace these tapestries.  None are dated.  Most of those existing today are from the end of the [19th] century.  Some are reported to be from the years 1830-1840, and one particular one from approximately 1740, but it is certainly unknown if this is correct.  In the Valdres estate settlements, certain 3-harness bedcovers are named since the early 1700s.  It is possible they can have been such dreiel coverlets.

We have now gone through the most significant of that which is preserved of old, woven textiles from Valdres, but we have not looked more closely at who created these works.  As mentioned earlier, most of the farms were self-sufficient in regard to common functional textiles, but as Anne Ødegaard says in her book Life and play in Valdres [Liv og leik i Valdres]:  “Coverlet and kristneteppe…only one or two wove” [“Åklæ o kristnetæpe…va de berre ei o an som vov”.]   The somewhat romantic notion that every farm wife of yesteryear was an artist in the loom must now be abandoned.  Just as the rural communities had their specialist craftspeople, so too has the more artistic and complex weaving been the specialty for some.  As we have seen, Eilert Sundt has given us the names of two professional weavers of the [19th] century, who specialized in weaving skillbragd tapestries.  But most are anonymous today.  Such skill in weaving can possibly have been handed down by women of the same family through several generations.  We know this at any rate from other parts of the country.  Anne Ødegaard also mentions a Berit Christiansdotter Ellestad (1819-1875), who learned to weave at the Eugenia Foundation in the 1830s:  “There are still some of her beautiful coverlets in the area and some by women descendents who have maintained the art of weaving to nearly the same level.”  As mentioned, we must also consider the weavers who traveled around from farm to farm in the same way as the tailors, the cobblers and the baker women in times gone by.  It was often widows or wives from smaller farms who in this way earned necessary income, as Helen Engelstad relates of the conditions in Trøndelag in her book Double Weave in Norway.  But in regard to pictorial tapestry weaving we must figure on dedicated weaving studios.  Just thinking about a tapestry which is approximated 2 meters high, it requires an upright loom in somewhat larger width.  Pictorial tapestries were usually woven from the reverse side with the figures horizontal.  It is always easiest to weave horizontal lines and areas this way.  According to the latest research pictorial tapestry weaving was most likely done on an upright loom with a beam at the top and bottom (Martha Hoffmann: A group of looms in Western Norway), and it was not just anyone who would have had such a loom over 2 meters wide.  We have no trace of such weaving studios in Valdres.  A couple of estate settlements list quite a quantity of yarn and weaving material, but possibly not more than there was use for in a larger traditional household.  The settlement in 1699 of Ole Sivertson, married to Anne Mikkelsdatter, from Kollstad [farm] in Rogne, Øystre Slidre registers 2 “b.-pund” [a bismerpund equaled just under 6 kilograms after 1683] black wool, 14 mrkr. white, 12 mrkr. gray, 18 mrkr. black warp, 4 mrkr. gray warp, 14 mrkr. tow yarn, 6 alen black homespun wool cloth, 21 alen hemp tabby cloth.  [“Merker” pl. of “mark”, unit of weight since Viking times, set to equal 250 grams in 1875 when the metric system adopted in Norway.  Alen was an ancient measure of length, most recently set at 62.75 cm around the same time.]   There is no mention here of Flemish or pictorial tapestry weaving, only “lesnings” and “brøtnings” bed clothes [See definitions in Part One of this article], and some bench cushions and pillows.  On Rudj, a farm in Reinli [South Aurdal], it is mostly hemp and flax that are listed in the settlement from 1707:  1 b.pund hemp, ½ b.pund flax, ½ b.pund homespun wool weft, 1 b.pund and 8 mrkr. wool warp, 6 shocks of hemp, 28 alen black hemp tow yarn.  No Flemish weaving found here either, only bedclothes in 3-harness and “lesnings” weave, 1 dreiel-woven bed curtain with blue flowers and 1 bed blanket with white, blue and red stripes.

The oldest estate settlements do not mention looms, but that must be due to simpler wooden equipment not being registered.  From the end of the 1600s, however, we find them in most of the settlements.  But we don’t see any detailed description of what type of looms these were.  “A loom with all that belongs to it”, “a loom with equipment” are the most common notations.  A couple of times “a rør loom with all related equipment” is listed.  This probably means a flat loom, where “rør” means a reed of cane.  “A couple of old looms” which is found in 2 different estate settlements can possibly indicate an upright [warp-weighted] loom. The low valuation here of 16 skilling and 3 mark, respectively, suggests that these are not two looms but rather that “a couple” refers to the two “upright supports”. It appears in any case that where “a couple” is used in the estate settlements, it does not describe 2 objects of the same type, but 2 like parts of the same object.  Had there been 2 looms spoken of, there would certainly have been termed “tvende.”  [means “two” in Dano-Norwegian]

The wool which is used in these textiles is usually the shiny, fine spælsau wool which gives sheen and life to the old weavings.  But it appears that Valdres has not always had enough wool.  To some extent they have been dependent on import [of wool] from Western Norway.  In [Hermundstad’s] Old Valdres Culture. Family Legacy his source relates: “Wool was expensive.  And it was seldom enough of it. They had to buy a lot from the woolmen who came from the west”.   In contrast, it appears that it was very common to cultivate flax, even on the small tenant farms.  Even sewing thread was spun and plied on the farm until the middle of the [19th] century.  Perhaps one of the reasons that skillbragd tapestries became so popular in Valdres is that they require relatively little wool.

All things considered we can well say that Valdres offers a richly varied picture of the textile furnishings of former times, all the way from the double weave tapestries of the Middle Ages in Lomen and Ulnes churches to the skillbragd and dreiel tapestries of the [19th] century.  And when the living room was decorated for celebration with woven tapestries, bench cushions and pillows, these textiles with their gay colors and varying patterns certainly helped give the room color and warmth.    

Editor’s note: Thank you so much to the translator of this significant history, Lisa Torvik. Lisa is not only a talented translator (especially with nynorsk!), but a magnificent weaver, too. We were not able to find good digital museum photos for the examples of kristnetepper noted in the article; most were from private collections. But here is a photo of a traditional Valdres kristneteppe woven by Lisa. 

The first three parts of the “Art Weaving in Valdres” essay were published in 2021. See: “Art Weaving in Valdres: Part One of Four“, and “Art Weaving in Valdres: Part Two of Four“, and “Art Weaving in Valdres–Part Three (Tapestry Cushion Covers).”

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Frida Hansen: A Brief Biography

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By Robbie LaFleur

The rediscovery of Southward (Sørover) is an excellent occasion to celebrate Frida Hansen (1855-1931) and Norwegian tapestry traditions once again. Southward displays her mastery of the Art Nouveau style she loved, yet centers on a theme of Norse mythology. The abundance of pattern and areas of clear, strong color echo historical Norwegian tapestries, as does the beautifully finished reverse side, with sewn-in threads making the back as lovely as the front. So Art Nouveau, so Norwegian, so beautiful. How did this tapestry  fit into her life and career?

Her early life remained influential

Frederikke (Frida) Bolete Petersen was born in Stavanger, Norway, in 1855. Her father was one of the wealthiest businessmen in town and she led a sheltered and privileged early life at Hillevåg, an estate outside Stavanger. She planned to be an artist early on, and had private lessons from local prominent artists, including Kitty Kielland. At age 18 she married another of the wealthiest businessmen in Stavanger, Wilhelm Severin Hansen. Her father died soon after and Frida and Wilhelm moved back to Hillevåg. 

Photo provided by Frida Hansen’s family

As a young wife, Frida Hansen threw her artistic ambitions into planning extensive gardens with roses and peonies, exotic flowers and birds—motifs she would weave her whole life. She had three children; tragically, two would die. Her life of ease and privilege ended ten years after her marriage. Her husband’s business went bankrupt during an economic depression in the 1870s and they were forced to move from Hillevåg. Her husband went abroad to seek business opportunities. Frida was entrepreneurial and opened an embroidery shop in Stavanger.

Frida Hansen was familiar with historical Norwegian weaving; her brother-in-law Carl Sundt-Hansen had an extensive collection of old pieces.  One day, as she described many years later, a person came to her embroidery shop and asked whether Frida could repair an old weaving. 

Suddenly I remembered my brother-in-law’s words, You should weave like that. It went like fire through me. That’s what I wanted to do! I would take up the old Norwegian weaving, renew it, make it available, and also make it a means of employment. And so began my life’s work, which has fulfilled my mind, my artistic desires, and my life.
–Quote from Frida Hansen family papers, as reported in Anniken Thue’s biography, Frida Hansen: En europeer i norsk tekstilkunst (Frida Hansen: A European in Norwegian Textile Art) Universitsforlaget, 1986.

1889-1899. Frida begins her life at the loom and in the studio

Frida Hansen. Birkebeiner Soldiers Smuggling Haakon Haakonson Over the Mountain, 1891. Photo: Finn Levy

Still, Hansen needed to learn how to weave, and it took some time for her to find anyone still weaving in the old techniques. She heard of a teacher in Sogn, Kjerstina Hauglum, and arranged to visit her in 1889.  After brief instruction and the purchase of an upright loom, she confidently began work on her first tapestry, over two meters high. Within a year she not only wove the huge tapestry, Birkebeiner Soldiers Smuggling Haakon Haakonson Over the Mountain, but also investigated the plant dyes she used for her yarn by interviewing elderly women in the regions of Jæren and Ryfylke, south of Stavanger. Her first foray into tapestry was very instructive, and she resolved in the future to not imitate paintings, but to create designs and figures that were more suited to the medium of weaving.

During the 1890s Frida Hansen worked to rediscover old Norwegian weaving techniques and to build a thriving weaving business to support herself and others. She was deeply interested in the qualities of Norwegian wool and historical Norwegian tapestry techniques. This was during the era of National Romanticism, when strong patriotic feelings led to the search for authentic, historical folk art. 

In 1890 she opened her first studio and dye works, “Mrs. Hansen’s Studio for Handwoven Norwegian Rugs” (Fru Hansens Atelier for haandvævde norske Tepper). After she moved her studio to Kristiania (Oslo) in 1892, she added weaving courses.  

Early in Hansen’s career, her work in reviving traditional Norwegian weaving was recognized, even in American newspapers. In 1893 she traveled to the Chicago Worlds Fair to oversee the installation of textiles in the husflidutstilling, or handcraft exhibit.

Handsome work indeed are the embroideries and tapestries which the Norse women are producing under the leadership of Mrs. Frida Hansen who furnishes artistic design and teaches the peasant women how to work them out. (Topeka State Journal, August 3, 1893.)

Hansen also exhibited a large tapestry, Dandelion (Løvetand, 1893) in the Women’s Pavilion at the Fair, commissioned by the Norwegian Feminist Association (Den Norske Kvindesagsforening). The tapestry has complex symbolism surrounding the emancipation of women, with a dandelion as the central feature, the plant that grows the more it is trod upon.

Frida Hansen. Dandelion (Løvetand, 1893) Stavanger Kunstmuseum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/021049524830/lovetand-billedvev

While Hansen was dedicated to renewing traditional Norwegian weaving, she also followed her own path as an artist. In 1894 and 1895 she took study trips abroad. She studied Medieval German art in Cologne and figure drawing in Paris. She saw the work of Symbolist artists such as Gustave Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes, and Art Nouveau artists such as Eugene Grasset, Alphonse Mucha and Paul Berton. Her affinity with Art Nouveau imagery made sense; the birds and flowers in the exotic gardens of her youth fit right in. Throughout her career she remained connected to artistic movements abroad; for example, she subscribed to the British art periodical The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art.

As Frida Hansen’s artistic vision evolved, some of her works were criticized for not being Norwegian enough, for having foreign influences, or for using a color palette that was not considered Norwegian. A tapestry like The Pharaoh’s Daughter (Faraos Datter, 1897) showed Hansen did not limit herself to images of Norwegian tales or myths.

Frida Hansen. Pharaoh’s Daughter (Faraos Datter, 1897) https://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/collection/object/OK-10284.

In 1897 Frida Hansen was awarded a patent for a special form of transparent tapestry. Wool weft for the pattern was woven on warp of plied wool, leaving portions of the warp unwoven. The open threads allowed light to shine through. The technique lent itself well to portieres (curtains), so the transparencies were often functional, as opposed to her large billedvev tapestries. While Frida Hansen wove her own art tapestries, she designed the transparencies and had them woven by others in series. Hansen’s transparencies were popular both in Norway and outside the country. 

Hansen, Frida. Mermaids (Havfruer, 1921). Details showing unwoven threads. Photo: Robbie LaFleur. See the full work here.

The studio initials woven in Southward

Also in 1897 Frida Hansen established the Norwegian Rug and Tapestry Workshop (Norsk Aaklæde og Billedtæppe-Væveri, NABV) together with Randi Blehr. Two years later the name was changed to The Norwegian Tapestry Studio (Det Norske Billedvæveri, DNB). Hansen was the director until the studio dissolved in 1904. With around twenty weavers, the DNB became one of the most important weaving studios in Europe; Frida Hansen brought Norway into the center of European textile art. 

It is important to note that Frida Hansen was a new type of artist, the first Norwegian (and perhaps the first anywhere) to both conceive her own designs and weave her own tapestries. Her accomplishments and growth as a businessperson, weaver, and artist through the 1890s were stunning. She began her first tapestry in 1889, and by 1898 wove perhaps her best known work, The Milky Way (Melkeveien). The Milky Way was exhibited at the Bergen Exhibition in 1898, in Berlin (1899) and London (1900), and purchased by the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg.

Hansen, Frida. The Milky Way (Melkeveien, 1898) Photo: Robbie LaFleur

International Recognition

Both Frida Hansen’s tapestries and her transparent weavings had their biggest international breakthrough at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. The Norwegian Tapestry Studio (DNB) was awarded a gold medal for its collection of 45 pieces, and Frida Hansen was awarded a gold medal for her artistic merits. Four of her large pictorial tapestries were included: The Dance of Salome; The Five Wise and Five Foolish Virgins; and two tapestries from Gerhard Munthe designs, Sigurd’s Entry into Myklegaard (Constantinople) and Sigurd and Balduin. Seven of her transparent wool tapestries were shown. As a result of the fair, her works (tapestries and transparencies) were purchased by museums in Vienna, Zurich, Hamburg, Budapest, London, Stockholm, and Copenhagen–but not by Norwegian museums.

When Frida Hansen wove tapestries using themes from historical Norwegian tapestries, they were in a contemporary style. In The Dance of Salome (Salomes Dans, 1900), a sinuous Salome stands in the center of the seven-meter wide (!) tapestry.

Frida Hansen. The Dance of Salome (Salomes Dans, 1900) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Owned by the Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich

It might be an understatement to say that Hansen’s Salome has a very different feel than the Salome in the lower corner of this tapestry woven during Norway’s “golden age” of tapestry, from 1550-1700.

Unidentified weaver. The Feast of Herod (Herodes Gjestebud). 1650-1750. National Museum of Norway. https://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/samlingen/objekt/OK-17383

Southward (Sørover, 1903) was purchased privately. Berthea Aske Bergh, a Brooklyn weaving instructor and socialite, was responsible for bringing Southward to the U.S. As described in a House Beautiful article in 1929, Bergh was telling a group of American art connoisseurs in New York City that Norway had a highly developed art of weaving, and that it predated many other European countries. The audience was skeptical, the article stated, so she sailed to Norway the very next week to get proof of her statements.

“Straight to Mrs. Hansen’s studio she went, where the magnificent tapestry “Southward” stood on the loom, nearing completion. To Mrs. Hansen she said, “I must have that tapestry to take back to America.”
Munson, Miriam Ott. “An Old Art for the New World.” House Beautiful, July 1929. 

Bergh may have varied her description of Southward’s purchase at times. 

“To Mrs. Bergh, a native Norwegian living in this country, Frida Hansen owes her real introduction to the United States. At an exhibition of artists in New York, Mrs. Bergh heard William Chase say disparagingly, “But Norway has no art.” On her next trip to the land of her birth Mrs. Bergh began the collection of Frida Hansen tapestries…”
“Art of Old Norse Tapestry Shown at Woman’s Exhibition,” St. Louis Star & Times, March 6, 1929.

Frida Hansen. Southward (Sørover, 1903). Photo: Peter Pap.

Southward has some interesting design similarities to Salome’s Dance, woven three years earlier. The spiral snakes on Salome’s skirt resemble the roses on the gowns of half the maidens in Southward. The gown of a woman at the edge of Salome’s Dance has a filmy covering, mimicking the bonnets of the Southward maidens.

Hansen, Frida. Salome’s Dance (Salomes dans, 1900) Details. Photos: Robbie LaFleur

Frida Hansen. In the Rose Garden (I rosenhaven, 1904) Detail. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

In the Rose Garden (I Rosenhaven, 1904) shows eight women wandering in a garden, wandering in nature, a dream of a golden age. It may have been influenced by the work of Gustav Klimt.  Anniken Thue, Frida Hansen’s biographer, felt it has clear parallels to an early Norwegian tapestry from the 1500s or 1600s. Many of Hansen’s tapestries resemble medieval Norwegian tapestries in her use of pattern everywhere—in the background, and in the richly decorated clothing of the figures. 

In 1905 Hansen wove Semper Vadentes. When it was displayed at the Paris Salon the following year, Hansen was awarded membership in the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, which meant she no longer had to be juried for inclusion in the annual Paris Salon. Frida Hansen’s weaving was very prolific in the first decade of the 1900s, and she sent a large tapestry to the Paris Salon each year from 1900-1909.

Frida Hansen. Semper Vadentes. Stavanger Kunstmuseum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/021048233601/semper-vadentes-billedvev. See detail photos of the tapestry here.

This brief biography does not discuss all of Frida Hansen’s tapestries, nor include the full scope of her exhibitions. Many of her works that are now in museums have links to digital images. A list at the end of this article includes those I could discover.

Frida Hansen at her upright loom. Photographer unknown. Behind her is her tapestry Jephthah’s Daughter (Jeftas datter, 1912/13). Another American connection–this tapestry was exhibited at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1915.

Frida Hansen’s Last Tapestry

Frida Hansen’s last monumental tapestry had a Norwegian theme, created to celebrate the 900th anniversary of Christianity in Norway. She wove it from 1927 until her death in 1931, and it was completed by her daughter, Elisa Levy, and granddaughter Signe Levy. King Olav kneels in the center, flanked by representatives of the state and church. The Norwegian glacier, Folgefonna, is in the background. In 1934 the citizens of Stavanger, Hansen’s home town,  raised money for the tapestry to be hung in the Cathedral in Stavanger. 

Frida Hansen. The Olav Tapestry (Olavsteppet, 1927-31). Stavanger Cathedral. https://digitaltmuseum.no/021049525944/olavsteppet-billedvev

With this tapestry Frida Hansen came full circle. She began her career by working to reinvigorate traditional Norwegian weaving. She continued to draw on Norwegian themes in her own tapestries, but also followed her heart and ever-curious nature and wove images of exotic Egyptian women and mermaids along with themes from Greek mythology. In all, she wove 30 large tapestries and designed around 80 transparency designs. She was an internationally-recognized Art Nouveau artist, but in the end she spent the last years of her life weaving a noble Norwegian historical image.

For several decades the work of Frida Hansen was not in the Norwegian limelight. The Art Nouveau style of most of her work fell out of fashion by the time of her death. Much of her work was held privately or by museums outside of Norway. It wasn’t until a large exhibition of her work in 1973 that she was discovered anew in her home country. She gained even more attention with the retrospective of her work at the Stavanger Art Museum in 2015. Today the Stavanger Art Museum has an excellent and varied permanent exhibition of her work, and the National Museum (Nasjonalmuseet) has several tapestries and transparencies. 

Read more about Frida Hansen in English: 

“Frida Hansen and the Making of Art Nouveau.” FJ Hakiman (blog). January 19, 2018.
Gudmundson, M. Lund. “Frida Hansen – Art Nouveau in Full Bloom.” Textile Forum Blog, 2015.
Hansen. Vibeke Waallann. “Encounters between Art and Folk Art around 1900 in Norway: Gerhard Munthe, Theodor Kittelsen and Frida Hansen.” European Revivals: From Dreams of a Nation to Places of Transnational Exchange. FNG Research 1/2020.
LaFleur, Robbie. “When Frida Hansen Sought a Tapestry Teacher.” Robbie LaFleur (blog). November 16, 2018. This post includes a longer passage translated from Anniken Thue’s biography about Frida Hansen learning to weave.
Simonnæs, Anne Sommeren. “Frida Hansen: A Leading Star in European Textile Art.” Oslo: Nasjonalmuseet. (web page)

List of Frida Hansen tapestries (excluding transparencies), with links to museum records when available. The list corresponds to the list of tapestries in the catalog of works compiled by Anniken Thue in 1973, Frida Hansen: Europeeren i norsk vevkunst. Oeuvrefortegnelse og biografisk innledning. Oslo: Kunstindustrimuseet, 1973.

  1. 1889/90. Birkebeiner Soldiers Smuggling Haakon Haakonson Over the Mountain. (Birkebeinerne fører den unge Haakon Haakenson på ski over fjellet). Owned by the family of Frida Hansen.
  2. 1892. Flying Wild Ducks (Flyvende villender). Missing.
  3. 1893. Mermaids and Swans (Havfruer og svaner). Missing, presumably sold to a buyer in California.
  4. 1893. The Life and Flora of the Forests. (Skovenes liv og flora). Missing?
  5. 1893. National Coat of Arms. (Riksvåpenet). Missing.
  6. 1893. Dandelion (Løvetand). Owned by the Stavanger Art Museum.
  7. 1894. Olaf Liljekrans I. Private ownership.
  8. 1894 Olaf Liljekrans II. Owned by the National Museum of Norway.
  9. 1895. Mermaids who Light the Moon (Havfruer, som tænder månen). Owned by the Stavanger Art Museum.
  10. 1896. Mermaid Dance. (Havfruedans). Private ownership.
  11. 1897. Pentecost Choir (Pintse-Chor). This is a diptych. The left panel is owned by the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest.
  12. 1897. Pharaoh’s Daughter (Faraos datter). Owned by the National Museum of Norway.
  13. 1898. The Milky Way (Melkeveien). Owned by the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.
  14. 1900. The Dance of Salome (Salomes dans). Owned by the Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich.
  15. 1900. The Five Wise and the Five Foolish Virgins (De fem kluge og de fem daarlige jomfruer). Missing.
  16. 1901. Dance of the Dragonflies (Libellenes Dans). Owned by the Nordiska Museet, Stockholm
  17. 1902. Yon Red Evening (Kveld hiin Røde).  Private ownership.
  18. 1903. The Proposal (Frieriet). Only known as a cartoon. Not woven?
  19. 1903. Southward (Sørover).
  20. 1904. The Rose Garden (I Rosenhaven) Owned by Drammens Museum (Norway).
  21. 1905. Semper Vadentes. Owned by the Stavanger Art Museum.
  22. 1907. Fairy Tale Castle (Eventyrslottet). Owned by the National Museum of Norway.
  23. 1908. In the Rose Garden (Im Rosengarten, woven from the same cartoon as I Rosenhaven, 1904). Missing.
  24. 1909. The Swineherd. (Svinedrengen). Displayed and sold in Berlin in 1910, but missing.
  25. 1913. Jephthah’s Daughter (Jeftas Datter). Owned by the National Museum of Norway.
  26. 1914. (Danaidernes kar) Owned by the Stavanger Art Museum.
  27. 1919-1922. An Autumn Day at Akershus (Høstdag ved Akershus). Private ownership.
  28. 1925. The Little Mermaid (Den lille havfrue). It was purchased by the Honolulu Academy of Arts, but is now missing.
  29. 1925. Bird at Sunset (Fugl i solnedgang).
  30. 1926. Fuga. Privately owned, likely in Scotland.
  31. 1927-31. (Olavsteppet) (more photos in this blog post) In the cathedral in Stavanger (although currently in the Stavanger Art Museum while the cathedral undergoes renovations)

Awards and Recognition

  • 1891. Wins the King’s Silver medal for her traditional Norwegian weavings at a national exhibition in Skien, Norway.
  • 1898. Wins a gold medal at the Industrial Exhibition in Bergen.
  • 1900. Paris Worlds Fair. The Norwegian Tapestry Studio (DNB) wins a gold medal for their collection, and Frida Hansen wins a gold medal for her artistic merits.
  • 1901. Won a competition for wallpaper design sponsored by Vallø Tapetfabrik.
  • 1902. Won the gold medal at an exhibition in Turin, Italy, the “Prima esposizione Internationale d’Arte Decorative Moderna.”
  • 1906. Hansen was awarded membership in the French Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, which meant she no longer had to be juried for inclusion in the annual Paris Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
  • 1915. Awarded the King’s Gold Medal.
Southward, in all its restored glory, will be exhibited and for sale by Peter Pap at the Winter Show in New York City from April 1-10, 2022, the first public opportunity to see this magnificent tapestry in 91 years.
A few posts from the Winter Show, with further discoveries and visitor reactions: Tonight Frida Hansen’s Rediscovered Tapestry will be Revealed (March 31, 2022), Sørover (Southward) at the Manhattan Winter Show (April 2, 2022), Frida Hansen’s Southward: Musing on the Border and People Who Live Near the Ocean (April 3, 2022), and Frida Hansen’s Southward Tapestry: A Conversation Recap (April 4, 2022).
Robbie LaFleur is a weaver and writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidskole in Fagernes, Norway, in 1977. She is a Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum Gold Medalist in weaving, coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota Scandinavian Weavers Study Group, and publishes the Norwegian Textile Letter. In 2019 she received a fellowship from the American Scandinavian Foundation to study the transparency technique of famed Norwegian tapestry weaver Frida Hansen. Contact: lafleur1801@me.com. Blog: robbielafleur.com. Instagram: robbie_lafleur

February 2022; updated April 2022

Southward on Display

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Frida Hansen. Southward (Sørover), 1903. Photo: Peter Pap

By Robbie LaFleur

Frida Hansen’s monumental tapestry, Southward (Sørover) was never exhibited in Norway. But for around 25 years at the beginning of the 20th century, many American viewers were impressed by the scale and beauty of her swans and maidens. Berthe Aske Bergh, a New York tapestry teacher, traveled to Norway in 1903 and purchased Southward  (Sørover) from Frida Hansen while it was still on her loom. Until the time of the Great Depression, it was publicly hung many times, to great acclaim. Bergh was a Norwegian tapestry evangelist and she used the weaving of Frida Hansen to prove her assertion that Norway had an important tapestry tradition.

It was exhibited primarily on the East Coast, but thousands of Norwegian-Americans also saw Southward at the Norse-American Centennial celebration held at the Minnesota State Fair on June 6–9, 1925.

Southward hung prominently at the Norse-American Centennial. Photo: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

The following list of venues where Southward was publicly displayed is a work in progress.  Although additional venues seem quite likely, this list represents those I could verify through contemporary newspaper accounts, accessed via newspapers.com. (If you have further information, please let me know at lafleur1801@me.com.)

Several of the articles gave glowing descriptions of Southward, and it was clear the tapestry was the star of the exhibit. When I started research on this missing tapestry, it was these descriptions that convinced me that Southward would reappear–that unless it was accidentally destroyed, it would never be discarded or forgotten.

1905. National Arts Club. An exhibit of pottery, porcelains, glass and textiles under the auspices of the American Ceramic Society. (April 19-?, 1905)

Much wall space is given to the Norwegian designs introduced by Mrs. O. v. I. Bergh, such as Frida Koehler-Hansen’s big hanging called “Southward,” with red-haired nymphs in regular ranks steering each one her swan-horse over the sea.”
“Keramics [sic] and Textiles: Exhibition of Porcelains, Pottery, and Tapestries by the Keramics Society.” New York Times, Thursday, April 20, 1905.

1907. Mechanics Institute (now the Rochester Institute of Technology). Rochester, New York. (March 18-31, 1907)

The largest and most expensive piece of this weaving would cover a whole wall of a good-sized room. It involves a color scheme striking in its pleasing harmony, and the thought is most attractive. It might be taken to represent the migration of birds, but perhaps has a broader significance. The goddesses of summer are returning to the south, riding on the backs of swans…the gray birds and their burdens are very graceful as they float on a blue sea on the way toward the land of summer.
Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, New York), March 19, 1907

1907. Shown at the Masonic Temple in Burlington, Vermont, under the auspices of the Klifa Club, a women’s social club. (November 5-7, 1907)

The Klifa Club will bring to the city specimens of the exquisitely beautiful picture weaving of Norway. An old art newly developed. The collection is the only perfect one in America and is owned in New York. A large Tapestry entitled “Soerover” i.e. Southward is the most important piece and forms the gem of the collection…One point worthy of note is the tissue of the veils encircling the heads of the goddesses, a difficult effect in the art of weaving.
Burlington Daily News, October 23, 1907

1908. Shown at the galleries of the National Arts Club, on Gramercy Square in New York City, as part of the Second Annual Exhibition of the National Society of Craftsmen. (Date unclear.)

The Magnificent Norwegian tapestries merit a separate article. These beautiful picture weavings were designed by Madam Frida Koehler-Hansen, whose studios are at Christiania, Norway. Her weavings have been awarded the highest prizes at exhibitions in London, Paris, Turin and other cities and are sold to museums and royal houses in Europe. The largest piece shown covered a wide section of the wall, and illustrated the old Norse legend of the flight of the goddesses from the cold Norseland to southward, taking the summer with them. The goddesses were represented riding on the backs of swans, through the waves of the sea. The broad border of this piece showed objects of sea life, shells, weeds, and coral.
Lovett, Eva. “Second Annual Exhibition of the National Society of Craftsmen.” The International Studio, February 1908. No. 132.

1909. Arts and Crafts Exhibition at the Maryland Institute. (March 13, 1909)

Representing the chief unit of interest in the exhibition is the great tapestry of “Southland” exhibited by Mrs. Oskar Von Irgens Bergh, who also sends a large exhibit of her beautiful products of the Norwegian School of Weaving.
“Private View Tonight: Arts and Crafts Exhibition Ready at Maryland Institute.” Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1909, p. 7.

1910. Twentieth Century Club Gallery at 3 Joy Street, Boston, Massachusetts. “Exhibition of Norwegian Picture Weavings.” (Held jointly with the Society of Arts and Crafts) (March 24?-April 4, 1910)

The principal work in the exhibition here is a large tapestry made by Mrs. Koehler-Hansen, which illustrates the old Norse legend of the flight of summer days…It is a splendid and highly original decoration. Hung against a west window, the semi-transparent passages composed of silver threads, which is a distinctive feature of this class of work, produce a singularly pleasing effect; and the entire color scheme is remarkably strong and harmonious.
Boston Evening Transcript, March 24, 1910.

1924. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (March?, 1924)

Three examples of the ancient Norwegian style of weaving tapestries, done by Mme. Frida Hansen, of Norway, have been placed on exhibition in the arts and industries building of the National Museum…The largest of the tapestries depicts a bit of Norse mythology, showing seven goddesses riding south on the backs of swans, taking with them the sun, heat, and flowers brought to the north to form the summer days…Woven in the same manner as were tapestries in the fifth and sixth centuries, these examples are said by experts to be far superior to the works of contemporaries of Mme. Hansen.
“Replicas of Ancient Tapestries Exhibited.” Washington Post, March 22, 1924, p. 14.

1925. Grand Central Palace, New York City. Architectural and Allied Arts Exposition, under the auspices of the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League of New York. (April 20-May 2, 1925)
1925. Brooklyn Museum. “Norse Exhibition,” an exhibition in celebration of the Norse-American Centennial. (October?, 1925)

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sunday, October 18, 1925, p. 31

1926. Brooklyn Museum. “Norwegian Exhibition of Hand Crafts,” an exhibition of Scandinavian Industrial Arts marking the opening of a new wing of the museum. (Dates?)

The Milky Way is not exhibited here; however, the public must feel exceeding grateful to Mrs. Bergh, who secured the several handsome examples of pictorial tapestry that are now hung. “Southward is of great beauty; as lovely as “The Milky Way” or “Salomes Dance” or “the Finding of Moses.” It is a thing one will always remember, and love to dream about; the lithe and clean-limbed goddesses are sailing swiftly southward through the sea on the backs of  swans. They are carrying back the sun and flowers which they loaned the North to make the long summer.
Bie, Katrine Hvidt. “The Norse Nations Seen Through the Brooklyn Museum Exhibit.” Brooklyn Life and Activities of the Long Island Society, Saturday, May 1, 1926, p. 15.

1927. National Arts Club, New York City. “Norse Pictorial Weavings.” (April 6-29, 1927)

1927. Hotel Astor, New York City. Sixth Annual Women’s Exposition of Arts and Industries.
The Norwegian tapestries drew special attention.

Two departments of major interest are the Norwegian tapestries display and the exhibition of 13 pieces of sculpture and 20 paintings by members of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors…It is in the former that the greatest encouragement for the feminine cause in art may be found. Then such rare and truly beautiful creations such as these Norse pictorial weaves issue from women’s hands, art and genius may be truly said to know no sex.
“Artists and Their Art: Women Fight Inferiority in Art.” Times Union (Brooklyn New York). Sunday, October 9, 1927.

No author is listed, but my guess is that he is male… The article goes on:

Her [Frida Hansen’s] finest piece on display at the Astor, “The Retreat of the Summer Goddesses,” was on view at the Smithsonian Institute in 1924. Depicting seven buxom and blonde Norse maids astride a like number of geese, arranged in a geometrical progression that savors of plotted harmony, the weave represents the departure  of the Summer Goddesses from the North. Fleeing on their downy mounts, South by way of a silver-blue sea.

1928. Hotel Astor, New York City. “Seventh Annual Exposition of Women’s Arts and Industries.”  (October 1-?, 1928)

An unusual effect of luminosity is obtained by the use of sterling silver woven into the dresses, the reins with which the girls are guiding the swans and the jewels in their hair.”
“Tapestry Work is a revival of Norwegian Art,” Muncie (Indiana) Evening Press, October 10, 1928.

1930-31. Toledo Museum of Art. “The International Exhibition of Modern Tapestry.” (December 30, 1930-January 25, 1931) Southward and Pond Lilies (a transparent tapestry) were for sale.

The annotated price catalog from the Toledo exhibit was in the archives of the Toledo Museum of Art.

1931. Brooklyn Museum. “The International Exhibition of Modern Tapestry.” (February 07-28, 1931). An insurance document from the Brooklyn Museum of Art Archives revealed that Southward had the highest insured valued of any piece, and the highest price of those for sale.

See the full insurance document: page one, page two, page three. Note: some tapestries with higher numbers are in francs.

One of the most famous contemporary tapestry makers, Mme. Frieda Hansen of Christiana, Norway, is well represented by “Southward” and “Pond Lilies”, both of which were designed and woven by her. She became known as early as 1900 and now her works in this field hang in royal palaces in Norway, England, Italy, Germany, Sweden and Denmark and in three large museums. “Southward” is lent by Mrs. Berthe D. Aske Bergh of The Weavers, New York. This tapestry illustrates a Norse myth of golden-haired daughters of the sun who go sailing southward in diagonals across a geometric sea after having brought flowers and light to the north. It is woven in wool and silver.
“Modern Tapestries.” Press release. Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. 01-03_1931, 017-9.

1931. Montclair Art Museum. An exhibit of antique and modern tapestries. (October 11-November 8)

Montclair (New Jersey) Times. Friday, October 9, 1931.

Southward was likely shown in additional venues

I left out some venues at which Southward was very likely shown, but which I could not confirm with certainty. 

  • 1904. I did not include the Waldorf Astoria in 1904. Anniken Thue listed that venue with a question mark in her catalog of Frida Hansen’s works, Frida Hansen (1855-1931): Europeeren in Norwegian Vevkunst (Oslo: Kunstindustrimuseet, 1973).
  • 1929. Southward was mentioned specifically in articles about two of the annual Expositions of Women’s Arts and Industries in NYC, but it was likely displayed at others. An article about the 1929 show mentions “A very beautiful tapestry from the hands of the great Frida Hansen.” (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 1, 1929)
  • 1929. Woman’s [sic] National Exposition, March 4-9, 1929. I assume that Southward was included because it was reported that works of Frida Hansen, “Norse tapestry varying in value from $400.00 to $40,000,” from the collection of Berte Aske Bergh were exhibited. (“Woman’s National Exposition.” Rolla Rolla Herald, January 31, 1929.)

 

On view again!

Now the tapestry will be exhibited and for sale by Peter Pap at the Winter Show in New York City from April 1-10, 2022, the first public opportunity to see this magnificent tapestry in 91 years.
A few posts from the Winter Show, with further discoveries and visitor reactions: Tonight Frida Hansen’s Rediscovered Tapestry will be Revealed (March 31, 2022), Sørover (Southward) at the Manhattan Winter Show (April 2, 2022), Frida Hansen’s Southward: Musing on the Border and People Who Live Near the Ocean (April 3, 2022), and Frida Hansen’s Southward Tapestry: A Conversation Recap (April 4, 2022).
February 2022 
Robbie LaFleur is a weaver and writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidskole in Fagernes, Norway, in 1977. She is a Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum Gold Medalist in weaving, coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota Scandinavian Weavers Study Group, and publishes the Norwegian Textile Letter. Contact: lafleur1801@me.com. Blog: robbielafleur.com. Instagram: robbie_lafleur

Close Encounters with Frida Hansen’s Swans and Maidens

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By Robbie LaFleur

I first saw Frida Hansen’s Southward (Sørover, 1903) in person in Peter Pap’s Oriental Rug Gallery in Dublin, New Hampshire, hanging on a 13′ high wall.  I was more amazed at its impact than I anticipated. It was not only the color that was captivating; the scale was enveloping and striking. The maidens are almost life-sized. I stepped forward to examine the watery world of the swans and the borders. 

Robbie LaFleur and Peter Pap examine a swan. Photo: Larry Bauer

A water theme is woven into the wide borders. Deep blue mussels are placed around the border and in the corners of the tapestry. 

Mussels, close up in a corner of Southward. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

Pale figures floating along the borders may represent flotsam on the water, or maybe a horseshoe crab? They are delicate and intricate.

Photo: Robbie LaFleur

No photo can match the impact of seeing the tapestry in person. It’s hard to discern in this photo, but when viewing a swan neck up close you can see that even solid areas of colors include areas of slightly different shades. This neck is not one light shade, but several similar shades of ivory. Also, you can see that the vertical area of the neck was not woven in one piece, but in several triangular or diamond sections, creating what weavers call “lazy lines.” They add interest and liveliness to the surface.

Many maidens are similar. Four maidens have faces facing slightly forward with both eyes visible; they are pulling the swan necks back and are wearing dresses with a large circle pattern. Three have a sideways profile. They are leaning forward and have dresses with roses. The same cartoon was likely used for each set of figures. 

The two profile variations. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

The reins around the swans’ necks are some of my favorite details. No two of the serpentine ribbons are the same. 

Photo: Robbie LaFleur

While the figures are similar, Frida Hansen wove their hair in varying patterns of bright orange and brown that contrast beautifully with the blue waves. Also in those photos below, note Frida Hansen’s mastery of weaving a transparent effect. You can “see through” the bonnets to either water or the body of another swan. The tiny pricks of grayish-bronze are woven with silver thread; they must have had a shimmery effect when the areas were still bright and shiny, untarnished. 

The areas of Southward woven with silver thread have tarnished from silver to a beautiful bronze-gray. It’s a sign of Frida Hansen’s design mastery that the now-darker areas are beautifully distributed (in the reins, dresses, and bonnets) and have graphic punch. Still, it would be wonderful to go back in time and see shiny silver threads. The silver threads are thinner than the wool, so the metallic areas are more finely-woven. When viewing the tapestry in person you can appreciate the subtle contrast of smooth versus wooly surface area. 

Even in a small black-and-white reproduction, Southward is a lovely design. But seeing it at full scale, in real life, and in color is startling. The large area of open waves is striking, and the variation in the wave colors is captivating; it seems random, but was surely planned. The maidens are sailing in on swans from the right, and some are incomplete, like there might be a whole flotilla underway. 

 The diagonal design of Southward has been compared to The Milky Way (Melkeveien), woven in 1898 and sold to the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg.

Frida Hansen. The Milky Way (Melkeveien), 1898 Photo: Robbie LaFleur

Frida Hansen wove an earlier tapestry with similar motifs to Southward, Mermaids and Swans (Havfruer og Svaner, 1892-1893).

Frida Hansen. Mermaids and Swans (Havfruer og Svaner), 1892-93.

It is interesting to compare Southward with Mermaids and Swans, woven ten years earlier. The motifs in the earlier tapestry are more angular, while the swans and border motifs of Southward are more fluid and flowing, displaying Hansen’s Art Nouveau assurance and mastery.

According to a Wikipedia entry on Frida Hansen, the earlier tapestry is only known through an old photo, and according to Aftenposten [a major Norwegian newspaper] from December 7, 1893, it was probably sold to a buyer in California. It is another missing Frida Hansen tapestry in the U.S.—perhaps we’ll see it in color someday too?

February 2022

Author’s note: All of these color photos were taken before the tapestry was cleaned, and the difference was amazing. Here is a photo of the tapestry after cleaning. 

Frida Hansen. Sørover (Southward), 1901

A few posts from the Winter Show, with further discoveries and visitor reactions: Tonight Frida Hansen’s Rediscovered Tapestry will be Revealed (March 31, 2022), Sørover (Southward) at the Manhattan Winter Show (April 2, 2022), Frida Hansen’s Southward: Musing on the Border and People Who Live Near the Ocean (April 3, 2022), and Frida Hansen’s Southward Tapestry: A Conversation Recap (April 4, 2022). 

Robbie LaFleur is a weaver and writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidskole in Fagernes, Norway, in 1977. She is a Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum Gold Medalist in weaving, coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota Scandinavian Weavers Study Group, and publishes the Norwegian Textile Letter. Contact: lafleur1801@me.com. Blog: robbielafleur.com. Instagram: robbie_lafleur

February 2022; updated April 2022

A Missing Frida Hansen Tapestry Rediscovered

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Rediscovered swan. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

By Robbie LaFleur

When well-known rug dealer Peter Pap opened a container and spied a folded tapestry with swans last year, he knew immediately he had struck tapestry gold–but he didn’t know he was solving a nearly 100-year old mystery.

In 1903 famed Norwegian artist Frida Hansen wove red-haired maidens sailing on swans in a tapestry of impressive scale (11’3” x 10’3”). In an image from Norse mythology, the flotilla in Sørover (Southward) was sailing south, having brought the warmth and light of summer to the north. 

The tapestry itself sailed from Norway as soon as it was cut from the loom, as it was purchased by Berthea Aske Bergh of Brooklyn, New York, a weaving instructor and passionate promoter of Norwegian billedvev (tapestry). She had been a student of Frida Hansen. During the next 27 years, Southward was admired by many viewers in exhibitions at museums and other public venues. (See “Southward on Display.”) Though every reference to Southward praised its shining threads and beautiful colors, until today the only photographs documenting the tapestry were black-and-white, and blurry at best. 

Photo from House Beautiful magazine, June 1929.

After 1931, there were no written references to Southward on display. Berthea Aske Bergh lived until 1954, and remained active in the Norwegian-American community. Did she sell the tapestry, perhaps because she needed the money during the Great Depression? That remains a puzzle, but the mystery of the tapestry’s location has been solved! If you are reading this, you are among the first people ever to see a color image of Southward.

Frida Hansen. Sørover (Southward), 1903. Photo: Peter Pap (Photo taken before cleaning.)

Peter Pap discovered Southward in 2021. The tapestry was last purchased from a New England family (name unknown) around 2010 by an antique dealer in New Hampshire who was Peter Pap’s friend. It was not displayed. Peter Pap described the dealer as a generalist who had an eye for something special, the sort of dealer to whom inventory of beautiful objects felt like money in the bank. The dealer passed away before selling many of his treasures; Southward was part of his estate. 

To give a sense of scale: Robbie LaFleur and Peter Pap examine Southward in Peter Pap’s New Hampshire Gallery.

We don’t know where the tapestry was for many decades, but it was clearly hung with great care, or kept in environmentally safe storage. It was in excellent physical condition, but nearly 120 years of dust obscured the vibrant colors that Frida Hansen intended. Peter Pap sent the tapestry to Denver, Colorado, to be cleaned by the person he most trusted to care for the tapestry, Robert Mann. Careful washing brought out amazing brightness and contrast within the image. (See “Finding Frida Hansen’s Colors Again: Cleaning Southward.”)

Years of dust flows from the Southward. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

Southward, in all its restored glory, will be exhibited and for sale by Peter Pap at the Winter Show in New York City from April 1-10, 2022. This will be the first public opportunity to see this magnificent tapestry in 91 years. The last known year it was displayed publicly was 1931, when it was part of an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The International Exhibition of Modern Tapestry (February 07-February 28, 1931). That fall it was part of an exhibition of antique and modern tapestries at the Montclair (New Jersey) Art Museum (October 11-November 8, 1931).

Here is a photo of the fully restored tapestry after washing. (The difference is amazing.)

Frida Hansen. Sørover (Southward), 1903

A few posts from the Winter Show, with further discoveries and visitor reactions: Tonight Frida Hansen’s Rediscovered Tapestry will be Revealed (March 31, 2022), Sørover (Southward) at the Manhattan Winter Show (April 2, 2022), Frida Hansen’s Southward: Musing on the Border and People Who Live Near the Ocean (April 3, 2022), and Frida Hansen’s Southward Tapestry: A Conversation Recap (April 4, 2022).

February, 2022; updated April 2022

Finally, we can see the red-haired maidens and blue of the waves.

Robbie LaFleur is a weaver and writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidskole in Fagernes, Norway, in 1977. She is a Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum Gold Medalist in weaving, coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota Scandinavian Weavers Study Group, and publishes the Norwegian Textile Letter. Contact: lafleur1801@me.com. Blog: robbielafleur.com. Instagram: robbie_lafleur

 

Finding Frida Hansen’s Colors Again: Cleaning Southward

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By Robbie LaFleur

Robert Mann logoIn January 2022, Peter Pap shipped Southward from New Hampshire to Denver, Colorado, for cleaning at Robert Mann Rugs. Robert Mann founded his business specializing in the care of handwoven rugs, Southwestern textiles, and other weavings in 1982. He began his career in the rug business in 1978, as an apprentice to an Iranian rug restorer named Hamid Sharifzadeh. Today his business offers a range of services: cleaning, repairs, restoration, mounting, appraisal, and expert consultation.

I was present for the magical transformation, as was Gavin Shelton, a videographer from South Carolina. Mann described his process and reasoning thoroughly as he worked. He was serious, careful, and self-assured as he proceeded, which must come from his 40+ years of experience in restoring textiles. 

When I first viewed Southward at Peter Pap’s New Hampshire gallery I was astonished at the scale of the tapestry and beauty of the colors, understandable since I had only studied black-and-white photos from nearly a century ago. But when the tapestry slid out of the delivery box in Denver, my impression was different. “Oh my gosh, it’s filthy,” I thought. It was so apparent that removing nearly 120 years of dust would make a huge difference. 

Robert Mann begins his close examination. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

The tapestry was laid out on a large table for evaluation, vacuuming, and preparation for washing. Overall it was in excellent condition: no moth holes, no tears, no stains. There was a small darned patch in an upper corner. Mann noted, “That’s so common; it probably repaired a hole from a nail. I’ll bet there’s one on the other corner.” He was right.

The lighter blue darned area probably repairs a hole from a nail. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

“You can tell it was never used on the floor,’ Mann said. I must have looked shocked at the thought, as he added, “That happens.” The surface of the tapestry showed no sign of wear, no shininess from foot traffic. 

A burlap heading band was sewn to the top edge. You could see from dark lines running vertically across the header that metal clips of some sort had been sewn to the burlap. Removal of the band revealed a surprise—a hidden part of the tapestry! The solid-colored band at the top edge of the tapestry had been turned over 1¾”. 

Near the top you can see the dust line that shows where the tapestry was folded over. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

 

On Southward’s back side, below the area where the burlap band was applied, the color was somewhat faded. Robert Mann said that one explanation might be that the tapestry was hung in front of a window. That reminded me of a description of the tapestry when it hung in Berthea Aske Bergh’s home. 

Some of the tapestries now in Mrs. Bergh’s possession are the work of Frida Hansen among them the magnificent “Southward” which was recently exhibited at the National Museum in Washington. D.C. It is among Mrs. Hansen’s greatest work and is hung between two rooms at Mrs. Bergh’s home, with an arrangement of lights that permits the luminous quality of the tapestry—a very rare attribute—to be seen.
Calls Tapestry a Panacea for Overwrought Feminine Nerves: Pupil of Frida Hansen Teaches American Women to Forget Problems While Weaving Pictures.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Wednesday, May 30, 1928.

Perhaps the back was facing a room with windows. Or maybe the fading happened later in the life of the tapestry. 

Underneath the burlap band was a narrow cotton twill tape, which was likely original. Robert mused that the narrow tape, and the presence of one remaining ring sewn into the tape, might indicate that the tapestry was originally hung by rings with the fringes hanging over the front of the tapestry. Here’s a guess: when the burlap edge was added, was one ring left intact, and the tag added? The tag gives dimensions in feet and inches, not in centimeters, so perhaps it was added in the U.S. 

This shows the cotton twill tape that had been hidden by the burlap band. If you look carefully, you can see slight fading in the greenish area, just below the name; the slightly darker green area behind the name had been covered by the burlap band. A single ring, with tag attached, extends upward into the warp ends.

A few bundles of warp threads were knotted loosely underneath the burlap heading band. When those knots were untied, you could see the bright original white of the warp threads, and realize how much the exposed warp threads had oxidized and become discolored. They were in otherwise good condition, not dried and broken. Both the bottom and top edges were stabilized by basting on a pocket of nylon mesh. (I got to help!)

Robert Mann conducted several blotting tests with water, mild detergent, and solvent before the tapestry was washed. As expected, the blotting revealed lots of dirt. The only sections he thought might be unstable were the very dark outlining of the swans’ beaks, and some dark outlining in the borders. Blotting one of these areas using a solvent released a bit of dye. He guessed that the intensely deep aquamarine yarn was dyed with indigo with a modifier. He was unconcerned; the mild detergent he would use in washing aren’t nearly as strong as the solvent. Indeed, no colors bled during washing.

Robert Mann ensured that all dyes were colorfast with blotting tests. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

In old newspaper accounts the metallic threads in the costumes and veils of the maidens were invariably described as silver. Those areas have oxidized to a beautiful grayish-bronze. Mann  guessed, correctly, that those areas might brighten a bit after washing, as they held dust like the rest of the tapestry. 

This detail shows one maiden’s dress, after the first washing and while still damp. The metallic areas (the grayish-bronze designs in the dress) seemed a bit brighter, but not appreciably different in color. 

Copious dirt flowed from the water during the first washing, so much so that Robert expected the cleaning to be complete.

Dirty water flowing away from the tapestry. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

The following morning, when the tapestry was completely dry, he determined that another washing was warranted. “See that grayish cast over the whole tapestry?” he pointed out. It indicated that the wool fibers were still clinging to soil. 

After the first washing. Photo: Robbie LaFleur

The second–and third–washings were transformational. I envision Frida Hansen as a time-traveler, pleased at the rediscovery of her tapestry, alarmed at its dusty state, and then elated over the restoration to clear and compelling colors.

Southward, in all its restored glory, will be exhibited and for sale by Peter Pap at the Winter Show in New York City from April 1-10, 2022, the first public opportunity to see this magnificent tapestry in 90 years. Here is a photo of the fully restored, washed tapestry.

Frida Hansen. Sørover (Southward), 1901

A few posts from the Winter Show, with further discoveries and visitor reactions: Tonight Frida Hansen’s Rediscovered Tapestry will be Revealed (March 31, 2022), Sørover (Southward) at the Manhattan Winter Show (April 2, 2022), Frida Hansen’s Southward: Musing on the Border and People Who Live Near the Ocean (April 3, 2022), and Frida Hansen’s Southward Tapestry: A Conversation Recap (April 4, 2022).

February 2022; updated April 2022

Robbie LaFleur is a weaver and writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidskole in Fagernes, Norway, in 1977. She is a Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum Gold Medalist in weaving, coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota Scandinavian Weavers Study Group, and publishes the Norwegian Textile Letter. Contact: lafleur1801@me.com. Blog: robbielafleur.com. Instagram: robbie_lafleur

 

Art Weaving in Valdres–Part Three (Tapestry Cushion Covers)

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By Karin Mellbye Gjesdahl 

The following is part three of an article by Karin Melbye Gjesdahl, “Weaving in Valdres” [“Vevkunst I Valdres”] published in Valdres Bygdebok, Vol. 5, 1964, pp. 37-59. (A bygdebok is a compilation of local history.) Translated by Lisa Torvik, 2021. (Part one. Part two.)

In addition to the story of the three holy kings, no other motif has been as popular in our tapestry weaving as the depiction of the five wise and five foolish virgins, though it is otherwise little used in our [Norwegian] art.  It appears to be similarly popular in the Swedish painted “bonader” of the 1700s and 1800s. 

The motif is repeated from tapestry to tapestry, and is also transferred to pillow covers. Here are as many virgins as there was room for them. The figures are portrayed quite naturally on the oldest tapestries, the wise virgins with their lamps lighted all in a row above with the heavenly bridegroom, and in the row below the foolish ones, crying with handkerchiefs over their eyes beside the oil merchant behind his counter. This is how they are also portrayed on the tapestry at Valdres Folkemuseum (fig. 9), which belonged to Ola K. Alfstad’s collection in Skammestein [Øystre Slidre]. 

Figure 9. Wise and Foolish Virgins. Valdres Folkemuseum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028404629/teppe

Here there is truly an attempt at individualizing the different figures.  Trees are placed between the virgins, and in the background we see suggestions of architectural motifs.  “EROSKIØBE” is woven into the merchant’s counter (fig. 10).* A strong geometric border in gold and red runs around the tapestry, likely the same as on the three holy kings tapestry in the Nordiska Museum [Stockholm].  The main impression of the tapestry here is also light, reddish and gold tones, but it is probably somewhat faded.

The oil merchant, a detail from a Wise and Foolish Virgins tapestry. Valdres Folk Museum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028404629/teppe

All the same figures are present on the pillow cover from Røn [Vestre Slidre] (fig. 11 and 12), now in the Norwegian Folk Museum (481-97) [Bygdøy, Oslo.]  There is a clear attempt here also at creating distinctive features, but they are nevertheless more rigid than on the tapestry.  Between the two rows of figures is the inscription:  “Five were wise five were foolish: Anno” and, probably, “16”.  There was unfortunately no room for the rest of the year.  Next to the last virgin are three letters woven in, which possibly can be read as “I T R” or “R T I”,  perhaps the weaver’s signature.  If this is the case, it is the only time I have found any signature on tapestry weavings from Valdres.  Neither do we find any more pillow covers where all 10 virgins are included as they are here.  The main colors are gold, red and blue with a little weft in green, natural [sheep] black and white.  Might we perhaps be allowed to believe we have here an independent Valdres creation?  On the other hand, it is difficult to say with certainty that this is also the case with the virgin-tapestry at Valdres Folk Museum.

Fig. 11. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Røn, Vestre Slidre (70 x 62 cm.). Norwegian Folk Museum (481-97) https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023124359/putetrekk

It is in any case doubtful that the tapestry from Vang [in Valdres] with the same motif, now at the Norwegian Folk Museum (O. 1793-15) is woven in Valdres (fig. 13).  It is very similar to several of the Gudbrandsdal [tapestries].  Here we have, for that matter, a good illustration of how a motif becomes more rigid over time when it is repeated from tapestry to tapestry.  All individualization of the virgins has disappeared.  They stand in two identical rows one above the other, all with a face and a crown on their heads.

Figure 13. Wise and Foolish Virgins. Norwegian Folk Museum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023142954/teppe

Most of the background is filled out with a zig-zag two dimensional pattern.  The border is the usual meandering rose vine.  Gray-gold tones and red colors are especially prominent, but there is also a great deal of blue.

As for the dating of this group, some of the Gudbrandsdal virgin-tapestries certainly have years woven in, but these are often so distorted that they are unreliable.  [Art historian Thor] Kielland dates the first of our [tapestries] to the last half of the 1600s and the pillow cover to the end of the 1600s.  The latter [tapestry] with its advanced stylization could probably have at the earliest been woven after 1700.

The virgin motif is also present in a number of other pillow covers, where the number of virgins is limited to two or three.  Kielland mentions that while Gudbrandsdal can present a very large number of tapestries with the virgin motif, it appears that pillow covers with this pattern are more common in its neighboring communities.  In Valdres we have nine pillow covers with this motif.  One group of them sets itself apart with years and initials woven in, which we will return to later, while five others display the motif even more simplified and schematically than on the last tapestry (fig. 14). 

Figure 14. Three Virgins. Valdres Folkemuseum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028597693/putetrekk

The figures are reproduced entirely uniformly with large crowns on their heads, the space between them filled with eight-petaled roses, and their skirts depicted almost as decorative borders.  We see here that the design has adapted itself to the demands of the technique.  And I believe that part of the explanation of the popularity of this motif is that in its severely simplified form, with the repetition of the same figure, it is relatively easy to reproduce. If we consider the pattern while keeping in mind that the figures were woven on their side [lying horizontally in the weaving], we see that the prominent vertical and diagonal lines are actually easy to weave.  Whereas these pillow covers are only encircled by a narrow geometric or solid color border, we have one with the same meandering rose vine as its border like we find on a large number of the tapestries (fig. 15). 

Figure 15. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Vang [in Valdres]  (59 x 58 cm.) Norwegian Folk Museum (E. 811-06). (no online image found)

There is only room for two virgins here.  It is from Vang, while three of the others are attributed to Vestre Slidre.  The one from Vang must have been created by an experienced weaver because it is so meticulously and finely woven.

While most of the works in tapestry we have discussed so far appear to either be directly imported from Gudbrandsdal or copied from examples from there, Valdres has also been under influences from Western Norway.  Indeed, Valdres has always been a valley with a great deal of traffic passing through it.  From ancient times, it was the shortest route from Eastern to Western Norway, and Valdres natives themselves traveled down to Western Norway to obtain salt, herring and other fish.

In regard to textiles, Western Norway is especially known for its geometrically patterned weaving, called “rutevev” and tapestries used as bed coverlets, called “åkle”, plural “åklær”.  However, there are also a smaller number of tapestry weavings preserved which clearly distinguish themselves from the Eastern material.  Characteristic of these weavings is a sort of diffuse style, where figures and ornamental motifs filter into each other and the decorative details dominate.  Figures play a lesser role.

Here too the virgin motif is repeated, but the number of virgins is greatly reduced.  On the tapestry in the Nordiska Museum [Stockholm], which was purchased in 1878 by Ragnhild Knutsdatter Røe of Øystre Slidre (fig. 16), there are just two virgins placed in the middle of a large tapestry, while the entire surface is otherwise divided up by diagonal rows of squares, filled with stylized leaves, flowers and a pattern of four stylized opposing hearts, as well as a few squares with a deer and a bird.

The two lengthwise edges are finished with a simple zig-zag border, a characteristic detail repeated in very many of the Western Norwegian works.  The colors are also kept to the same range as found on most of those from Western Norway, where gold, brown and red shades dominate against a natural [sheep] black background.  The tapestry is in horizontal format, which is common for these tapestries.  All things considered we probably see here an imported work from Western Norway.

Fig. 16.  Section of tapestry from Ø. Slidre (143 x 183 cm.) https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023239036/teppe

Many of the same characteristic details in this tapestry, we find again on a pillow cover with three virgins (fig. 17) now at the Norwegian Folk Museum (766-96), and a cushion at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design [Kunstindustrimuseet, now incorporated into the new National Museum, Oslo] in Oslo (fig. 18) where the virgins have been turned into a bridal couple (7889). 

Fig. 17.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Valdres (54 x 50 cm.)  Norwegian Folk Museum (766-96). (No digital image found)

Fig. 18. Cushion in tapestry weaving from Valdres (119 x 51 cm.)  Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Oslo (7889). (No digital image found)

The weaver was perhaps no longer clear about the design’s connection to the wise and foolish virgins.  Otherwise we again find the same flowers, leaves, birds and zig-zag border as on the tapestry, but not the characteristic colors of Western Norway.   The pillow cover is essentially limited to gold-brown colors with some blue against a natural black background, and on the cushion the ornamentation is blue, red, gold, gray again the same ground color.  Perhaps these two pieces can have been created in Valdres from a model from Western Norway?

Together with these, a pillow cover at the County Museum in Skien [now called Telemark Museum] (2530) must be mentioned, where four deer are placed together with similar ornamentation as on the large tapestry, and where the zig-zag border is again used (fig. 19).  The colors are gold, red, gray-white and blue. 

Fig. 19.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Valdres (56 x 65 sm.)  Telemark Museum in Skien (2530). (No digital image found)

The same design is likely the basis for a pillow cover from Vestre Slidre [ Valdres] (NF 1227-97), but the pattern here is entirely degenerated, and it appears disordered and broken up (fig. 20).

Fig. 20. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from V. Slidre (71 x 60 cm.) Norwegian Folk Museum (1227-97). https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023125158/putetrekk

Perhaps here a group of pillow covers from Gudbrandsdal have had influence on the pattern design, with deer and rosettes in rectangular fields. One such, very similar to those from Gudbrandsdal, is now in the possession of district physician Kjos in Oslo, and has also come from Valdres.

While it must be said that it is fairly uncertain if any of these works were woven in Valdres, we do have another group of three very unique pillow covers which must, with very high probability, have been created in Valdres.  (fig. 21, 22 and 23.)  All depict two virgins surrounded by a broad border of stair-stepped triangles, and in a field above the figures, two [pillows] have the inscription: “HLS ANO 1698”, and on the third: “SHD ANO 1705”.  They are woven in relatively dark shades of color, mostly in blue and red against a natural black ground.  The inscription is in blue on a red background and the border in red, blue, gold and white. – The pillow covers clearly show connection with the group from Western Norway.  The same small deer and stylized flowers are repeated, while the relatively large figures and the wide border connect them to work from Eastern Norway.  An interesting detail about these pillow covers is that they are also dated.  And, here, we should almost believe that the years are correct.  There is such a great similarity between them that it is very likely they must have been woven by the same weaver, and that they are separated by a few years seems quite reliable. 

Fig. 21.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Valdres.  Inscribed: “HLS ANO 1698” (63 x 54 cm.)  Valdres Folkemuseum (1847). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028599744/putetrekk

Fig. 22:  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving.  Origin unknown.  Inscribed: “HLS ANO 1698.” (66 x 62 cm.)  Norwegian Folk Museum. (E 1599-06). https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023131215/putetrekk

Fig. 23.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Bagn [Valdres].  Inscription: “SHD ANO 1705”. (64 x 64 cm.)  Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] (21.596). Photo Nord. Mus. https://digitaltmuseum.se/011023342344/stolsdyna

 But how do we explain that the two have the same initials and year?  Were they originally a pair?  Now and then estate settlements mention pairs of pillows.  But even without seeing them next to one another, I nevertheless dare say that the one shows a significantly darker shade of color than the other and they are not entirely identical in the smallest detail.  The initials “H.L.S.” must certainly stand for a man’s name, where “S” means son.  Unfortunately there is no information about where these two are from.  One is at Valdres Folkemuseum (1847), and the other at the Norwegian Folk Museum (E. 1599-06) and without any place of origin.  On the other hand, the third one from 1705 was purchased by Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] (21, 596) in 1878 from Aaste Olsdatter Tronhus in Bagn [South Aurdal, Valdres], and it is one of the few works determined to originate in the lower districts of Valdres.  In addition we may hope that genealogical research can one day succeed in identifying these initials.

While we have until now limited ourselves to works with figurative motifs, we also have a number of pillow and cushion covers with purely ornamental patterns, a somewhat motley and diverse collection, so that it would lead us too far afield to discuss each one.

Quite peculiar [to this group] is a pillow cover where a strange mythical animal covers the central section (fig. 24). 

Fig. 24. Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Vang [Valdres] (63 x 56 cm.)  Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] (23.743). https://digitaltmuseum.se/011023348983/stolsdyna

A German researcher has demonstrated that this motif dates back to a Persian textile design from the 1300 or 1400s with its depiction of a dragon in battle with a phoenix bird, the coat of arms of the Chinese Ming emperors.  (Thor B. Kielland: Norwegian Tapestry 1550-1800 Vol. II, pg. 14.)  That illustrates an example of the migration of textile motifs.  A border of strongly stylized vines with grapes surrounds the center space.  The pillow cover is kept to a fairly controlled range of colors with mainly brown and gold tones and some blue.  The color palette and vine border connects it essentially to the more urban type of Renaissance tapestries.  But whether it was woven before or after 1700 is difficult to determine.  We know of  three pillow covers with the same motif.  Only one of these is of known origin.  It comes from Orkdal [South Trøndelag], while ours was purchased in 1879 by the Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] from Iver Sivertsen Hemsing of Vang [in Valdres].  It is therefore not easy to say if this motif originated in South Trøndelag or Valdres.

More common is the pattern that Kielland calls the crown-ringed Gothic shield.  There are 22 known examples of which the majority belong to South Trøndelag.  In Valdres we have three of this type.  Kielland has been able to identify the same motif on a pillow cover from the 1400s, probably a west German work.  (Thor B. Kielland: Norwegian Tapestry 1550-1800, Vol. II, pg. 38.)  Of the three in Valdres, the ones which belongs to Andr. O. Moe of Røn and John Leirhol of Vang have retained the original shield-shaped area with a tree in the middle and an animal on either side with the sides of the shield  surrounded by pointed crowns.  On the other hand the shield-shaped area has become entirely square on the one now at Valdres Folk Museum (700), (fig. 25) and the design on the whole is more rigid and degraded. But in its simple vine border this one has retained some of the spindly leaf stalks which we find on the German model.  In contrast, the pillow cover from Røn is surrounded by the usual bent rose vine. This pillow cover, it is noted, has always been on the farm, but that in itself is not evidence that it was woven in Valdres.  All three pillow covers are degraded [in design] to the degree that they can only have been woven after 1700.

Fig. 25.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving. (53 x 60 cm.)  Valdres Folk Museum.  (700). https://digitaltmuseum.no/021025595782/putetrekk

Another much favored motif is the slim, stylized tree with fruit surrounded by four sections of vine and the spaces between filled out with four lilies opposite one another.  Over 80 works with this tree of life motif are registered here [in Norway], mostly pillow covers, but also whole tapestries and [bench] cushions.

We know of five such pillow and cushion covers from Valdres (fig. 26). 

Fig. 26.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving Hedalen [Valdres] (62 x 57 cm.)  Owner Martha Lohne, Hedalen

The tree is a very old motif in art and certainly has had a symbolic meaning originally.  But it is hardly the design’s symbolism which has made it so favored in tapestry weaving.  I rather think that its simple, almost geometric form makes it relatively easy to recreate, and that this is one of the reasons for its great popularity.  It is also a design that if desired can be repeated indefinitely in length and width. The pattern can perhaps seem a bit stale, but the way the slender motif stands out on these Valdres pillow covers in light blue, red and gold against the natural [sheep] black background creates a very good decorative effect.  The cushion which is owned by Anna Ødegård of Skammestein [Øystre Slidre] must have originally been of a considerable length.  Altogether, the remaining fragments of the textile total over 2.5 meters.  The pillow cover from Hedalen which is owned by Martha Lohne is largely well preserved and finely woven.  It is notable that a simple zig-zag border is also found on this pillow cover, and is repeated on several of the Valdres works.

Because 40 of these works have been traced to Gudbrandsdal, it is likely that they originated there, but that does not prevent the design from being adopted from other places.  A few of these works are dated, some to the 1670-1680s and one to 1718, so this give us a certain point of reference to date the entire group.  But we must also count on the fact that such a motif has retained its popularity for a long time.  Of the five Valdres works, one is from Vang, two from Øystre Slidre and one from Hedalen.

Another pillow cover from Vang is in the popular skybragd pattern (NF 483-97).  In Gudbrandsdal, we find this pattern in a number of examples of both tapestries and pillow covers.  It is essentially the ancient, classic palmetto plant design which is the basis for the motif, but which first appears in our tapestry weaving after 1700.  It is often presented in bright colors, arranged in diagonal rows, on this example in two shades each of red and blue together with some gold and brown.  Since we know of just the one example from Valdres, while there are approximately 30 works originating in Gudbrandsdal, we should probably consider this one is an import.

Pillow in skybragd pattern from Vang in Valdres. This photo was not in the original essay. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023124361/pute

Also probably imported is a cushion from Valdres, now in Bergen’s Museum (X. 103.10).  It depicts parrots surrounded by flowers and grape clusters (fig. 27).  A group of cushions from the end of the 1600s with similar motifs are localized to an urban influenced environment in Western Norway, but we find it at the same time in other regions of the country, and also in tapestry weaving from Skåne [Sweden], so it is not easy to say exactly where our [examples] come from.

Fig. 27.  Cushion cover in tapestry weaving from Valdres (57 x 125 vm.) Bergen’s Museum (X 103.10). (No digital image found.)

We see portions of the same flowers on a pillow cover which the Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] (21.462) purchased in 1878 from Nils Nilsen Jørstad of Øystre Slidre.  Here tulips, carnations and roses in yellow, gold-red, blue and green colors are strewn over a natural black ground (fig. 28), like what we also see on embroideries from the end of the 1600s.  This is the only one of this type which is preserved from Valdres, while Gudbrandsdal can show a number of variations on this theme, some with scattered flowers and some with bouquets of flowers.

Fig. 28.  Pillow cover in tapestry weaving from Øystre Slidre [Valdres] (65 x 63 cm.) Nordiska Museum [Stockholm] (21.462) Photo: Nordiska Museum. https://digitaltmuseum.se/011023341928/sladdyna

Part Four will appear in the February 2022 issue.

The first two parts of the “Art Weaving in Valdres” essay were published in August 2021. See: “Art Weaving in Valdres: Part One of Four“, and “Art Weaving in Valdres: Part Two of Four“. 

*Editor’s note: What does EROSKIØBE mean? The answer came from Annemor Sundbø. Broken down, the words mean love-purchase. The virgins, to prepare for their heavenly wedding to Christ, need to buy oil so their lamps can be lit. The oil merchant is in a symbolic way “selling love” to Christ’s brides. As the story unfolds, the wise virgins carefully save their oil, while the foolish virgins use up their oil and end up crying into their handkerchiefs. 

 

Norwegian Tapestry in the Post-War Years

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Editor’s note: Annemor Sundbø wrote a book about spelsau sheep–and so much more–in 2015, Reflections on the Ancient Nordic Sheep: Mythology & Magic, Folk Beliefs & Traditions [Spelsau og Samspill, Glansfull ull og lodne skjebnetråder: Myter og Refleksjoner]. This is a translation of Chapter 31, “Post-War Decor.” Read Chapter 30 in the previous issue of this newsletter: “Norwegian Tapestry: Historical Weaving Treasures and National Romantic Impulses.”

Honoring Norway with monumental tapestries

In the years immediately following the war, the nation of Norway was to be rebuilt and new modern public buildings erected.  Works of art were to be included, underscoring the nation’s pride by promoting the essence of Norway.  In that context, yarn from the old Nordic spelsau sheep came into its own through modern pictorial art.

At the same time, Oslo was to celebrate its 900-year anniversary. In 1946 an art competition was announced by the Society for the Welfare of Oslo, with the subject matter to be the city’s history.  The competition was open to tapestry and a total of 25 entries were submitted.  All designs were to be accompanied by a weaving sample, which drew artists’ attention to what the materials might have to offer and tempted many painters to create designs for tapestry.

For the most part it was men who submitted designs for the Oslo City Hall, the Norwegian Parliament, Akershus Fortress, the Royal Palace and a number of other institutions.  Artists such as Bjarne Rise, Håkon Stenstadvold and Kåre Jonsborg had large tapestries made under the direction of Else Halling.

Magnificent tapestry for Oslo’s City Hall

Kåre Mikkelsen Jonsborg’s design, Batalje på Lilletorget [Confrontation at the Town Square] won the competition. A journalist for Aftenposten, writing under the pseudonym “Bolo,” wrote that the image went through a lengthy development process before it became a tapestry cartoon: “For this is what has determined such an impressive result, that the painter has immersed himself so respectfully and thoroughly into the requirements of the textile technique that all his intentions could be fully expressed in the tapestry’s own natural language.”

 “Batalje på Lilletorget” by Kåre M. Jonsborg.  The tapestry was sensational in its time due to its size, 7.5 x 3.6 meters.  The expression was modern, but it was executed in an “old Norwegian” tapestry tradition that was to represent an unbroken line from Viking women’s victorious weavings to the rebuilding of the nation of Norway after years of occupation and war  .Photo: Frode Inge Helland. Tapestry in Oslo City Hall. Reconstruction of faded colors. May not be exacltly like the original, but gives an impression of its original appearance.

Tapestry makes headlines

“The Oslo textile will create a new era in Norwegian tapestry. The monumental work makes thoughts of a central studio for tapestry a certainty,” wrote “Bolo” with excitement.

It took two and a half years for Else Halling and her assistants, Sunniva Lønning, Synnøve Thorne and Randi Nordbraathen (Bierman), to complete the tapestry.  Else Halling commented in a newspaper interview that she and Sunniva could not praise Kåre Jonsborg enough, for… “he can both think, compose and draw tapestry.”

The newspaper Verden’s Gang (10/30/1948) had the following caption: “Else Halling at the loom.  Sunniva Lønning in charge of materials and dyes. Kåre Mikkelsen, cartoon.  Only yarn from the guardhair of spelsau sheep has been used, a material that is especially suitable for our tapestries.  7.5 x 3.60 [meters] high.  Randi Nordbraaten and Synnøve Thorne assist in The Norwegian Handcraft Association’s tapestry studio.”

Monumental work with woven design

Kåre Jonsborg really immersed himself in the tapestry technique.  He built a loom himself and studied the tools and processes in detail. This was noted by newspaper journalist “J.,” who commented in the year before the opening of City Hall: “It would have been nice to see the powerful painter Kåre Mikkelsen Jonsborg sitting and puttering with fine wool threads in a homemade loom.That is in fact what he did before he undertook the competition to design the huge tapestry that the Society for the Welfare of Oslo has ordered, with the Kraft-Bull endowment, for hanging in the Revold hall at Oslo City Hall.”

The design was prepared with color fields that were to be woven with handspun yarn. The yarn was dyed with plant materials to correspond with the color tones in the design. Thus the painter, spinner, dyer and the weavers formed a unit, and the tapestry was a joint work. The starting point for this tapestry was modern, painterly principles from the fresco technique, which was created to decorate walls in large buildings. The loom was made so that the entire tapestry could be seen from beginning to end. In this way, Jonsborg could observe the entire weaving while it was being woven.

In the opinion of the press, the Oslo tapestry would usher in a new era in Norwegian applied art, as significant as the flourishing of decorative wall painting.  “Bolo” encouraged investment in a central studio for tapestry weaving, which director Thor B. Kielland at the Norwegian Museum of Arts and Crafts [Kunstindustrimuseet] was planning.  

“We can do this!” declared Kielland.

The Else Halling Era of large-scale tapestries

Oslo’s new City Hall was opened in 1950.  In the festive gallery, Batalje på Lilletorget was unveiled, and up to that time it was the largest tapestry in Norway’s history.  The tapestry drew attention far beyond the country’s borders.  One of the capital’s newspapers wrote that “the public and critics were dumbfounded with admiration.”

Unveiling a dream

The tapestry was decisive in realizing Thor B. Kielland’s big dream, the establishment of Norsk Billedvev AS [Norwegian Tapestry LLC].  He entered into a partnership with The Norwegian Handcraft Association and the Norwegian Museum of Arts and Crafts in Oslo, with Else Halling serving as professional director from 1951.  Norsk Billedvev’s projects were mostly focused on themes drawn from Norwegian history, but the studio also produced copies of historic tapestries from the collection of the Norwegian Museum of Arts and Crafts.

Female artists and the St. Hallvard tapestry

Even though Kåre Jonsborg’s tapestry received the largest space and the most attention, he was not the first to unveil a monumental tapestry.

The beautiful “St. Hallvard” tapestry, which was to be hung behind the Mayor’s seat in the City Council’s hall in Oslo, was delivered in the middle of March, 1948.  Else Poulsson both composed and drew the design for this tapestry.  Even though she received great praise for her work, she did not receive the same attention that Kåre Jonsborg did, despite her tapestry being first.

Else Poulsson. St. Hallvard. 1946. Photo by Ingvild Brekke Myklebust (detail). From the website of the Oslo Regional Art Collection.

In the newspaper Morgenbladet, journalist “Candida” noted that the tapestry would serve to tell future generations how the artists of our time solved the challenges of a great task: “The weaving is, of course, completely perfect in execution, despite the large format and the many details, which surely required great attention both in terms of color choice and technique.” (Morgenbladet 03/14/1948)

Else Poulsson. St. Hallvard. 1946. Photo by Ingvild Brekke Myklebust (detail). From the website of the Oslo Regional Art Collection.

It took two years for Else Halling and four assistants to weave Else Poulsson’s tapestry.  The size of the tapestry was 3.33 x 5.30 meters (10.9 x 17.4 feet) and it weighed 14 kilograms (30.9 pounds). Randi (Nordbraathen) Bierman spun most of the weft yarn from spelsau guardhair, which perhaps amounted to 10 kilograms (22 pounds).  It required half a year for Sunniva Lønning to gather enough guardhair for spinning and plant material for dying.

Newspapers pay tribute to the return of guardhair

With this tapestry, Miss Halling and Miss Lønning, both teachers at the National Women’s Art and Design School [Statens kvinnelige Industriskole], have continued with the major restoration work in Norwegian tapestry weaving that they began during the war, returning to the silk-fine, long-haired, hard-spun spelsau yarn and the lightfast natural dye colors that characterize the famous Norwegian Renaissance tapestries.

They note that in the guardhair of our Norwegian spelsau wool we have finally found a material that is good enough for artistic rendering. It is a decorative material that places great demands on composition and execution. In fact, it reveals all shortcomings and doesn’t cast a disguising veil over poor composition or inadequate craftsmanship, in contrast to ordinary wool yarn, whose fibers can gloss over deficiencies.

Now that we have found the right material for Norwegian tapestry going forward, it becomes a question of whether we will find able designers within the populace, whether we have tapestry weavers with the skill and experience to raise the work to an artistic handicraft. Tapestry should not be just a hobby, it requires the weaver’s full commitment, say the two pioneering women who will soon set to work on another piece for Oslo City Hall.

Randi Nordbraaten and Synnøve Thorne are Elsa Halling’s talented co-workers and earlier students. Sunniva Lønning handles the natural dying. She has worked with spelsau wool for years, she knows its worth and possibilities, and we see her confident and discerning sense in each skein of yarn and every color. Had the tapestry been woven in regular wool yarn, the colors would have been smothered. Instead we see a textile of clear color fields, full of beauty. Here we have a work that will shine.

Rolf Jensen, “R-IST.”  Verden’s Gang 9/20/1949

Randi Nordbraathen Bierman spun almost all of the 10 kilograms of guardhair yarn that went into the St. Hallvard tapestry for the City Council hall in Oslo.  She was one of the weavers who participated in creating the tapestry.

Excited press

In 1967 the Norwegian Museum of Arts and Crafts held a large exhibition of old tapestries from the 17th and 18th centuries, together with replicas.  The old and the new tapestries hung side by side.  The exhibition created a great deal of excitement, and favorable reviews appeared in the newspapers.  Arne Durban wrote in Morgenbladet: “Of greatest importance now is that the Norwegian cultural sphere recognizes what priceless value [the studio] Norsk Billedvev can provide. It’s hard to imagine something more outstanding and representative than this large tapestry, representing as it does the use of art in the very best way. As such it contributes to a representative interior, providing a public building with the right character.”

Else Poulsson answered in Dagbladet with an appeal to individuals and to the authorities to take note of the uniqueness created from spelsau: “Else Halling has never strayed a hair’s breadth from the path she has thought was the right way to go, never yielded an inch on the need to maintain quality. I would recommend that anyone with an interest in high quality and art see the exhibition, not least the granting authorities who can give the Norsk Billedvev Studio, together with our artists, many new tasks for the benefit of us all.” [Excerpted from Norsk Billedvev: Et Atelier og en Epoke (Norwegian Tapestry: A Studio and an Epoch). Øystein Parmann. Oslo: Kunstindustrimuseum, 1982].

Artist + Craftsman = Sacred Work

Else Halling devoted her life to the weaving of genuine Norwegian tapestry utilizing guardhair yarn from the old Norwegian sheep.  Her attitude towards the work was that one person should create the cartoon and another person should weave it with insight and skill.  She felt that while she could not teach someone to be an artist, she could teach them the technical skills of weaving.  If the technique was not first rate, then the tapestry could not be considered fully realized.  She emphasized the importance of a technically competent weaver being involved in all the processes and maintained that the weaver had to be able to do all steps, from drawing the cartoons to sorting the wool and spinning and dyeing the yarn. Yet a distinction between the artist and the experienced handicraft worker must remain. She stated: “It is handcraft that makes it possible to execute an artist’s design. It is a handcrafter’s art as well as an artist’s handcraft.”

Meeting with Else Halling

I met Else Halling when I was a spinning student of Sunniva Lønning and studying to become a weaving teacher.  She was 75 years old, I was an eager spelsau enthusiast, and was perhaps all of 24 years old. Helen Engelstad was my official director and also a very generous teacher of textile history. In that context I was invited to her home to meet Else Halling.

A tuft of wool in hand

At that time I was working with a textbook about spinning spelsau yarn with a drop spindle because I had a firm belief that a tuft of spelsau wool was as appropriate in a handbag as a powder puff–and that a drop spindle was as natural to have in hand as a key or a corkscrew.  In that way, every spare moment could be filled with something useful, which in my world was to spin spelsau yarn. I had rediscovered the drop spindle and seen how simple it was to make yarn when one needed it. If a hole appeared in a sock, then – zip – out comes a tuft of wool, the spindle is given a few turns, and the hole in the sock is darned in a jiffy with super strong new yarn!

But alas – I had no idea that the art of darning would gradually be forgotten in the culture of abundance that was about to engulf us. Instead my fate was to recycle thousands of other people’s ragged socks into mattress stuffing, the result of a use-and-discard culture. My drop spindle was therefore left lying on a shelf for several years instead of being in my handbag.

Naturally dyed spelsau wool.

A small woman with immense power

Else Halling was a living legend, small in stature but high in ideals. I remember her from that evening as remarkably witty and plainspoken. She was like an earth mother and a goddess of wisdom all in one person. She ladled out stories from the weaving studio, about the hierarchy in the “hen house,” about the weavers and the lofty gentlemen. Unfortunately I don’t remember any particular story, but I will never forget the power and humor that radiated from Else Halling.

I am even more impressed today over how she and her other spinners managed to produce the quantities of guard-hair yarn that was needed towards the end of the war and in the time of sparse resources after the war, thus creating national monuments in the shape of tapestries in spelsau wool.

Else Halling was a small woman with immense power. Here she is spinning in her studio while two weavers work on a large tapestry.

Else Halling’s work notes

Every square meter of tapestry required one to two kilograms of yarn.  An experienced spinner could perhaps produce 250 grams in a day.  Else Halling kept a journal that recorded progress in her wool work.  Following are some excerpts from the war years that bring forth her own voice [Excerpted from Norsk Billedvev: Et Atelier og en Epoke (Norwegian Tapestry: A Studio and an Epoch). Øystein Parmann. Oslo: Kunstindustrimuseum, 1982].

In the summer of 1944 the wool for “The Feast of Herod” was ordered from Ravndalen, Rogaland, which likely has the largest spelsau sheep farm in Norway.We didn’t get the wool until August, but since I wanted to have a good deal of yarn spun over the summer in order to have some to start with, I was able to borrow some wool from the [National Women’s Art and Design] School, both black and white spelsau, and two of our students there promised to spin as much as they could.I also spun a little.There are very few who can spin spelsau wool, so the question of yarn was my biggest concern when I came to Oslo in August to take up this work.For dyeing I had secured Sunniva Lønning’s help, and as a result I knew that this could not be in better hands.Without her agreement to do the test dyeing, I wouldn’t have dared undertake this task.

An air raid alarm provided me with a spinner: Mrs. Indergard from Møre, who lives in the upper floor of the building, took shelter in my entryway, became interested and promised to help with the yarn.She has done this in the most exemplary way, and has shown great interest in making sure that the yarn shall be exactly as we wish it to be.

…The worst is when it begins to be so cold for sitting and working, especially in the evenings.And the light also begins to get quite bad.One must find the right color during the brightest time of the day, and then continue working on that basis for as long as possible

…I wonder if the color of the figures’ eyes has any symbolic meaning or whether it is completely coincidental that all the earthly figures have blue eyes while the holy figures are light in color? I must remember to check this in other tapestries.

30th of January, 1945. The tapestry is progressing quickly. We sit on stools, each on our own table, which we find quite troublesome. What we’ll be sitting on in a few days we don’t know. We weave in a race, with war and threatening clouds on all sides. The other day a car repair shop in the immediate neighborhood blew up, and several window panes in the building here were broken. Sabotage. So the responsibility for this historic old tapestry weighs heavily on me.

“FINISHED! It was a nightmare to weave in the last weeks, we stood on a box on top of a table and had to work with our arms raised much too high. A full work day was almost unbearable, and we were in agreement that we wouldn’t have managed one more week in that position. The warp was also so very tight and hard at the last, it cut the skin on our fingers.

…Still unresolved are the problems of whether the wool was from a half year or a full year’s growth, whether it was spun “together” or whether some of the undercoat of wool was removed.The latter seems most likely; they have surely needed the finest, softest wool for clothing. But this issue has great importance for the tapestry as it determines the actual feel and weight of the textile.

Guardhair yarn that was left unused after the closure of A/S Norsk Billedvev.

Annemor Sundbø is a Norwegian author, knitter, weaver, historian, and curator. Perhaps her best title is also the title of an extensive profile of her on The Craftsmanship Initiative website, “Norwegian Sweater Detective.” Her most recent book, Koftearven, which examines the development of the Norwegian sweater tradition as a national treasure, won the 2020 Sørland Literature Prize. annemor.com
Read more by Annemor Sundbø in earlier issues of the Norwegian Textile Letter: Nettles – For Clothing and Much More (November 2017), and A Rag Pile, My Lot in Life (May 2016).
Translated by Katherine Larson, Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington

Art Weaving in Valdres: Part One of Four

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By Karin Mellbye Gjesdahl 

The following is part one of an article by Karin Melbye Gjesdahl, “Weaving in Valdres” [“Vevkunst I Valdres”] published in Valdres Bygdebok, Vol. 5, 1964, pp. 11-27. (A bygdebok is a compilation of local history.) Translated by Lisa Torvik, 2021.

Only a Fraction of Old Textiles Remain

In former times each farm was for the most part self-sufficient when it came to textiles for everyday use.  Spinning and weaving were among the capabilities one expected a young girl to be practiced in when she married.  Spinning wheel and loom were part of the dowry goods she brought with her to her new home.  This is a tradition which has been maintained nearly to our time.  Gjartrud Andersdatter Strand from Vang [in Valdres] hfigas told of the conditions in her rural home area at the close of the previous [19th] century.  “Then began carding, spinning and production of all types of yarn.  In the long winter evenings the spinning wheel hummed in every home. It was mostly in the spring that they wove. It was common in every home to weave a length for shirts, for “vadmel” [homespun wool cloth, usually fulled], and a length for wool skirt or dress fabric. In addition to these annual textiles they often wove coverlets, blankets, tapestries, linen and cotton table- and patterned cloth and whatever else they called them.”  (Knut Hermundstad, Old Valdres Culture. Vol. 4,  Family Legacy. [Gamal Valdres-kultur IV. Ættararv])  

This was the way of doing things from way back in time. Yes, numerous excavated graves have contained weaving equipment of various kinds and demonstrate that weaving was already common in prehistoric times in Valdres.

But though we can be quite sure that everyday textiles were commonly woven more or less on every farm in times gone by, very little of such work has been preserved to this day. Textiles have of course that unfortunate quality of being quickly worn out and ending up discarded.  Only a fraction of the rich textile production that we know once existed remains today. And that which remains is of course finer pieces, those which have been regarded with especially great reverence and care. Therefore it is difficult today to obtain a true picture of the textile holdings of homes in the past.

Textiles can also be easily transported from one place to another, so it is difficult to determine what is locally produced and what is imported from other places. Items can have arrived later in time through inheritance, marriage or as purchased goods. But they all contribute to illuminating the culture of a place and create a picture of it in time. To some extent, they also indicate the valley’s cultural and commercial ties.  We will therefore consider here the essentials of that which is preserved of old weavings in Valdres, even though we cannot provide evidence that they have been created there.

To some degree, written sources can flesh out the picture where physical material is lacking.  Textiles are written about in certain parts of Old Norse literature, and for later times, property inventories and estate settlements are a good source. But as a rule the description of textiles is very brief, and those who recorded the items were of course not textile experts.  The names used on the textiles of former times do not correspond to the common terms of today, so identification is often very difficult and much can be only conjecture.

Historical Use of Textiles in Homes

A great deal of information has been written down in our times about customary practices of long ago, such as older people could relate, but there is not much concerning textiles and their use. Before we turn to discussing the different groups of preserved Valdres textiles, let’s review some of what the written sources can tell us about the use of these textiles in former times.

From the Old Norse literature we know that in the Viking period, the Middle Ages and up to the 1500s it was very common to cover walls and ceilings with textiles, to tjelde [“tent”) the rooms on festive occasions. The common form for these wall tapestries was the long, frieze-style strips or borders of cloth and underneath a simpler, wider cloth covering. Such a narrow border could be either woven or embroidered. We have preserved several fragments of such pieces here [in Norway], and the embroidery from Røn church in [Vestre Slidre] Valdres is certainly what remains of such a long, narrow border (see fig. 4).

But we know very little about how common “tenting” was in the homes of ordinary farmers of the Middle Ages. Where “tenting” is mentioned in the sagas, it is usually in the context of a different social strata. Only when estate settlements occurred, with the registration and valuation of all the worldly goods of the deceased, do we get a certain insight into the holdings of a farmer’s home long ago. These estate records begin in the 1660s. Is there then something in the description of textiles to indicate that an old tradition from the Middle Ages of long, frieze-like tapestries to decorate walls persisted in the homes of farmers up into the 16- and 1700s?

The term husbonad [“furnishings”, modern “husbunad” = furniture] (Marta Hoffmann, A group of looms in Western Norway, pg. 111 [En gruppe vevstoler på Vestlandet]), which occasionally appears in estate settlements from the last half of the 1600s, can possibly represent a similar long, narrow tapestry.  Husbonad is known in sources from the Middle Ages and up to the mid-1500s, and the word is included in a dictionary from the Setesdal valley [Norway] from the end of the 1600s where it is defined as “the large woven cloths which formerly were used to cover the walls during weddings and parties.”

If we examine the approximately 190 estate settlements that occurred in Valdres in the periods 1659-1666 and 1697-1709 (the records from 1666-1697 are missing) we don’t see the term husbonad but instead we find vegge bonne twice. [“wall cloth”, “bonne”=teppe or cloth, esp. a woven wall cloth]  The first instance is in an estate settlement for Siffur Kiersten of Kjerstein [farm] in Øye, Vang. It is a relatively wealthy estate with a value of 375 riksdalar [Abbrev. as “rd.”, main silver coinage from 1544 to 1813], and the estate lists 1 Vegge Bonne for 2 rd. In a 1705 settlement for the estate of Thollef Olsen of Alvstad in Hegge, Øystre Slidre, we also come across a Veggebonne.  Here the estate value is just 130 rd.  A veggeteppe [“wall tapestry”] 13 ½ alen long at 5 rd. is registered in a wealthy estate settlement at Bren (Breie) in Etnedal in 1686 and it must also have been a long, narrow tapestry. (Olaus Islandsmoen, South Aurdal and Etnedal, pg. 171. [Søre Aurdal og Etnedalen])  [An alen is an ancient unit of measure = 47 cm in Viking times, gradually increasing to 62.5 cm when it went out of use in Norway in the 19th century.]

Swedish tapestries which are 7 alen long are mentioned twice.  Each could have been a long, narrow tapestry to hang on the wall, but they also can have been tablecloths. The latter are often listed as 7-8 alen long.  We don’t have any more specific information about the appearance of the veggebonad or the veggeteppe, but the terms themselves indicate they must have been tapestries to hang on a wall [“vegg”].  They cannot have been a common form for tapestries in those times since we so seldom find them mentioned. It could possibly be interpreted then that this was a type of tapestry which was no longer in use, had become old-fashioned, but also that they never were very commonly owned by farmers. Such long, narrow tapestries were appropriate for the årestuen, an older type of home without windows, and with the long unbroken walls of the Middle Ages.  [Like the longhouse, a home with a firepit – åre -in the center of the main room and a smoke hole in the roof was found in certain parts of Norway into the 19th century.]  When the fireplace became common, and walls were divided up by windows, this long design format no longer worked. Among higher social classes, in an urban setting, tapestries with a vertical design were those hung up on festive occasions.

We know little in regard to this practice of hanging tapestries with a vertical design format in farmers’ homes. The majority of all the tapestries which are listed in farmers’ estates are registered as coverlets and bed clothes. For this reason, some researchers have expressed doubt regarding the theory that farmers hung vertically designed tapestries on their walls in post-Reformation times, or that this constitutes a direct continuation of the “tenting” practice of the Middle Ages. (Roar Hauglid, Home, fireplace and tapestry weaving. Memories of the past (Vol.) XL [Hus, peis og billedvev. Fortids minner XL])

Of those estates reviewed from Valdres, we must of course be aware that it is not possible to go beyond the year 1709, that besides the two veggebonader and veggteppet there is only one specific mention of  tapestries hung on a wall. This is from Bø in Aurdal and the estate of Sigrid Olsdatter, married to Ingebrigt Michelsen, settled in 1706.  “A painted cloth on the wall” is mentioned in another estate settlement, which we will come back to later.  In the Bø estate, “1 pictorial weaving coverlet to hang up over the high seat for 3 rd. and 1 Lesnings [“Lesnings” – see discussion below] coverlet with geometric designs for 2 rd. and 2 ort.” [When 1 rd.=4 kroner, 1 ort=80 øre, an øre being 1/100 of a krone.  This fraction of rd. and its successor, the spesiedalar, also went out of use in 1875.]  This was a very well furnished home with no less than 18 sheepskin bedcovers, and a fortune valued at 462 rd., so this example probably does not represent the practices of the common farmer. However, though not specifically mentioned in the estate settlements that some of the tapestries and coverlets listed were used to hang on walls on special and festive occasions, we cannot be certain that was not done.

In this connection it might be interesting to discuss the previously mentioned painted wall cloth which is registered in two separate estates from Nordre Røn [farm] in Vestre Slidre. The first settlement is from 1699 and here we find “1 cloth on the wall at the lower end of the table” valued at 2 ort, and “1 cloth which hangs over the table for 16 skilling.” [1 skilling = 1/120th of a (riks)dalar]  8 years later there was a new settlement on the same farm and here we again meet the cloth on the wall, now described as “an old painted cloth on the wall and 1 ditto [of the same type] used over the table.” The settlement from 1699 is also a very wealthy estate, well furnished with textiles and a fortune of 565 rd. Is this also a description of decorating the high seat? Of course, we might think it was normal to name the high seat as the seat at the upper end of the table, not the lower end. But many places had two high seats, one for the host diagonally opposite the fireplace at one end of the table [in the wall corner], and one for the most honored guest at the other end of the table. 

Were some of the textiles painted cloths?

In the settlement from 1707 we learn that this cloth was painted. Perhaps some of the husbonader or veggbonader which are described in [Norway] are painted? Painted wallcloths were common elsewhere in Europe in the period of 1400-1600s and were also known in Norway. They are mentioned several times, among others in an inventory of the personal property which Aslak Bolt in 1429 brought with him from Bergen to Trondheim when he became archbishop. Several husbonader are listed with painted pictures in water colors and also some with printed décor. Quite a few such painted bonader [cloths] are preserved in Norway and Sweden, most of them from the early 1600s, but one from Setesdal [in Norway] is also characteristic of the Middle Ages. They have probably been a cheaper substitute for the more costly woven or embroidered bonader.  The motifs of these painted bonader are in part the same which we see repeated in our pictorial tapestries. In Hedal church in Valdres there are several such painted bonader, of which “The rich man and Lazarus” (fig. 1) especially has much in common with tapestries such as “The Wedding at Cana” and “Herod’s Feast”.   We must perhaps search for the models for many of our later tapestries in these painted bonader and to the painted walls and wall coverings in Swedish farmers’ homes of the 1700s and 1800s.  This could explain why Norwegian pictorial tapestries and Swedish painted bonader largely contain the same range of motifs and could possibly solve the problem of the medieval characteristics which are common in both groups.  The inexplicable dates which we find on some of our tapestries could possibly be interpreted as copied directly from the dates on such bonader.

Figure 1. Painted bonad [cloth] in Hedal Church, 1623.

Let us look a little closer at the estate settlements from North Røn.  The painted cloth was valued at just 2 ort in 1699, which is only 1/6 of the value of the woven coverlet at Bø, and the cloth above the table at 16 skilling.  These must have therefore been relatively plain pieces. A painted cloth can also have been just a cloth with a printed pattern. We have seen that the word “painted” used in the sense of “printed” sometimes in settlements in discussion of sheepskin bedcovers, where painted sheepskins probably refers to printed patterns on the skin side, which we know was commonly done in Hallingdal [valley south of Valdres].  “Towels” with printed pattern are known from different parts of the country, so it is certainly possible that our painted cloth could have been something similar.

The cloth hanging over the table has been interpreted as possibly a fine horizontal extended cloth or ceiling [cloth].  Such “ceilings” over the table are known from farmers’ homes in Sweden, but we have little that indicates they have been used in Norway, so this is unlikely.  In addition, the valuation of 16 skilling is not more than a regular towel in the same settlement.

Christmas Cloths

Could it be perhaps the Christmas cloth which we here see mentioned for the first time?  The custom of hanging up white, braided edgings along the walls and a towel with braided or knotted bottom fringes over a woven tapestry behind the high seat appears to have been widespread in Valdres. This is mentioned several times in [Hermundstad’s] Gamal Valdres-kultur, and one of the elderly sources the author used describes it thus: “The women trimmed the house for the holiday [Christmas]. Over the high seat they hung up the high seat tapestry. This was only used at Christmas. The fireplace mantle, the clock case, the main cupboard, the corner cupboard, the plate cupboard and the shelf hanging above the table – called the table crown – were decorated on their edges with woven lace with long fringes. Each thing had its own part of the decoration with a special design and weaving. The high seat tapestry and Christmas laces were packed away from one year to the next.”

Our “cloth which hangs over the table” could therefore be the cloth or border which was placed on the “crown”, the shelf that hung over the table. Christmas cloths such as this are not just preserved in the museums but also around on farms to this day, where we can find them laid away with instructions about where the different borders are to be placed. The Christmas “towel” itself was often embroidered. In Bagn Bygdesamling [The local collection of artifacts in Bagn, South Aurdal, Valdres] there is such a cloth, embroidered in holbeinsøm (fig. 2) in brown and blue with the year 1774 (?) sewn in. 

Fig. 2.  “Christmas towel” in linen, embroidered with holbeinsøm.  Dated 1774 (?) Bagn Bygdesamling.  [The bottom border appears to be firfletting, or four-fold braiding] 

It is also possible that some can have had printed patterns.  Several “towels” with printed patterns and braided lower borders are preserved from Numedal [valley south of Hallingdal], where the size [approx. 100 x 60 cm] may indicate they were Christmas cloths.  We do not know how far back we can trace this custom. The first time we find it mentioned in the printed sources is in author J.N. Wilse, Description of Spydeberg Parish [Beskrivelse over Spydeberg Præstegjeld] from 1779. Eilert Sundt also discusses it in his book On Cleanliness in Norway [Om Renligheds-Stellet i Norge] in 1869. In estate settlements from Hallingdal of the 1750s, high seat towels or cloths are mentioned several times. But otherwise this topic is still little researched in this country. Some researchers believe we have here a throwback, a pale substitute for the “tenting” of the Middle Ages. This custom is not only known in different districts here [in Norway] but is also very widespread in Sweden and especially in connection with richer textile furnishings, which researchers believe is undoubtedly a continuation of the textile décor of the Middle Ages. It is of course possible that the practice has come to Norway in later times with Swedish traders, but it may also have an early common origin.

In any case it is certain that, as certain researchers have asserted, there is a connection between these braided borders and the custom of painting a narrow border uppermost on the walls of the røykovn houses [open corner fireplaces without chimneys] found in Western Norway, called kroting (Helen Engelstad, Borders-Bunad-Tenting, pg. 34. [Refil-Bunad-Tjeld])  [Kroting means decorative carving or painting; bunad is local traditional clothing.]  The decoration here normally consists of triangles, crosses and dots and is a tangible reflection of the patterns of such a braided border.  Kroting has also been known in Valdres. In Gamal Valdres-kultur Gjartrud Andersdatter Strand tells about Christmas: “Mother said that in her youth they chalked flowers around on the walls and ceiling in the smoke-blackened cabins.” [Raustestogo = small timber single-story homes]  An old man in Øye [Vang in Valdres] could also relate that these braided borders were replaced with “laces” cut in paper.

But though we cannot for now be clear about how widespread the custom was to cover walls with textiles in farmers’ homes, or whether we can at all speak of any direct continuation of medieval “tenting,” the estate settlements offer more precise information in regard to bed clothes.

Bed coverings mentioned in estate records

As for bed covers we find a rich variety of tapestries and coverlets, but it is very difficult to identify the different pieces today from the names they were given then.

The most common bed cover has been the sheepskin coverlet.  [Skinnfell = prepared sheep or other skins, often two or more sewn together, with a soft leather side and an intact wool side with fleece up to several inches long. The soft leather side was sometimes printed with designs or covered with a woven textile, depending on local traditions.]  There could be from one or two up to 19 skinnfell in the same estate settlement. Most often they were skins of sheep, but calfskins have also been mentioned, and in a few cases we encounter reindeer skins and bearskins.  The latter have probably been used in sleighs.  The skins usually had a textile cover sewn on the leather side.  Swedish tapestries are mentioned, “a home woven, geometrically patterned tapestry” and several striped textiles.  Simpler fabric such as red or blue clothing material or “homespun” also appears.  These have sometimes been embroidered such as the coverlet owned by the Museum of Art and Design in Oslo that came from Løken farm in [Øystre Slidre] Valdres.  It is covered with red fulled woolen cloth, richly embroidered with flowers and birds and the inscription “P K S i 1786, B L D Enag”, initials of two people and date 1786 as well as most likely [indicating connection to] Einang [farm] in Vestre Slidre [Valdres.] [See photo here.] Many elderly sources in Valdres still tell of such skins covered with black wool and embroidered initials.  As mentioned before, we also see certain “painted” skins in settlements.  One assumes this means a printed pattern, but I have also seen the backside [skin side] of a woven pillow which was marked in squares with brown paint. 

Pile-woven bed covers seem to also have been used to some extent.  In the estate settlements which are reviewed,  we encounter them 12 times. These also are often sewn to another textile.  In certain cases we learn that the bed cover is gold or gray, gold- or gray-striped, and one is dated 1691. As far as I know, there are no pile textiles from Valdres preserved today.

Of all the different bed clothes which are named, it appears that the so-called lesnings are the most common. 46 are registered in the settlements reviewed, often without any further information about their appearance. A couple of times it is noted that they are striped, one is called checked or plaid, and one as “multicolored.” One is described as an old “half-lesnings” cloth. These must have been quite costly textiles, as the valuation is often between 2 ½ to 3 rd.  But what kind of textiles or tapestries hide behind this term lesning is difficult to say today.  The same term appears in other parts of the country, sometimes named as listning bed clothes, and the word was also known in the Middle Ages.   

In the district of Aust-Agder the term løssningsåkle is used, which today is the term used for a tapestry in krokbragd technique. (Marta Hoffmann,  A group of looms in Western Norway, pg. 165.)  But I don’t believe that can be the original meaning.  A valuation of 3 rd. is improbably high for such a relatively simple technique.

Could it possibly be geometrically patterned tapestries – ruteåklær –  we are talking about here?  In the districts of Bohuslän, Västergötland and Blekinge in Sweden, geometrically patterned tapestries are called läset or läsena cloths.  Is this the same word? It can be noted here that very few geometrically patterned tapestries from Valdres are preserved, and the description as “striped” is not very characteristic of this technique.  But we have examples of square patterns in ruteåklær being separated by woven borders and in that way give the impression of stripes.  This problem will likely remain unresolved until we have broader research of estate settlements from different parts of the country.

In terms of numbers, the next largest group after “leanings” bed clothes is the “døell” or “døles” group. The majority of them are recorded in the 1660s.  The usual valuation is from 1 ½ to 2 rd.  The term also appears in estate settlements that are reviewed from the districts of inner Sogn [west of Valdres] and Land [east of Valdres]. One might assume that this term refers to textiles or tapestries from the valley of Gudbrandsdalen [north of Valdres], but we are given no further information about what kind of textiles these are. [Døl refers to a person –a dalesman – or thing from the eastern mountain valleys of Norway, e.g. a person from Gudbrandsdal is a Gudbrandsdøl.] It is possible that these can be double weaves, as besides pictorial tapestries they were also a specialty for Gudbrandsdal.  In an estate from 1705 we find a “double Flemish “døel” bed covering” valued at 4 rd.  This must be a tapestry-woven coverlet because of the high valuation.  On the other hand, a “4-harness døle coverlet” for 1 rd. and 2 ort could possibly be a double woven textile.  This was registered in 1706 at Byffellien farm in Bruflat [Etnedal, Valdres] where there is also found an “old ditto” at 3 ort.

In her book on double weave in Norway, Helen Engelstad indicated that 4-harness or døles textiles were possibly identical with double-woven coverlets. In estates from Valdres “4-harness bed covers” are mentioned several times, primarily in the 1660s, and their valuations are between 1 ½ and 2 ½ rd. This term is known as early as the 1300s and 1400s, and in estate settlement it is used in Gudbrandsdal as well as other parts of the country.

There are no double-woven tapestries from more recent times preserved in Valdres, but they could have existed long ago.  On the other hand, there are two double-woven textiles with geometrical knot and cross motifs in Lomen and Ulnes churches (both in Vestre Slidre, Valdres) which must date from medieval times.  Accordingly we can’t say anything definitive about which techniques lie behind the terms døl or “4-harness.”  They must in any case represent two different types of textiles, since both terms appear several times in the same estate settlement.

Plate 1. Double weave tapestry from Lomen [Vestre Slidre] church (130 x 80 cm).  Probably from the 12- or 1300s. Details.

A great many Swedish textiles also appear in the settlements, mainly from around 1700 and later, with only one from the 1660s.  As mentioned before, we see them often in connection with sheepskin coverlets, but also separately.  It is common to interpret the term “Swedish tapestries” as textiles using the skillbragd technique, those of which in Valdres today are called kristneteppe.  [“Kristneteppe” or christening tapestry is woven with wool weft overshot on linen or cotton ground in characteristically patterned bands; hung at Christmas and also used for christenings and weddings, sometimes funerals.] 

An example of a kristneteppe, woven in skillbragd technique. Owned by the Valdres Folkemuseum. This was not in the original essay. Artifact details.

It is possible that the designation can also cover textiles woven in other techniques.  Fragments have been preserved from certain thin, light textiles in Valdres, (fig. 3) woven in wool on a linen warp with patterned borders in monk’s belt between stripes of varying widths. 

Fig. 3  Part of a textile woven of fine wool with borders in monk’s belt technique, remade into a pillow.  From Øye in Vang [Valdres].  Possibly Swedish origin.  Owner Knut Hermundstad, Leira [Valdres].

As mentioned in the settlements, one such textile used as a backing on a sheepskin coverlet is found at the Norwegian Folk Museum [Norsk Folkemuseum, Bygdøy, Oslo].  It is preserved with somewhat dark colors, of which ochre gold and brown dominate, while fragments of a couple other tapestries have lighter, well defined colors. (NF 340-48 and 811b-06.)  Such textiles are reported in Sweden and were, besides skillbragd textiles, a common Swedish export item.  It is well known that Swedish skreppekarer or peddlers, the so-called Västgötaknaller brought these textiles with them along with other wares on their travels to Norway and Denmark.  In estate settlements from Valdres, bed ticking fabric, scythes and grinding stones of Swedish origin are named.  A few times it is noted that the textiles are striped.  In 1705, a double long striped [textile] is listed.  They are valued at 2 rd. while the usual value is around 1 rd.

In regard to “Hallingdal,” brøtnings, or braatnings bed clothes we find in the settlements, we don’t have any points of reference as to their meaning.  “Hallingdal” bed clothes or coverlets appear to have been fashionable in the 1660s.  Very many of them are described as being new.  In settlements from around 1700 however the term disappeared.  The value of the new items was about 2 rd.

The valuation of the brøtnings textiles on the other hand is commonly no more than 1 rd.  Once, a striped one is mentioned.  All those registered are from around 1700.  We could perhaps guess that it could be krokbragd tapestries going by this name, as they are in many places called “thick coverlets,” but we don’t know anything for certain.  

The Most Valuable Bedcovers: “Flemish Weavings,” or Tapestries

The decidedly most costly of all bed clothes were the “Flemish.”   And here we can in all probability assume that Flemish means tapestries which we now call pictorial weaving or gobelin weaving.  In Sweden today tapestry weaving is called Flemish weaving.  But we cannot totally rule out that they meant textiles which came from Flanders. In the settlements we reviewed approximately 25 Flemish woven tapestries are registered.  For several of them from the 1660s it is noted that they are new.  It was not everyone’s ability to own such an item, but on the larger farms they could have up to 3 pieces registered.  On the other hand it appears that Flemish pillows and bench cushions were fairly widely owned.  Just once is it noted that the tapestry had a pictorial motif.  That was at the inn on Skogstad farm, Øye, Vang, where on the whole there were very rich textile furnishings.  Here were in 1666 two Flemish tapestries, each with a value of 4 rd., and of which one is described as “1 new Flemish pictorial bed cover.”  The two on Steinde farm in Ulnes [Vestre Slidre, Valdres] in 1661 must have been somewhat simpler as they are valued at just 2 ½ rd.  On Upper Kvåle farm in Vang, they had acquired a new Flemish coverlet, possibly because the old one was “mouse-hairy.”  The settlement here was in 1698.  The same year there was also an estate settlement at “Stoer Qvale” farm in Slidre [Vestre Slidre] where 3 Flemish bed covers were registered, but the value for these was just 2 rd.  All of these examples are taken from settlements with fortunes between 500 and approximately 900 rd.  It is really striking that the value for such a tapestry in the Valdres settlements is not set higher than 4 rd.  From other settlements we know they could have been valued at 6 or 7 rd.  They must therefore have been simpler textiles with purely ornamental motifs.

As we see, there must have been a rich variety of different types of textiles on beds, but in many places the furnishings were relatively simple with a featherbed or thin mattress, a pillow and a cloth or sheepskin coverlet.  On the other hand, it is seldom that the family was so impoverished as in the home of a widower “who in response to questioning said they owned no bedclothes of wool or linen, and that he together with his children had nothing that was of value.”  At the same time there were estates with very rich furnishings, such as for example at Ellingbø farm in Vang in 1697, where there were 9 featherbeds, 7 pillows, 18 bed covers, 20 sheepskin coverlets, 14 cushions and 5 bench cushions, besides linens of all kinds.

Textiles Were Used at Funerals and Christenings

The estate settlements thus give no other information about all these textiles and coverlets other than they have been used as bed clothes, aside from the 2 described as “hung up over the high seat.”  But we have a couple of sources which indicate that woven textiles have also been used as funeral coverlets.  In author Knut Hermundstad’s Old Valdres Culture. Vol. 2, Farm Life [Gamal Valdres-kultur, Vol 2, Bondeliv, 1940] Ragndi Nilsdotter Moen from Leira related that when the coffin was placed in a wagon or on a sleigh to be taken to the cemetery “a folded home-woven cloth was laid over the coffin.”  And in Hermundstad’s Family Legacy, Dorte A. Dokken tells about a vision that Jens of Sandhaugo [farm] had:  “I became aware of a coffin between two giant spruce trees.  A cloth was spread over it.  It was black in background with so many fine flowers on it, I have never seen such a fine cloth.”  We can of course interject here this was just a vision, a dream, but the basis for such visions lies always in a scene from experience.  He must have seen something similar at an earlier time. 

From other parts of the country we also know that woven or embroidered textiles were used as covers for coffins.   In Gudbrandsdal and South Trøndelag, we know that double-weave coverlets were used in this way, and from other districts we have examples of both geometrically woven and skillbragd textiles which were used as coffin covers.  (Helen Engelstad,   Doubleweave in Norway, pg. 69. [Dobbeltvev i Norge])  The tapestry with three holy kings, the Magi, from Leine [farm, Valdres], which has ended up in the USA, is said to have been used in funerals and lent out for that purpose around in their rural community.

It is of course well known that skillbragd textiles and to some extent dreiel [tightly woven cloth of linen and/or cotton] textiles were used to wrap children when they were taken to the church for christening.  This is the origin of the term “kristneteppe” or christening blanket.  The term and the custom are also known in other parts of the country.

Bench Covers Were Common

The textile furnishings of a farmer’s home also included bench cushions or bench coverings and pillows.  Very few chairs were found in the older houses.  The most common furniture for seating was a bench attached to a wall.  For festive occasions, bench cushions or covers were laid on these and pillows or cushions were set up for the back.  Such bench pillows and cushions appear in most of the settlements.  The number can vary widely.  As many as there were at North Røn [Vestre Slidre] was unusual.  In 1699, 22 pillows and 6 bench cushions were registered there.  Such bench cushions could often be of a considerable length.  Here lengths up to 6 ½ alen are mentioned.  We learn that both the pillows and the bench cushions could be in Flemish or lesnings weave technique, in gold and red, gold and blue, in blue, red and gold or other colors.  Some are described as plaid or striped, red and white checked, and some are noppete [nubbly].  This must have meant they were woven in half-pile [short, uncut loops].  These are basically the same types we see in those which have been preserved.  They are very often made with leather undersides, sometimes reported to be backed by cloth, for example red wool cloth.  Pillows made for sleighs are also reported several times.

Examining Textiles that have been Preserved

This is then the essential information we can derive from the written sources about woven textiles and their use in Valdres in former times, but now let us look at what is preserved up to our present day.

It is reasonable that we cannot expect to find a great number of textiles that date to the Middle Ages, even fewer of secular use.  But that does not mean that they never existed.  First and foremost in churches we find hope that medieval textiles have withstood the ravages of time.  In this way, Valdres is well situated.  We are so fortunate to have saved both a fragment of an embroidery depicting figures from Røn church (fig. 4) and the remains of two tapestries in reversible double weave from Lomen and Ulnes churches (plate I and fig. 5).  [All located in Vestre Slidre, Valdres.] The embroidery from Røn must certainly have originally been a long, narrow tapestry which was common in the Middle Ages.  It is dated to approximately 1200.  (Helen Engelstad, Borders-Bunad-Tenting, pg. 81.)  But as embroideries do not come under the subject of this paper, we will not discuss it further here. 

Fig. 4. Embroidered border from Røn church. Fragment. University Collection of Antiquities

Fig. 5.  Tapestry in double weave in Ulnes church (99 x 74 cm.) Probably from 1200s or 1300s.

Plate 1. Double weave tapestry from Lomen [Vestre Slidre] church (130 x 80 cm).  Probably from the 12- or 1300s. Details.

Can the tapestries from Lomen and Ulnes also have had a long-narrow format and been meant to decorate the walls?  Or is it right, as has been interpreted about the Lomen tapestry, that it was a funeral tapestry?  (H. Engelstad, Borders-Bunad-Tenting, pg. 91.)  The Ulnes tapestry has not been addressed previously.  Anders Bugge mentions it in Valdres 900 Year Journal of 1923, [Valdres 900 Årskrift 1923] but it has only now been brought to light by Egil Sinding-Larsen’s inventory of the church.

Both tapestries display a complex, entirely symmetrically constructed knot motif, a “valknute” in one area of the tapestry [a “valknute” is an ancient knot-like symbol, with three or four rounded corners formed by an single unbroken line], a somewhat simpler and coarser knot on the Lomen tapestry than on the Ulnes work, while the rest of the tapestries are covered with repeated patterns.  On the Ulnes tapestry, the “crossed cross” is placed within squares set diagonally which fill the entire surface, while the Lomen tapestry is divided up in small rectangles which again form a little cross.  On the latter tapestry, the knot motif is on two sides bounded by broad, geometric borders. 

The “valknute” most certainly has been imbued with magical meaning.  We find it on other textiles from the Middle Ages and in later times, and within folk art it has often been used on everyday objects.    Originally it was probably a pagan symbol, but later was given a Christian content.  We can’t know for certain which meaning it is given here.  People probably believed it had protective power, and that is likely part of the reason Helen Engelstad thought that the Lomen tapestry had been a funeral coverlet, that the “valknute” would prevent the dead from rising from the grave.  This tapestry is cut off on one end, has selvedges along the two long sides and its width is 80 cm.  Approximately the same width that the Ulnes tapestry must have had, though it now measures 74 cm.  Even if it has cut edges on all side, the knot is complete.  This width corresponds in height to a group of tapestries in double weave with figurative depictions that are preserved in fragments.  They must have had considerable length and been intended to hang on the wall.  The clothing of the figures in these tapestries show that they must have been made as late as the 1500s or 1600s but there are many old fashioned elements in them which indicate strong traditional influence and partly hearken back to older archetypes.  Among others we again find several of the motifs from the Ulnes and Lomen tapestries.  (Helen Engelstad, Doubleweave in Norway, Fig. 3, 4, 25, 27.)   A couple of these tapestries come from Trøndelag and one from Inner Sogn.  Although all these tapestries have figurative motifs, tapestries with purely ornamental patterns may also have existed, which were intended to hang on walls.

The Lomen tapestry is woven in white linen and red and blue wool.  The same for the Ulnes tapestry, but here some green wool is also used.  These are the same colors and materials which we find in other double weavings from the early middles ages in Scandinavia.  The Lomen tapestry is dated by Helen Engelstad to the 1200s or 1300s, and that from Ulnes must likely originate in approximately the same period.

Part Two of Art Weaving in Valdres discusses a highly valued type of textiles–billedvev, or tapestry.

 

A Connection to Frida Hansen in St. Louis?

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By Jane Olson Glidden

It’s wonderful when life takes us in directions that connect the past with the present; I always try to watch for those links because I know they are not accidental.  This story begins with my connections to Norway, where my grandfather was born. My first trip to Norway was in the 1970s, when my sister and I were searching for clues about his birthplace.  While that initial quest was unsuccessful, I did discover a fascination for Norwegian weavers, namely Frida Hansen, Hannah Ryggen and Unn Sønju!  Now, after forty-plus years and three more trips, I finally found my grandfather’s birthplace on a farm in Ølen, and have visited dozens of museums and galleries to satisfy my interest in the history of weaving and in my favorite weavers from Norway. 

These days, much of my life is focused on involvement in my local guild, the Weavers’ Guild of St. Louis, which recently celebrated its 95th anniversary.  The guild was founded in March of 1926 as an extension of the weaving classes at the School of Fine Art at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.  The guild has an extensive archive, but we continue to research the artists from our guild and our history as the second oldest weaving guild in the nation.  

Transparent Tapestry was interesting, even in a small black-and-white photo.

Several years ago, I saw an article in our archives with a black and white photo of a piece titled Transparent Tapestry by Mrs. E. Siroky, which had been featured in a guild exhibition in 1939.  The piece called to me, even in black and white.  I knew I needed to locate that piece.  I found the artist’s name listed as Mrs. Elsie Siroky in the guild archives. She was one of our early members, joining the guild in 1927 while studying weaving with Miss Lillian Glaser at Washington University. Then, I found myself scouring the white pages and calling random phone numbers listed under the last name of Siroky.  Miraculously, I eventually found a family member who gave me the name of Elsie Siroky’s daughter, Joye, who was kind enough to invite me to her home to view and photograph more examples of her mother’s work.  Within a few feet of her front door, I found myself face to face with the captivating, full color version of Transparent Tapestry.  I immediately felt like I was transported back to Norway, discovering Frida Hansen’s work for the very first time.  I suspected there had to be a connection somewhere because the piece was so reminiscent of the transparent portieres designed by Frida Hansen.  

Transparent Tapestry, Elsie Siroky

When the light source is behind the transparency you can see the shapes formed by the areas of open warp.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet with Joye’s daughter Heidi, a granddaughter of Elsie Siroky, so I could get better photos of her work.  Once again, I found myself absolutely enthralled as we spent an entire day enjoying a rare treasure trove of photo albums and a newly discovered school portfolio filled with weaving notes, designs, pattern drafts and even the actual cartoons from several of Elsie’s pieces.  Amazingly, we found the folded paper cartoon for Transparent Tapestry.   The full size cartoon on graph paper was very detailed, with meticulous notes on color changes and open warp areas.  It appeared to be drawn with colored pencils. 

We also found sketches for weaving her initials E.S. and the year 1930 into the design. This was a revelation because they were well hidden in the diamond shapes in the corners at the bottom of the piece, but easily recognized after seeing the design drawings. 

Elsie Siroky’s initials and the date were woven at the bottom, but are almost impossible to see because they are woven in the same yarn as the background.

After enlisting the help of other guild members, we searched for a direct link between Elsie Siroky and Frida Hansen but found no specific evidence.  We did find one intriguing possibility though, with documentation that Elsie’s weaving teacher, Lillian Glaser, had traveled throughout Europe in 1930.  In a March, 1931, article by Louis La Coss in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat Magazine, Glaser was quoted as saying, “Norway and Sweden, you know, do the best weaving in the world today.  In other years France led, but the crown has been taken from that country by the Scandinavians.  Last summer I visited eight countries in Europe – Norway and Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Italy, France, and England.  Everywhere I found an intense interest in the art, far beyond the traditional attention that has been paid to it for centuries.  In Norway and Sweden, especially, I found the art developed to its finest form.”

Perhaps this was the link that connected Frida Hansen with Lillian Glaser’s students.  We know that Lillian Glaser traveled to Norway in 1930 and two of her students went on to weave their own transparent tapestries with a distinct resemblance to Hansen’s work.  We know that Elsie Siroky wove her Transparent Tapestry in 1930 and her classmate, Carolyn Horton Cowan, likely wove hers in the same semester.  You can certainly see the influence of Frida Hansen’s design aesthetics and imagery when you compare both student-woven transparent tapestries side by side with Hansen’s Summer Night’s Dream [Sommernattsdrøm, 1914].  All three tapestries have a strong Art Nouveau style with similar motifs of stylized garden settings with trees.  The circles indicate areas with specific design similarities like the white spots and elongated shapes in the tree foliage.   

From left to right: Transparent Tapestry by Elsie Siroky, Summer Night’s Dream by Frida Hansen, and a transparency woven by another student of Lillian Glaser, Carolyn Horton Cowan

It certainly appears that Lillian Glaser introduced Frida Hansen’s unique transparent tapestry technique to her students after her visit to Norway, but nine decades later, finding proof is quite a challenge.  I love how this story connects so many facets of my life; interest in my Norwegian heritage, my love for weaving in general, and my fascination with the weavers/artists that left such a wonderful legacy in this art. I am excited to work with my fellow guild members as we continue to research our guild history while we approach our 100th Anniversary in 2026.  Perhaps someday we will discover the precise details that connect Frida Hansen with Lillian Glaser and her talented students. For now we can all appreciate the impact of Frida Hansen’s groundbreaking work and admire the amazing efforts of two weaving students inspired by her technique and designs. 

Jane Olson Glidden weaves in St. Louis. She is active in the Weavers’ Guild of St. Louis where she is a member of several study groups including their Swedish Weaving Study Group.  She co-founded the guild’s annual sale in 1983 and continues to serve as Sale Chairperson.  She was awarded Lifetime Honorary Membership in the guild in 2012.