By Karin Bøe
(Translation by Lisa Torvik)
May 2022

A trunk sits in the bedroom of our family farm in Laudal.  It is decorated with rosemaling and it is locked.  It has been locked for as long as I can remember.  On the outside of the trunk is painted “Siri Torgrimsdatter Skoven 1861,” and she is my great-great grandmother. 

The time came for the farm to pass to the next generation, and of course everything had to be brought out for viewing in the course of the probate process. My brother had a plastic bag full of keys and I had to try one after the other…and indeed one key turned the lock! I could open the trunk lid!  It was enormously exciting – what was in the trunk?  I could see there were some lovely treasures.  One was a beautifully embroidered bunad shawl. Another was a beautifully woven rose tapestry!  What a joy that was – a fantastic experience! There are two other rose tapestries on the farm, but it was so fun to find one more.

Now let’s look a little closer at these rather unusual tapestries woven in rutevev, or square weave, with flowers on them.  We will examine articles by Anne Kjellberg and John Lauvdal, some oral information from Kathrine H. Bringsdal, and of course, some weavings.  I have collected information on about 30 weavings with this flower motif.  Of these, two are from Norsk Folkemuseum [Norwegian Folk Museum, Bygdøy, Oslo]; eight were in an exhibition in Kristiansand in 1983; one at Sveinall Bygdemuseum (VAF); and five were at a weaving exhibition at Høgtun in Øyslebø in 1998. Seven are from the collection from Anna Heddeland in the book by Solås (2012); and eight large and small weavings are from our family farm Roligheta in Laudal.  Pictures of the tapestries at the Folkemuseum [in Oslo] and from the exhibition in Kristiansand can also be found at digitaltmuseum.no, though almost all the tapestries are privately owned.

Anne Kjellberg wrote the article “Rutevev Textiles from Vest-Agder” (in the Norsk Folkemuseum Årbok, its annual publication, 1985-86).  It is based on the textiles at Norsk Folkemuseum and the exhibition of old textiles from Vest-Agder county in Kristiansand in 1983 (KU).  Here is the discussion of rose tapestries in her article:

Ten textiles (KU) are so-called “rose tapestries.”  Anna Grostøl mentions this type of tapestry twice in her notes.  From Eiken: “Some had begun with ‘Flower-butterfly weaving’. There were flowers and leaves.”  [Editor’s note: A “butterfly” is made by winding yarn between your little finger and thumb into a small skein; the butterflies are used for each color woven into the rutevev tapestry.] From Konsmo:  “’Wreath-weaving’ was the common name for butterfly woven tapestries with a wreath of flowers on a dark ground.  There is such a tapestry in the house. She believed it was especially in one area of Laudal that they wove so much like that.  Much of that tapestry has probably been woven by a servant girl to ‘Aunt Siri of Åkset.’  One of the girls she employed was such a talented weaver.”  

We have obtained a good impression of the tapestries through these descriptions.  They usually have a dark background with more or less realistic flower patterns in the form of wreaths and/or scattered flowers. In one case, heads of dogs are placed between the flowers.  The border created by flowery vines on eight of the tapestries is not as clearly separated from the center as on the majority of tapestries in the main group A.  The colors are sharp and bright, in striking contrast to the dark background.

Two of the tapestries are dated 1874 and 1888.   Five of them have oral reports about age; probably ca. 1825-1845; ca. 1870; ca. 1890, 1903 and 1922.  The oldest dating is, I believe, rather early in light of the other characteristics of the tapestry.  However, it cannot be entirely ruled out.  Three of the textiles have information about their use, and have been, respectively, a bed coverlet, a tablecloth and a floor rug.  “Rose tapestries” are in other words not only distinct from the traditional pattern shapes of the ruteåkle, but also in part from their original use as bed coverlets.

Most people think of geometric patterns like this when they think of rutevev. The more organic rose tapestries are unusual. This eight-petaled rose rutevev, woven more than 100 years ago, was on display in 2022 in Åseral, north of Laudal. Photo: Karin Bøe

There is a clear stylistic connection between a majority of the rose tapestries and the embroidered tablecloths and floor coverings we find in large areas of Europe and America, primarily from the middle of the 1800s and later. Apparently, “rose tapestries” are a local version of this international fashion.  The embroideries were often done in a type of German pattern which was termed Berlin wool work. They were printed on graph paper and then hand-colored so they could easily be used as a pattern for weavers.  It is reasonable to imagine that this must have happened in Vest-Agder. The result became a tapestry genre that was not always as esthetically successful.  On the other hand, the tapestries demonstrate an impressive ability and desire to employ an old and familiar technique in the service of a new design form.

Detail of a rose tapestry from Karin Bøe’s family farm, Roligheta. It is easy to see how the weaving is based on a graphed-out pattern. Photo: Karin Bøe.

That a group of women in Vest-Agder did not turn to embroidering textiles like these, but rather translated the patterns into weaving, indicates that the county must have had a continuous and living tradition in rutevev into the last half of the previous [19^th] century.

I have not seen other “rose tapestries” than the ten at the exhibition in Kristiansand.  This naturally does not mean that the type has only existed in Vest-Agder.  For the time being, however, I choose to consider it as characteristic and perhaps unique to the county.

The patterns  used in these rose tapestries came from Berlin wool work, a style of embroidery which was especially popular in Europe and America from 1804 to 1875. Cross stitch or tent stitch were typically used in colorful wool yarn on linen canvas. For the most part they were published as single sheets and that made it more affordable to buy them.  In Great Britain, Berlin work was given a boost by the great exhibition of 1851 and through ladies magazines.  At the same time, many women were gaining more free time, including time for handwork.  The motifs used in the patterns were geometric flower and picture series, which eventually became influenced by Victorian romanticism.

I also found similar rose patterns in old patterns for damask. They can look very much the same in their geometric design but the few I have seen have only been in black and white.  The Swedish weaving family Ekenmark published several books and taught damask weaving in the first half of the 1800s, and this spread also to Norway.  Perhaps these patterns can also have given inspiration to the weavers of rutevev in Laudal.

WHERE

Kathrine H. Bringsdal relates that the fashion with rose tapestries came up the valley from Mandal and northward.  It then spread around, west to Audnedal and north to Bjelland and Eiken, and east to Øvrebø. But there were especially many rose tapestry weavers in Laudal, especially in Sveinall [bygd] in Laudal.  Laudal is a small rural community 30 kilometers north of Mandal in the old Marnardal township. The township has now been merged into Lindesnes township in Agder, which is the southernmost county.  

Asborg Nåstad told me in 1997 that her grandmother wove “butterfly weavings”, that is to say rutevev. She went to a course in Mandal and they had a lot of contact there with Denmark and Germany. They learned a very special type of weaving, indeed the pattern was new, she said.  The usual tapestries in rutevev have regular patterns, but in Mandal they learned to weave irregularly. It was almost like picture weaving (billedvev/biletvev). Could this have been the rose pattern?

There were many in Laudal who wove for Husfliden in Oslo, but unfortunately, I don’t know if there were any weavings with the rose pattern.  We will return to Husfliden later.

There are, however, other places in the world where they have woven rose tapestries.  There were many rose tapestries in Romania, and according to Bringsdal it was said there were many Germans who lived in a certain area there.  [Translator: German settlers were invited to Transylvania, then a separate principality, by its sovereign in the middle ages.  They had distinct villages and had trade and cultural connections with other German-speaking areas of Europe up through World War II.]

When war broke out in the Ukraine I attempted to search the Internet for tapestries from Ukraine.  Believe it or not, up popped rose tapestries!  It was exciting and I searched a little more.  It appears that rose tapestries were also woven in Bessarabia, which is now Moldova and  a part of Ukraine on the Romanian border. 

According to Wikipedia, Bessarabian tapestries were woven in rutevev (tapestry technique), and tapestries that were knotted were considered to be Ukrainian.  The tapestries are from the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s when [these regions] were part of the Ottoman Empire.  Many of the tapestries have flower motifs with brown or black background.  According to [the website] mobile.woven.is, the design of Bessarabian tapestries is often of flowers in earth tones and the style shows French and Oriental influence, right on the border between European and Oriental tapestry weaving. 

They are almost always in tapestry weave, seldom with pile.  The online search also reveals that there are many such tapestries for sale if one searches, for example, Bessarabian-, Moldovian-, Romanian-, rose-, floral kilim, rugs or carpets.  It is amazing that one can find similar tapestries in a little area around Laudal and in a region by the Black Sea!  Could there be other places if one searched more?

AGE

It is not always easy to determine how old the Norwegian rose tapestries are.  But four of them have initials and years on them so we can probably figure they are quite accurate.  They are NTSU (+) BKDU 1874; KOÅDS 1887; IDDG 1888; and NNDS 1922.  So these range from 1874 to 1922.  Kathrine H. Bringsdal reports that the oldest dated rose tapestry she has seen is from 1868 in Laudal.

One tapestry is reported to have probably been woven by Randi Skuland ca. 1825-1845, but it is Kjellberg’s opinion that this date may be too early.  This tapestry shows 16 rosebuds placed systematically in rows, framed with a wreath of leaves around them.  It is therefore somewhat distinct from the others in composition.

Two of the tapestries are more recent.  One was woven by Norveig Ugland (born 1916).  It resembles the oldest tapestry attributed to Randi Skuland with rosebuds in rows, but it has a light background and a red border around it.  The other was woven by Kari Ugland (born 1910).  She was commissioned to recreate an old tapestry; I believe it was some time in the 1970s.

PATTERN

The most common composition in the tapestries I have seen is of flowers gathered in a type of bouquet, or several lightly scattered around the middle of the tapestry, or there can be a flower wreath. 

Then there is often a border around the edge of flowers: oak leaves, for example, or grapes, or a more stylized organic border. 

On four of the tapestries, the flowers are more stylized.  On seven of them there is a figurative motif.  There is the head of a dog, horse, person, or birds, and one has two small lions together with the flowers.  The small weavings have a solid color border around in dark red or green.

Patterns were copied from one to another and the colors could easily be changed.  Those with a flower wreaths were usually much alike in their patterns, but with different colors, Bringsdal said.

The tapestry with the head of a man also has an in-woven text:  [translated] “One can still fly if one is not a falcon.”  There is also a drawing of this tapestry with the title “Turkish Pattern,” and the man could well resemble a Turk with his red cap or hat.

DESIGN

Traditional coverlet tapestries in Vest-Agder were, as a rule, woven in two lengths and sewn together in the middle, no matter what weave structure was used.  Some weavers, however, had wide enough looms that they could weave in one width. An example of this is a coverlet [åkle] from 1842, which is not a rose tapestry, woven in one width. Some weavers had double beams for their looms – longer beams for weaving wider and another set of beams when they were weaving a narrow warp.  [Translator: Mortise and tenon construction of traditional floor looms permits a quick change of beams.] The loom took up a lot of space so it was smart to have two sets of beams, says Bringsdal.

Among the 30 weavings with roses are 17 tapestries which are wider than 95 cm [approx. 37.4 inches] and of which I know the dimensions.  Of these 17 only four are woven in two lengths and sewn together. In addition, there are a couple of tapestries where I can’t tell if they are of one or two widths.  It appears that there is something special about the rose tapestries – that most of them are woven in one piece, in contrast to the more traditional åkle in the county which are put together from two narrow weavings. 

All the tapestries I have seen are rectangular.  The width is between 120 and 145 cm, and the length between 165 and 190 cm  [47 to 57 in. wide, 65 to 75 in. long].  A floor rug is somewhat larger, it is 194 cm wide and 231 cm long [approx. 76 x 91 in.]  This is woven in two lengths and sewn together.  Otherwise there are some weavings which are around 90 cm wide and some that are between 50 and 60 cm wide [approx. 35 in. and 19.5 to 23.5 in., respectively.]

HOW

The technique that is used for the transition between colors in these weavings is a single turn around a warp thread in nine of them, single interlock between warp threads in four of them, and none have double interlock. The others’ techniques are unknown to me.  John Lauvdal writes that rutevev was done previously with double interlock technique. Double interlock created an edge between the areas of different colors on the backside of the tapestry, that is to say there was a “right” and “wrong” side. Around 1850 however, Ingeborg K. Skuland began to weave so that both sides were alike. Bringsdal reports that Skuland began with a turn around a single thread. Later, Bringsdal says, there was lady from Laudal who traveled to weaving school in Christiania [Oslo] in 1895.  There she learned to weave with single interlock technique and she took that home with her and taught it to others. This indicates that double interlock is the oldest technique, then simple turn around one warp, and so the single interlock is the newest technique.

According to Marit Wang (1983) single interlock is the most common [in Norway].  But in Setesdal, single turn around one warp is the most common, at least in the rutevev textiles I have seen there.

A large floor rug with four dog heads is unique as in it the dark background is divided up into several areas.  That is to say that they wove with several butterflies with black yarn and not just one weft thread across the large background areas.

The patterns are built up of squares (ruter) and one rute covers 2 or 4 warp threads in the weavings I have been able to examine. Kari Ugland told me (1998) that she was given a commission for recreating an old tapestry. It was “flowers in a circle” and of homespun yarn.  One rute covered two warp threads and it was woven in two parts and sewn together. At first she declined, but then she made it anyway. She had to collect all the safety pins she had.  The ruter were so small and they did not always line up in the middle.  But it worked out anyway, she said.  Whatever she used the safety pins for I forgot to ask, unfortunately.  

As a rule, linen, hemp or cotton are used for the warp. The weft is soft wool yarn in strong colors on a dark background.

USE

There is little information along with the weavings regarding their use. Records mention a bed coverlet, a table cloth (which has fringes around all the edges), a large floor rug. Some are said to have hung on the wall. A couple of them may have been chair covers for armchairs or bench covers, or they may have been runners to put on the table. The two smallest could work for pillows (width 58 cm x length 41 cm = approx. 23 x 16 in.) The tapestry is as mentioned rectangular and could be laid on the bed, the table, the floor or be hung on the wall.  Perhaps they were used in several ways or their use can have changed over time.

Bringsdal reports that first they wove åkle for bed coverlets, but then they began to weave them for table coverings. 

She has not seen table cloths with fringes, but she has seen many pieces where fringes were frequently used.  And there were many who wove chair covers and bench covers also.

Asborg Nåstad told me that they had a floor covering in the living room where she grew up in Marnardal.  Usually it lay turned upside down under the table in the living room.  When the last of her parents died the rug was turned right side up.  They forgot to turn it back afterwards and so now it is faded on both sides as well.  I can imagine that it must have been really lovely with a rose tapestry on the floor.  But at that time, I don’t think they used the living rooms [parlors] for every day as much as we do today.  At that time the living rooms were used mostly when for special company or when there were special occasions, like a funeral.

A smaller weaving which is in the museum in Sveindal is a stall blanket.  It was used as a festive decoration on the horse’s back when they were going to church. 

The weavers in Laudal

In the article titled [translated] “The small community with the many weavers – Weaving as a home industry in Laudal” (Yearbook of the Marnardal History Society 2003), John Lauvdal wrote at length about the weavers in Laudal from approximately 1895 up to the time in which he wrote the article. Already in 1866, however, folk life researcher Eilert Sundt in his book Regarding Homecraft in Norway [Om Husfliden i Norge] boasted about women of the area, that their “diligence in keeping their rural community supplied with clothing means there is only little that must be purchased…”

The women wove for their own use, but also for the Husfliden [retail store] in Oslo, and after a time for the Husfliden in Mandal and in Stavanger.  They received a considerable income for this weaving.  They earned as much money as a lumberjack, and there were many who managed to avoid the forced sale of their farm because of the weaving, Bringsdal says.  It was Randi N. Skuland who in 1895 began to weave for the Norwegian Home Craft Association.  This became more and more popular and around 1950 there were approximately 100 women in Laudal alone who wove, spun and tatted lace for Husfliden.  The Home Craft Association sponsored many types of instruction and they published and distributed books and pamphlets with patterns, drawings and instructions for the women.

They wove both decorative pieces and utilitarian weavings.  Records list these decorative items: pillows, table runners, åkle, table cloths, wall hangings, floor rugs, divan covers, chair covers, chaise-longe covers, drapery, door curtains, bags, purses and smaller items.  In addition we find these practical items: curtain fabric, rag rugs, aprons, guest towels, bench covers, napkins, breakfast table cloths, upholstery fabric, embroidery fabric, blue and other cotton fabric, clothing fabric, handkerchiefs, garbage bags, scouring- and washrags.  John Lauvdal does not write about the patterns they wove, but in a weaving course in 1915 they set up, among others, “Tapestries in Russian weaving,” which is a type of weave unfortunately unknown to me. 

In the article it is very clear that the women were both very industrious and did beautiful work.  Lauvdal concludes by relating what the director for the weaving department at the Norsk Folkemuseum said to him:  “It is high time that these proficient, unknown women were given the spotlight. But it is nearly too late. There are few still alive. The majority of them passed away without really knowing what monumental work they had been part of.”

Conclusion

It is very impressive that the weaving these women did could achieve such importance for so many in a small community such as Laudal.  Weaving for Husfliden provided an important income that supported many families. But whether the rose tapestries were the result of the Norwegian Home Craft Association connection or if they were an independent tradition, well, that I don’t know. One needs to learn more about the patterns that Husfliden used. In the meantime, there is much to indicate that they decided on their own to weave from the Berlin embroidery patterns, and that bears witness to how competent and motivated these women were.

It must have been very beautiful to have a rose tapestry decorating the parlor or a bedroom or other room, with the colorful flowers on a dark background. I am certain of that. I don’t know who wove the tapestries we have on our family farm, but I know there were many in my family who wove.  It makes me proud to be a descendent of those in Laudal.

Karin Bøe moved to Valle in Setesdal in 1995 as a craft instructor. She began to study weaving traditions in the Setesdal region by examining coverlets and interviewing older weavers. In 1996 she began her business, Valle Vev, creating traditional weavings. She has a certificate in handweaving and a masters in traditional folk art. In 2012 she published her book, Rugger og Brossar. Åkle i Setesdal (Rugger og Brossar: Coverlets in Setesdal).

 

References: 

Bringsdal, Katherine H. “Rutevevde tekstiler fra Vest-Agder.” [Square-weave textiles from Vest-Agder.] By og Bygd 31:1985-86. Norsk Folkemuseum.

Lauvdal, Jon. “Den vesle bygda med dei mange vevarane – Veving som heimeindustri i Laudal.” [The small community with the many weavers – Weaving as a home industry in Laudal] Årsskrift for Marnardal historielag, 2003.

Wang, Marit. Ruteåklær : bidrag til en karakteristikk, ordning og plassering. Bergen : Universitetsforlaget, 1983.

August 2022

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