Present and History

Welcome to the Studio of Tapestries, Ltd. website.  The main domain of our Studios (founded in 1910) is the hand weaving and restoration of historical tapestries, carpets and other unique textiles. In addition, we offer hand-cleaning of tapestries, carpets and a unique tour of workshops where visitors can see weavers and restorers at work.

Present

Studio of Tapestries, Ltd. , since its establishment in 1910, has focused on original handmade textiles for unique decorations of various types of interiors and on the restoration of historical textiles by various methods and techniques. Recently new tapestries were woven for e. g. USA (Hollywood), Canada, Sweden, Tasmania, Belgium as well as for Czech clients. Restoration works were carried out for state collections and for private collectors from the Czech Republic, Austria etc. During its existence Studios have trained number of skilled and specialized restorers and weavers. Many of them are holders of State license of the Czech Republic for restoration work.

High quality of our work was also appreciated by the European Union by providing a grant for the craft maintenance and development. Thanks to the grant the so called “Old brewery” in the centre of Jindřichův Hradec was reconstructed and since 2012 there is a seat of “The House of Tapestries”. There were created new spaces both for work activities of Studios and for expositions commemorating world, European and domestic successes of restorers from Jindřichův Hradec.

History

“Studios of Tapestries, Ltd.” (Ateliéry tapisérií s. r. o.) were founded in 1910 by Marie Hoppe Teinitzerova. Since then Studios have been focused on the original hand textile processing for unique decoration of various types of interiors and on restoring of historical textiles. During its existence, there have been woven many tapestries, kilim carpets, upholstery fabrics with unique designs and a lot of historic textiles for Czech as well as for foreign customers were restored. However, the dominant feature has always been weaving of large-scale tapestries.

In 1925 we won the Grand prix and the Gold medal for the cycle of eight tapestries called „Handicrafts“ at The International Exhibition of Decorative Art and Industry in Paris. The cycle was created in cooperation with Czech artist František Kysela and the originals are deposited in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.

In 1948 was the workshop nationalized and became a part of the Headquarters of Arts and Crafts.
At that time a brilliant textile artist and expert Josef Müller started to work here. He made many changes and improved the methods of working. In the early of 60th of the 20th century he introduced new weaving technique called “melírování”, i. e. instead of joining monochrome surfaces to achieve the impression of a smooth color transition, he used colored weft material composed of more thin colored threads, by means of which he achieved very subtle color transitions on areas of color shades of a tapestry. This weaving method is unique in the world. Furthermore, Josef Müller initiated restoring of historical tapestries, carpets and other textiles in the workshop.

Privatization 

In the early 90s of the 20th century the workshop was returned to private ownership of the niece of the workshop’s founder, to Olga Teinitzerová. So the continuity of the weaving craft and the tradition of the workshop were maintained. Since privatization the workshop works under the name “Ateliéry tapisérií s. r. o.” and continues in performing excellent weaving and restoration craft. Since that time more than 30 large-scale tapestries have been woven, including also eight replicas of already mentioned cycle “Handicrafts” – for a Hollywood film producer Joel Silver.

Scientific activity

In 1995-99 Studios of Tapestries participated in a five-year project „New methods of restoration of historical tapestries“. Mgr. Jan Fidler, the current managing director and the owner of the workshop, was the main researcher of this project. The project was aimed at development of restoration and conservative techniques to maintain heavily damaged historical tapestries. Within the project Studios developed unique and a very gentle method of restoring historical tapestries using the so called supplementary loom. The outcome of this project was combining the restoration and conservation methods used for heavily damaged and fine tapestries. Combining classical restoration method of unnoticeable reconstruction and retouch with local methods and with whole-scale sceletaque restoration of the so called irrepairable tapestries became restorable.