Bellinger, Louisa (1900-1968)

Louisa Bellinger, photographed in 1940. Louisa Bellinger, photographed in 1940.

Louisa Bellinger (1900-1968) was an American curator and writer about textiles. She was the daughter of Hiram Pauling Bellinger (1865-1930) and Elizabeth Dwight Raymond (1868-1963). Her brother was Alfred Raymond Bellinger (1883-1978), Dean of the Classics Department of Yale University and a well-known Classicist and Byzantine scholar specialising in Byzantine period coins.

Louisa Bellinger was born in Syracuse, New York, and brought up in Durham, PA. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from the Yale Music School (Yale University) in 1926. Between 1938-1944 she worked on the Census of Byzantine Textiles at Dumbarton Oaks and remained a research fellow at the institute well into the 1950's. From 1946-1964 she was a curator at the Textile Museum, Washington DC. Bellinger was also a travelling lecturer for the American Archaeological Society and gave various talks about the role of textiles and clothing in the Bible, explaining about the use of skin clothing (the story of Cain and Abel), linen from Egypt (tabernacle curtain, as described by Moses) and so forth.

She developed a system to record yarn twist using slashes (\ and /), which are symbols that closely approximate the slant of the thread. This system became known as the slash system. It first appeared in an article about the textiles from Dura Europos (Pfister and Bellinger 1945). Bellinger wrote about various archaeological textiles from the Middle East (notably tiraz textiles), as well as South America, including the Nazca embroideries from Peru.

Bellinger's textile publications include:

  • PFISTER, R., and Louisa BELLINGER (1945). Part II: The Textiles. The Excavations at Dura-Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, Final Report IV, in: M. I. Rostovtzeff, A. R. Bellinger, F. E. Brown, N. P. Toll and C. B. Welles, general editors. London: Oxford University Press.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1950). 'Textile analysis: Early techniques in Egypt and the Near East, Part 1,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper. 2, pp. 1-6.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1951). 'Textile analysis: Early techniques in Egypt and the Near East, Part 2,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 3, pp. 1-5.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1952). 'Textile analysis: Early techniques in Egypt and the Near East, Part 3,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 6, pp. 1-6.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1955). 'Textile analysis: Pile techniques in Egypt and the Near East, Part 4,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 12, pp. 1-8.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (June 1957). 'Textile analysis: early techniques in Egypt and the Near East, Part 5,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 15, pp. 1-4.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (November 1957). 'Textile analysis: early techniques in Egypt and the Near East, Part 6,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 16, pp. 1-4.
  • KÜHNEL, Ernst, and Louisa BELLINGER (1952). Catalogue of Dated Tiraz Fabrics: Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Washington, D.C.The Textile Museum.
  • KUHNEL, Ernest, and Louise BELLINGER (1953). Catalogue of Spanish Rugs XII-XIX c., Washington. D.C: The Textile Museum.
  • BIRD, Junius B. and Louisa BELLINGER (1954). Paracas Fabrics and Nazca Needlework: 3rd century B.C. – 3rd century A.D., Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum, Catalogue Raisonnée, National Publishing Company. BELLINGER, Louisa (1954). 'Patterned stockings: Possibly Indian, found in Egypt,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 10.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1956). Principles of Practical Cleaning for Old and Fragile Textile, Washington D.C.: The Textile Museum.
  • KUHNEL, Ernst and Louise BELLINGER (1957). Cairene Rugs and Others Technically Related, 15th–17th century, Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum, National Publishing Company.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1957). 'Analyses of various substances from Persepolis: Charred textiles from Persepolis. Appendix,' in: Schmidt, Erich F., Persepolis II, p. 137.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1958). 'The Bible as a source book for the study of textiles,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 18, Washington, D.C., pp. 1-4.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1959). 'Craft Habits: Loom Types Suggested by Weaving Details, part 1,' Washington D.C.: Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 19, pp. 1-6.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1959). 'Craft Habits. Part II, Spinning and Fibers in Warp Yarns,' Washington D.C.: Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 20, pp. 1-4.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1959). 'Textile Fibers,' in: Copenhagen, 2th Joint Meeting of the ICOM Committee for Museum Laboratories and of the Sub-Committee for the Care of Paintings, p. 6.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1959). 'Textile Fibers and Near East Design,' in: Richard Ettinghausen, Aus der Welt der islamischen Kunst: Festschrift fur Ernst Kuhnel zum 75 Geburtstag am 26.10.1957, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, pp. 117-124.
  • BELLINGER, LOUISA and Margaret T. J. ROWE (1960). 'Impressions of Russian Museums,' Museum News, 39, no. 3, pp. 20-23.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1961). 'Repeats in Silk Weaving in the Middle East,' Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 24.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1961). 'Outline of practical cleaning procedures for old and fragile textiles,' ICOM Report 61/3.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1963). 'Textile fibres and their uses,' 4th Joint Meeting of the ICOM Committee for Museum Laboratories and of the Sub-Committee for the Care of Paintings, Leningrad/Moscow.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1963). 'Basic habits of textile fibers,' in: G. Thompson (ed.), Recent Advances in Conservation, IIC, London: Butterworths, pp. 192-194.
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1965). 'Cleaning of textiles,' in: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 1964 Delft Conference on the Conservation of Textiles, Collected Preprints, London: International Institute for Conservation, pp. 92-93
  • BELLINGER, Louisa (1967). 'Preliminary report on the cleaning of the Mazarin tapestry,' ICOM Report 67/4.

Digital sources:

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 16 June 2016).

GVE

Last modified on Monday, 01 January 2024 10:32