Type Specimens on Textile Samples
[WILD & Co.]
Large sample book of printed textiles. [Turin, c. 1920?]
Printed textiles, folio, ff. [119]; erratically numbered to 141; a few minor creases or stains; fastened into a green cloth binding with brass pins, front board lettered ‘WILD & C. | TORINO'.
A large collection of samples of printed textiles, displaying a wide variety of techniques and applications.
The samples, which include printing in various colours and various metals, half-tone photographic illustrations, and embroidery in coloured and metal threads, range from simple patterns and specimen alphabets to commercial applications – including many iterations of Wild & Co’s own logo – and religious examples, with many devotional images towards the end of the volume.
Owned by the Swiss textile-industrialist Emilio Wild (1857–1944), the Wild & Co. cotton mill was established in 1894, with factories at Novara and Piasco di Saluzzo (both in Piedmont) employing around two thousand workers, for whom model villages were built at both sites.