Fabric printing block

Fabric printing stamps were usually made of two boards joined together or a single block, covered with a pattern on one side and with a handle on the other. They were used for hand printing on fabrics. Their advantage was the ease of use and the possibility of decorating large amounts of fabric in a relatively short time. The stamp on display in the ethnographic collection of the National Museum in Szczecin was made of two rectangular boards. It has small nails in each corner which left points in the fabric when stamp was pressed and indicated the place where the printer should put the stamp again. This stamp has a floral ornament with a chequered motif of a large flower with a star-shaped centre. The design was made with woodcarving technique and with single brass pins hammered onto the wood. Adding metal elements to the stamps with floral designs carved in wood was a common practice. It is also typical for the textile printing to depict flowers of unknown species in a rather simplified way. The creator of the stamp is unknown. Before the second world war it was in the collection of the Pommersches Landesmuseum Stettin.