The Braquenié Fabric Workshop Celebrates its 200th Anniversary

Braquenié carries on a tradition of cotton prints, carpets, silks , Indian prints and damasks that have their roots in 18th-century classicism and developed in the 19th century. The house was officially founded in 1823, but Sophie Rouart, who is responsible for its cultural heritage and has been working in the archives, is less clear-cut about pinpointing the exact year of its bicentenary. “We found Louise-Désirée Doineau and Pierre-Antoine Demy’s marriage certificate, dated October 1823, stating that they would open a shop, which may have happened between November 1823 and early 1824,” she says. The shop in question sold carpets and tapestries at first, but everything changed in 1842 when the couple teamed up with brothers Alexandre and Charles-Henri Braquenié, whose business they took over in 1858. In the meantime, in 1845, the partners bought textile designs and printing machines from the Manufacture royale d’Oberkampf in Jouy-en-Josas, which had gone bankrupt. This explains why Braquenié is famous for its toiles de Jouy, so cherished in their day by Marie-Antoinette . In the mid-19th century, “16 rue Vivienne” became the place…