Translate Chinese on images please

[jackerbes]

I have two pieces of material (silk I think) that are about 16" wide and 11" high that have been in my family a long time.  If some one could translate the Chinese characters on them for me I would appreciate it. 

 

The images are one of each piece of material and then a closeup of the characters that are along the sides and top of the images.

 

And any info on what dialect of Chinese that is would be interesting and anything about the particulars of the scenes in the images would be nice to know too. 

 

I speak no Chinese and have not been in China since sometime in thee 1940's... 

 

Thanks in advance for any help...

 

 

[dwq]

杭州啟文絲織廠織造 Weaved by Qiwen Weaving Mill, Hangzhou

頤和園知春亭全景 Scenery of Zhichun Pavilion, The Summer Palace

 

杭州啟文絲織廠織造 same as above

青島棧橋 Zhan Qiao pier, Qingdao

 

[889]

The technique for making these on Jacquard looms was originally developed in Europe, where they were sometimes called Stevengraphs.

 

In the 1920s, Chinese businessman Du Jinsheng further developed the technique in Hangzhou, and built quite a large and successful enterprise producing these. There's an interesting museum in Hangzhou, inside his old villa, that illustrates the painstaking work that went into making them, especially the full-color ones.

 

(Jacquard looms, you'll recall, are controlled by punch cards. Thus making these weavings first involved digitizing -- as we'd call it today -- photographs by hand and then transferring the data to the Jacquard cards, which would then control the weaving process on hand-operated looms. With Jacquard cards, many copies of the same design could be woven again and again.)

 

These are now considered collectible and have some modest value, especially if in good condition. The panoramic skyline views of various cities are probably the most desirable weavings, somewhat prosaic sightseeing views like yours a bit less so.

 

In any event, they are not placemats!

 

(Du Jinsheng weavings normally carried his name; I haven't researched the factory name on your weavings, but it may have been a competitor.)

[jackerbes]

Thanks very much for the translations, details, and links.   It is very interesting and certainly much more than I ever knew about them before. 

 

My Father was in the U.S. Navy and on the USS Sierra (AD-18) when it was stationed in Qingdao in about in 1946-1947 or so.  He was allowed to have his family over there with him and we lived in the Qingdao for about a year or so. 

 

I was 4-5 years old then and have vague memories of those times, the Zhan Qiao pier has a familiarity to it and I think I remember visiting that area as a child.  

 

There were still some older German people living there then, we lived in a large old western style house, and I attended school at a Catholic school in that area. 

 

I will put your information and info from the links with the those and my family's future generations will have the details. 

 

Jack