Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines is a delightful village located in the Val d’Argent, in the Vosges mountains, and a short distance from Colmar. The name of the village is in memory of the ancient mines, but it is thanks to the textile industry which developed in the 18th and 19th centuries that Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines is known as “la ville aux 100 fabriques”. Today only little has remained of this prosperous industry, but there were still numerous companies operating in the early part of the 1900s.
Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in the engraving in the volume A travers les Vosges (Strasburg 1888).
The great textile tradition of Alsace was made up of imposing buildings on the river plains of the Rhine, while the valleys of the Vosges mountains were populated by the smaller factories, not much bigger than artisanal workshops, scattered over the wild and picturesque landscape, a patchwork of green meadows and dark forests, deep valleys, babbling brooks and isolated hamlets. The history of this area, including wars and periods of occupation, has given rise to many changes for the people who lived there and nowadays, Sainte-Marie-aux- Mines, after the crisis in the textile industry during the 1950s and ‘60s, has lost a significant number of its population. “Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines s’est fortement développée au 16e siècle à travers l’exploitation des mines d’argent et au 19e siècle avec l’industrie textile, en atteignant 12.000 habitants par le passé. De ces périodes fastes, elle a hérité d’un patrimoine bâti riche et diversifié et s’est dotée de toutes les infrastructures d’une ville moyenne (théâtre, piscine, gymnase, collège, lycée…) qui émaillent la ville” (www.saintemarieauxmines.fr). From 12,000 to the 5,000 inhabitants of today, but the conversion to tourism has opened up new opportunities for an extraordinary area, with a wealth of attractions (starting with the exploration of the ancient mines).
In the Vitale Barberis Canonico archives, there are traces of this entrepreneurial experience, but it is not the collections of fabrics from some of those cotton and/or wool companies, but rather the … sample books themselves. In other words, quite a few of the archive’s large books were assembled by bookbinders from Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines. In this sense, the Vitale Barberis Canonico collection is presented as, if not , unique, then certainly special, because all the bookbinding craft carried out in that village is represented in detail, which is without doubt a rarity.
The “100 fabriques” in the region (Blech, Koenig, Lang, Simon etc.) must have needed a significant number of collection books to show off their samples and the skills of the “relieurs” of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines was also appreciated outside the boundaries of the Val d’Argent. Some textile factories in Mulhouse, such as Koechlin, entrusted the annual or seasonal production of their “échantillons” to the skilled artisans of this area.
There are approximately 80 samples present in the Vitale Barberis Canonico archives created at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines and they refer to the period between 1876 and 1930.
Browsing through the pages of the Annuaire du commerce Didot-Bottin of 1896, (but you have to consult the volume aimed at abroad, as at that time, Alsace had been occupied by the Germans for 27 years, and this would remain the case until the end of the First World War), you can see that, in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines there were four stationers, booksellers, bookbinders: Czeizorzinski, Degermann, Louterbach and Mertz. All four are represented in Pratrivero to epitomise the reality of the printing and papermaking industry which had deep roots in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines until the early 1700s.
Charles Mertz, “papetier et relieur”, worked on the Koechlin sample books, but also on collections by Homo and Claude Frères (the volume dedicated to “Manteaux” from 1892-1893 is very beautiful). His contribution is the most important because approximately half of the volumes preserved in the Vitale Barberis Canonico archives came from his workshop.
Original label for the company Gustave Degermann.
Original label for the company Charles Mertz.
A page from the Claude Frères “Manteaux” sample book from 1892-1893.
Albert Louterbach also printed postcards. His work was concentrated in the period 1924 – 1930 (24 sample books), all for Koechlin, or more specifically, some of the tomes inscribed “K & C”, namely Koechlin & Compagnie, contain precious woven fabrics, with a wealth of complex, decorative designs. It is also interesting to note that those sample books precisely defined the division of the company’s markets. There were those specifically for “Paris”, as if the capital had a taste and fashion of its own (which was in effect the truth), and those for generic “Exportation”, but also those which passed on, season after season, the fabrics for “Europe”, or those appreciated more in “Angleterre” or “Allemagne” and, in the year 1926, in “Amerique”.
Original label for the company Albert Louterbach.
A page from the “N & C” sample book entitled “Été 1929” – “Paris”.
Gustave Degermann produced only one sample book, pages bound for Claude Frères 1894-1895. As is often the case, this tome for Jean Claude Frères (a Paris house specialised in the business of capturing the trends, historically located at 10 Rue d’Uzès, but the Claude family originated from Alsace and was active in the textile industry), does not offer any particular technical information. However, the illustrations are admirable, as are the tartans, which seem to be every bit as good as the original Scottish ones. Edouard Czeizorzinski was one of the most important four, so much so that he deserves a page for himself.
Original label for the company Gustave Degermann.
A page from the “Claude Frères” sample book 1894-1895.