JACQUES-CHARLES DUTILLIEU (PARIS 1718-1782 LYON)

Dutillieu, though not now a household name, was a key figure in the silk-manufacturing industry in Lyon in the eighteenth century. On moving to the city in the mid-1730s, his reputation as a decorative painter and his Parisian origins were seen as crucial assets in a town which looked to Paris for clients and therefore valued any reports on the taste of its inhabitants. Unusually for a designer, Dutillieu was also accepted as a master-weaver in 1747. His insights into silk production were recorded in his Livre de Raison, four notebooks that were saved by his family and eventually published in 1886.