The Esino Lario Tapestry School was founded in 1936 to avoid local girls having to move away from the village in search of work. The venture was a success and the school’s tapestries were widely appreciated and sought after, until economic difficulties forced it to close down in 1962.
The characteristic feature of Esino tapestries is their softness, achieved thanks to a very fine hemp warp and a locally dyed silk weft featuring a wide range of colours. The fineness of the silk prolonged production times but afforded results of great quality, both in the density of the knots and in the variety and shades of the colours.
In the photo, a detail of a tapestry being made on the loom housed in the Museum (Archivio Pietro Pensa / Wikimedia Commons)
