Pattern and Loom A Practical Study of the Development of Weaving Techniques in China, Western Asia and Europe

When John Becker's Pattern and Loom was posthumously published in 1987, the work was hailed as an important work that revealed much new knowledge on the development of weaving techniques across the centuries from China through to Europe. The key to the book's almost forensic investigation of its subject was the author himself, a Danish damask weaver with a lifetime's practical experience in his craft and an intimate knowledge of weaving techniques that allowed him to decipher, experiment and interpret original techniques from small remnants of surviving material. Long out of print, the work has been tidied and reset by Becker's collaborator on the original work, the sinologist Don Wagner.

John Becker (1915 - 1986) was a Danish damask weaver with a lifetime's practical experience in his craft and an intimate knowledge of weaving techniques. He had a masterly understanding of earlier weaving techniques and researched old fabric pieces from early China and medieval Persia, the Middle East and Mediterranean Europe. By trying to replicate these fabrics on his own looms, many hidden aspects of weaving's history was brought to light.