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The perfect Faes painter family

This recipe book stems from the collection of the library of Het Textielmuseum (the Textile Museum) in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The book is part of the Driessen collection, brought together by Louis André Driessen (1890-1954), the last director of the Leidsche Katoenmaatschappij (Leiden Cotton Printing Company) and colorist. His library consisted of literature on his profession with a focus on textile printing and dyeing. After his death, the collection was donated to the Textile Museum. In the library of the Textile Museum, the many printed books are recognizable by the ink stamp with Louis André Driessen's name and address in Hengelo, where he lived and worked at the Fischer & Perton company in Enschede which produced chemicals and dyes. Louis himself also writes a lot about his field. He was also an avid letter-writer and kept a diary and ledgers. In the library of Het Textielmuseum, his collection is housed in a special climate-controlled room. In the photo, you can see this room in the background.

This recipe book was selected for the citizen science project of the exposition ‘Kleurstof’ (To Dye For), which was on view at the museum in 2022. Because it is a part of the Driessen collection, I offered to transcribe the book and conduct provenance research into its possible author. In this story, I will share my research and its results.