A woven textile with continuous wefts, similar in appearance to brocade and its far more affordable, poor relation, being simpler to make. The silk wefts used to create the pattern are run with coarse linen ground wefts that make the body of the cloth. The silk threads stand out against the matte linen ground in relief, creating an almost embossed surface, more or less raised according to the used tension and yarn thickness.
Brocatelle was a medieval fabric imported from Byzantium, and alongside brocade, very popular in the renaissance.
Mass produced brocatelle had its English in the first half of the 20C in burgeoning middle class homes, as vintage curtain pieces of varying quality in old gold, burgundy and other fashionable colours of the time, bear out. In combination with vintage textile, and for kitsch schemes. these can be quite good for backing tapestries or velvet door curtains,