Plate No. 031 · fabric

Canvas

Canvas is the heavy, firm plain-woven cloth of work: sails, tents, tarpaulins, painters' grounds, and workwear. The name records its first fiber, hemp, though cotton and linen long ago took over. Plain-woven canvas is called duck, from the Dutch doek, cloth, and is graded by weight in a numbered system where lower numbers mean heavier cloth. Its virtue is the simplest one a textile can have: a dense, stable surface that resists tearing and holds whatever is put on it.