The swatchbooks featured in the exhibition ‘Silks & Prints from the Abraham Archive – Couture in Colour’ were produced in Lyon between 1830 to 1914. There are 227 of them in the Abraham Archive, all of them purchased by Gustav Zumsteg, who gave them a proud place on the company’s bookshelves. Adding them to the Abraham Archive was Zumsteg’s way of acknowledging Abraham’s indebtedness to the silk weavers of 19th-century Lyons.Since each book contain hundreds of swatches, collectively they resemble a vast treasure trove and were thus an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Abraham’s designers.