Today I was at the MFA helping with some stitch identification and looking at a few pieces.  I was treated as part of it to several samplers from private collection that will be part of the upcoming year of ‘Boston Embroideries’ that will be on view in the new American Galleries that will be opening in November.  You will WANT to come.  There will be four rotations of pieces with different themes – one of them will be samplers of late 17th to mid-18th century that have a Boston provenance.  Another is heraldic pieces made in Boston.

One of the schools of samplers (1730’s-1750’s) from the part of Boston known as the North End that Textile Curator Pam Parmel and her staff has uncovered seems to have a very close relationship to an earlier set of 17th century English band samplers.  So much so that one possible theory is that the teacher had one of her own (descended in the family?) and copied much of the pictorial part for her teaching.  I was working on the English sampler they have of this type and the Boston ones and doing stitch comparisons to see if they matched.  I won’t tell you what we saw – but they are definitely on to something here.  They have gathered many examples of the Boston sampler type from this school but haven’t identified many of the English sampler set to be able to do good enough comparisons yet.

So this is how you all come in – Distributed Problem Solving.  I was telling Pam about a recent test that DARPA did to see how fast unusual problems could be solved in the age of the internet using many people.  They hid 10-red weather balloons around the entire USA and then on a particular date said ‘go’ to a large number of university or research teams.  These teams all had their own ’system’ of using the internet or social media to solve the problem of ‘where are the balloons in the USA’.  The problem sounds incredibly daunting – how to find balloons somewhere in the USA – but the MIT team found them all in less than nine hours using social media.  I was amazed and it made me think of the problems of finding related embroidery pieces and how we can use the blogs such as this or Needleprint solve some of these problems by putting out ‘calls’ for info.  I suggested to Pam that this was one of those times where the distributed band of aficionados could find more of the samplers in collections or books that looked to be of the same English school.  She said ‘let’s give it a try’.

So here is the link to the English sampler from 1654 by ‘MD’. Accession number MFA 43.275.  The important part is the bottom of the sampler with the pictorial.  The adam and eve with the large snake wrapping around the tree.  Their funny hair.  The leopard and unicorn.  The funny frog and the rose with the detached petals.  The sun, clouds and funny parrot.  If you know of, have seen, or have a link to a sampler that is really similar to this one – send it on to me at tricia@alum.mit.edu and I will pass it on to the team at the MFA (full credit to you).

It would be really fun if something was uncovered this way!

Tricia

Cristina Carr, textile conservator at the MET and a friend, sent me a note letting me know that her essay for the Twixt Art and Nature exhibit had been turned into a ‘Timeline’ feature on the MET website.  The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History is something that the MET has been working on developing for awhile.  It is a series of essays which are paired with images from the collection on a subject.  Curator Melinda Watt published  ‘English Emboridery of the Late Tudor and Early Stuart Eras” in May and Cristina followed up in June with “The Materials and Techniques of the Late Tudor and Early Stuart Eras”.  They are nice reading.  One of the features was the inclusion in the object records (that are attached) of more close up photos of the objects.  Another feature is found at the bottom in the references.  Take a look on the right hand side – there are related articles that were published in the MET Journal which are normally hard to come by.  They are available in pdf form and include more gems.

So enjoy the visual material!  Also keep up that pressure to get the exhibit video as well – there is a move afoot to make it available.  And the quick sell out of the book – don’t you think Yale should put that into print again!

Tricia

If you happen to be in the Netherlands this summer/fall and are driving about the country, don’t miss the small exhibition of Dutch Samplers at the Van Gijn House in Dordrecht.   The museum will be showing a combination of samplers and darning works as well.  The museum is at Nieuwe Haven 29/30, in Dordrecht, Netherlands.  An announcement (you will have to use a web translation) is on this page.  “Met naald en draad – 250 jaar Dordtse merk- en stoplappen” or “With Needle and Thread – 250 years of Dordrecht Samplers and Darning Samplers” is the exhibition title.  Stoplappen is the name of Darning Samplers – something I have a weakness for.  I think it is the shiny silk of the darning.  The exhibition closes on the 28th of November, 2010.  Here is another blog with many cool pictures of pieces in the exhibition.

If you are in the Netherlands for a bit – then use this webpage on museum exhibits of samplers and textiles to help you plot a course (I call them “Embroiderer’s Grand Tours”).  There is one that will end in mid-August that has samplers on show at the Historisch Museum de Bevelanden.  It looks to have a few gems as well.

Tricia

I really like it when institutions identify specific needs and quantify them, it makes giving to the museum tangible and you can support things that matter to you, possibly even visit later to see the object/effort done.  There are a few drives at Williamsburg right now that I wanted to point out.  They are opportunities to add a few dollars to a goal.  As we know – many small gifts will equal one large one.   If you want to contribute a small amount to any of these efforts – call 1-888-CWF-1776 or email them at gifts@cwf.org.

18th-century Mannequins for Displaying Gowns
Funds needed for two mannequins with specially made wigs (plus cost adjustments relating to the exchange rate and mailing) are estimated to be $7,000-$8,000.
Specialized mannequins are required when 18th-century women’s gowns are displayed. Not only must the mannequins be made of materials safe enough to be in contact with fragile antiques, the body shapes must be correct for the period. Because 18th-century women wore stays that molded their bodies quite differently from those of contemporary women, display mannequins need to have conical torsos with high bust lines, narrow backs and shoulders, and very erect posture in order to correctly support historic garments. The Kyoto Costume Institute has developed  just such mannequins shaped for specific eras from the 18th through 20th centuries.  Colonial Williamsburg purchased four female mannequins in 2001 for the exhibition, “The Language of Clothing.” Additional mannequins are required to allow for future exhibitions that involve more dressed female figures and to give flexibility in conservation and exhibit turn-around.

Silk Velvet for a Reproduction of the Blair Family Coat
Funds needed are an estimate, pending analysis of the fabric by Lelievre: $20,000-25,000
Colonial Williamsburg has in its collection a coat believed to have been made for Governor’s Counselor John Blair (c. 1687-1771) in the 1730s and refashioned some three decades later, possibly to be worn by his son Williamsburg Mayor John Blair, Jr. (1731-1800).  It is the only surviving coat known to have been worn by a resident of the colonial capital and possibly made by a local tailor. In order to reproduce this remarkable garment, Colonial Williamsburg will partner with the French silk firm Lelievre to hand-weave the complex patterned silk velvet fabric neede.  Lelievre (an official French National Treasure that has reproduced fabrics for Versailles, Malmaison, and Fountaine Bleu) is one of a small handful of silk mills remaining in the world that is capable of producing this technical-masterpiece textile.  Apprentice tailor Neal Hurst will reproduce the coat as it survives and also reconstruct its original appearance as his final projects to become a journeyman.

Historic Area Costuming Accessories
Funds needed: $5,000 for one year of eyewear expenses, $61,000 for one year of shoe expenses
More than 800 Colonial Williamsburg employees work in costume in the Historic Area, taverns, period stores, and in special programs.  Keeping them well attired is the responsibility of the Costume Design Center.  Interpreters wear reproduction 18th-century clothing and accessories.  Accessories include new and replacement eyewear and shoes; the goal is authenticity of appearance.  Eyeglasses are plain with round lenses and wire frames and cost about $150 from a specialized vendor.  Shoes cost approximately $125 a pair; some are made by our shoemakers, while others are manufactured in England and the U.S.  Shoe styles vary to reflect the different life styles of 18th-century Williamsburg society.

Mosquito Curtains for the Governor’s Bedchamber
Funds needed:  $10,825
In the Governor’s Palace, the governor of Virginia needs mosquito curtains for his bed!  Writing in 1764, a sleepless and frustrated Virginia planter observed that the “vile musketoes [are] as plenty as bees in a hive.”  In an era before air conditioning and window screens, gauze bed curtains provided the only nighttime relief from the biting insects.  Accordingly, Governor Botetourt paid a Williamsburg upholsterer one shilling, six pence for “puting [sic] up muscato curtains in his room” at the Palace.  In order to replicate that 1769 order, new curtains will be fabricated from delicate green linen gauze and hand sewn with all the appropriate trim.

I have been saving this post for a bit – until I had a chance to blog about Sulgrave and their magnificent project.  There are other projects out there which have worked to outfit historic pieces with appropriate textiles.  One of which is the Corbet Bed Project.

The bed is installed at the Rowley’s House and Mansion, part of the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery in Shropshire.  The bed is owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum and has been on long term loan there.  It originated from the Moreton Corbet Castle and is dated as 1593.  A project to produce an appropriate set of hangings was started by Leila Corbet and Margaret Owen using volunteers from all over Shropshire to embroider the slips.  From an article written in 2005, I learned that Leila Corbet is a member of the family descended from the original owner of the bed.  I was interested to find out that as well as we had difficulties with our own long term project regarding the exhibition, they too have had their own ups and downs.  But from recent press, they seem to have overcome these hickups as well.  The bed hangings were officially finished the first week of March this year – ending a 13-year effort by several hundred.  Kudos!  I would love to meet the organizers of this effort and learn more of their experience as well as see this monumental work.  Maybe someone who reads this blog knows more and would be nice enough to fill us in on more details in the comment section.  Wouldn’t you love to find out how they did it?

Tricia