Europe

Europe

The Abegg Stiftung (Foundation) in Riggisberg, Switzerland, was set up in 1961 by Margaret and Werner Abegg. Its aims are to collect, exhibit, conserve and restore, and study textiles and other items of art and craft from Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Apart from an extensive collection it also houses a large library.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, houses a large collection of textiles from all over the world. It includes a large collection of English embroideries, including 61 seventeenth century pieces donated by the collectors Micheál and Elizabeth Feller. The Ashmolean also houses the Newberry Collection of Islamic Embroideries.

The Benaki Museum was established in 1931 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father, Emmanuel Benakis, a wealthy Greek/Egyptian who created a vast collection of Byzantine, Greek and Islamic objects as well as books, documents and so forth. Since the 1930's the collection has increased considerably.

The Blackborne collection is a major assemblage of lace, dating from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries. It includes some 7000 items, from the remaining stock and study collection of the Victorian-era lace dealers, A. Blackborne and Company of London. This was a father and son business that operated out of London from the 1850's onwards.

The Bowes Museum (in Barnard Castle, County Durham, England) was opened in 1892 as a museum of decorative arts. It is a purpose built public art gallery that was established by John Bowes (1811-1885) and his wife, Joséphine Chevalier. The collection includes ceramics, furniture, paintings and silver.

The British Museum is an internationally renowned museum located in central London. It was founded in 1753 and opened to the general public in 1759. The museum houses a vast collection of about eight million items that range in date from prehistory to the present. It includes items from all the continents of the world.

The Clive Museum at Powis is housed at Powis Castle, Powys, in the centre of Wales. It is now managed by the National Trust and includes a large collection of items collected in India dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.

The Deutches Historisches Museum, formerly the Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, in Berlin houses a large collection of some 20000 mainly German, items of textiles and dress, from about 1750 to the present day.  

The Roman Catholic cathedral of Bamberg, Germany (Bamberger Dom), is dedicated to St. Peter and St. George. The building of the cathedral was commissioned in AD 1004 by Heinrich II (973-1024) and was completed in the thirteenth century. There are stone statues of St. Heinrich II and his wife, St. Kunigunde, in the entrance porch.

Durham Cathedral in northern England, founded in AD 1093, houses a fascinating collection of medieval and later embroideries, including some early medieval examples of decorative needlework. These are a stole, maniple and girdle that date to the early tenth century.

The Ethnography Collections of the Department of Anthropology, University College London, were established together with the foundation of the Department of Anthropology, in 1945. Much of the collection was donated in the mid-twentieth century and acquired during fieldwork by staff, notably by Prof. Daryll Forde, who established the department.

The Fashion Museum started its life as the Museum of Costume, which was opened on 23 May 1963. It is based on the collection of Doris Langley Moore designer, author and collector. The Museum changed its name to the Fashion Museum in 2007. It is housed in the Assembly Rooms in Bath, England. It focuses on historical, fashionable items of dress from Europe.

The Gallery of Costume in Manchester, England, houses one of the largest collections of clothing and fashion accessories in Britain (over 20000 items). It is housed at Platt Hall, an eighteenth century textile merchant’s home.

Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire (England), is an Elizabethan building from AD 1600. For many centuries the Hall belonged to the Shuttleworth family. The Hall's last private owner was Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth (1886-1967), who built up a large collection of British garments as well as embroidery, lace, quilts, printed and woven textiles.

The German Textile Museum (Deutsches Textilmuseum) in Krefeld-Linn, Germany, houses a collection that has been steadily growing, ever since its inception in 1881. It now includes some thirty thousand textile objects from all over the world, and from all ages. It also has a library, and it sets up regular exhibitions.

The Glove Collection Trust forms part of the Worshipful Company of Glovers of London. The Trust owns a large collection of historical and modern gloves dating from the seventeenth century onwards. Many of these items are decorated with embroidery and various forms of lace, especially the earlier examples.

The Hardwick Hall collection is some four hundred years old. It is the largest collection of sixteenth and seventeenth century embroidery, laces, tapestry and other textiles to have been preserved by a single, English private family. The objects include bedcovers, pillow covers, slips (including examples embroidered by Mary Queen of Scots), table covers (such as the Tobit table carpet), upholsteries and wall hangings.

The India Museum was established in 1801, on the basis of the so-called Oriental Repository, in the buildings of East India House along Leadenhall Street, London. Its first curator was Sir Charles Wilkins (1749-1836), founding member of the Asiatic Society. The main attraction of the Museum was the 'Man-Tyger-Organ', which is now on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The International Textile Collection was formerly, until 2019, known as the ULITA Archive of International Textiles. It now forms part of Special Collections, Leeds University Library. 

Kloster Lüne (Lüne Abbey) is a medieval abbey in Lüneburg, in the German state of Lower Saxony. The abbey was founded in AD 1172 by a woman called Hildeswidis von Markboldestorp. It would appear that the monastic group was originally a chapter of canonesses and that it was not until about a hundred years later that it became a convent/abbey for Benedictine nuns.

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