A printed textile with poppies from the TRC Collection (TRC 2020.1567).

On Wednesday 10 April 2020 Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

Even though the TRC Leiden is currently closed, this does not mean that donations for the TRC Collection have ceased!  This week some items have been arriving at my home, including the generous donation of a large number of samplers that were given by Betteke Boele-Vogelesang (no relation). We would like to thank her for the donation and for feeling the TRC Leiden is a suitable home for the collection she spent many years building up and enjoying.

School sampler from Amersfoort, The Netherlands, dated 1900 (TRC 2020.1599).

Among the items in the donation are over fifty school samplers, which date from the 1860’s to the 1920’s. They are small samplers that have the alphabet and numbers, and often the name or initials of the maker, their school and a date. The samplers in the Boele-Vogelesang collection come from various countries, including Belgium, England, Germany, France, the Netherlands and possibly Spain. Among the Dutch examples are pieces from Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Schagen and Utrecht. In addition there are several Berlin wool work-style samplers from the 1860’s and 1870’s, as well as sewing samples, darning samples and hand knitted samples (including some very small socks).

Recently, the TRC received a number of quilts made by the Mennonite community in North America and in Europe (in the Netherlands known as the Doopsgezinden). Two of the quilts date to the Second World War or just before. They are Relief Quilts, made in America by Mennonite women to help those in need in Europe (just after WW2). A third Relief Quilt was recently made in Europe for those in need in Syria and Jordan.

We have published two blogs on the subject, one written by the TRC to express our thanks (click here), the other written by Lynn Kaplanian-Buller of the Mennonite community, explaining the background (click here).

AUTONOMOUS HEMSTITCH panel by Rikke Ruff, 2019On Sunday, 19 January 2020, Gillian Vogelsang reports:

We are currently working on Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Embroidery (Bloomsbury, London), which is about embroidery from Scandinavia and Western Europe. In particular we have been working on embroidery from Norway, Sweden and Denmark. So I was very pleased last year when we had a visit from Rikke Ruff, Hundested, Denmark, who is a professional embroiderer. 

She has developed a form of cutwork embroidery that she describes as Autonom Hulsøm (‘Autonomous Hemstitch’). It is a lovely form that combines pulled thread work, needleweaving as well as beads and backgrounds in other materials. Rikke has just very kindly donated a piece of her work for the TRC Collection (TRC 2020.0059).

For more information, click on the illustration.ESGUERRA, Clarissa M. (2019). Power of Pattern: Central Asian Ikats from the David and Elizabeth Reisbord Collection, Los Angeles: LACMA Collator. ISBN 978-1-943042-13-5, hardback, 112 pp., fully illustrated in colour, bibliography, glossary. Price US$ 50.

An exhibition catalogue to a lovely exhibition about ikat garments and textiles from Central Asia that date from the 19th and early 20th centuries. These garments formed part of the David and Elizabeth Reisbord collection that is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The exhibition was well worth seeing [see the TRC blog about the exhibition].

In general, the book is based on the main types of motifs (ram, tree, etc.,) associated with Central Asian textiles, including ikat forms. In addition, the exhibition and book stress the aesthetics of ikat textiles, which is always a difficult subject as what is acceptable in one culture may not be deemed correct in another. The grouping of some of the objects in the exhibition and the book was deliberately meant to challenge Western (American) viewers.

Recommendation: This book is worth having in any library dedicated to Central Asian textiles and ikats in particular. There are some very interesting and visually pleasing garments presented in the publication. It should be noted, however, that there is very little information about how ikats were physically produced and by whom. In addition, this is a print-on-demand publication and it looks it: there are many blank pages, etc., in the copy now in the TRC Library.

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, March 2020.

MASKARELI, Draginja (2019). МОΔΑ (Fashion in Modern Servia), Belgrade: Museum of Applied Art. ISBN 978-86-7415-217-1, soft back, fully illustrated in colour and b/w, 143 pp., bibliography, no index.

This is a catalogue to an exhibition held at the Museum of Applied Art, Belgrade from November 2019 to the end of January 2020. The text is in Serbian with an English summary. The exhibition is based on items in the collection of the museum and includes a wide range of items for women from the 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition at the back of the book there are a few items for men, but not many.

For historical and geographical reasons there are items of Ottoman and Balkan styles, as well as West European fashions. Some of these garments were worn together. In addition, a wide range of accessories are illustrated including hats, glasses, hair combs, shawls, parasols, belts and footwear. The boots, shoes and slippers show a wide range of influences, including knee-high boots decorated with Central Asian suzani-style embroidery and ankle boots in the French style.

The whole exhibition stresses local, national as well as international forms worn by urban women in what is now Serbia. Not a remote part of Europe, but a cross-roads between Asia, the Balkans and Europe.  

Recommendation: A book that will be of interest to anyone intrigued by fashion, and what may now be called fusion fashion, the combination of various traditions brought together by political, economic and geographical reasons. A visually inspirational book.

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, March 2020.

American quilt from the 1840s (TRC 2018.3119), displayed at the exhibition The American Quilt, at the TRC. 5 Febr. - 28 May 2020. For more information, please click on the illustration.A quintessential feature of many American homes is a bed covering, more generally known as a quilt. It has featured in many films, books and stories about rural and urban life in the USA. As part of the Mayflower 400 Year, commemorating the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers in America in 1620, having lived in Leiden for some ten years previously, the TRC Leiden is presenting an exhibition that explores the history, meaning and making of these colourful objects over the last 200 years.

The exhibition includes examples from before the American Civil War (1861-1865), the late Victorian era, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Revival of the quilt craft in the 1970s.

There is a Crazy Quilt from Minnesota made in 1890s (TRC 2019.2925), and another quilt from the late nineteenth century that contains an even older example. There is also a Native American Indian quilt (early twentieth century; TRC 2019.2041), an African-American example (1930s) and a glorious appliqué quilt from a grand house in the USA (1860s; TRC 2019.2402).

For a photographic impression, please click here.

CONTESSA, Andreina (2016). The Jewish Court of Venice: The heritage of Jewish Venice 500 years after the establishment of the first ghetto, Jerusalem: National Museum of Italian Jewish Art. ISBN 978-965-572-097-6, soft back, 55 pp. in English, 35 pp. in Hebrew, fully illustrated in colour and black/white.

A small catalogue to an exhibition held at the National Museum of Italian Jewish Art in Jerusalem [see TRC Blog]. There are many synagogue (notably scroll covers) and private textiles illustrated and described in the book. In addition, it looks at the role of women in making, using and in some cases, re-using textiles. It includes woven, embroidered as well as lace forms (including needle laces). In addition to the textiles, various other items such as scroll crowns and finials, contemporary illustrations, manuscripts, and so forth, are illustrated and described.

Recommendation: There are various books on Ashkenazim and Sephardim Jewish textiles, but comparatively very little about another important group, the Italian Jews. This booklet helps to redress this imbalance. It will be of interest to anyone working or interested in the role of textiles in Jewish synagogues, Jewish life in general, as well as those specifically interested in the Italian Jewish tradition.

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, March 2020.