Bunschoten-Spakenburg mannequin between two quilts with Dutch-inspired designs. Nantes, April 2023We would like to let you know about some developments and events during the last few days: Firstly, Beverley Bennett, our shop manager and quilt guru, has been participating in an international quilt festival in Nantes (France) between 19-22 April 2023.
The festival is called Pour l’Amour du Fil (‘For the love of thread’) with the theme ‘The Netherlands from every angle’. Beverley had three quilts on display, while the TRC lent three mannequins dressed in Bunschoten-Spakenburg, Marken and Volendam regional dress.
At the same time a group from the TRC went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for an international conference called 'Under the Microscope' (20-21 April). It was a stimulating and thought provoking event! A report about the conference can be found here.
Volendam mannequin against the background of a quilt with Dutch-inspired designs. Nantes, April 2023.On the following Saturday (22 April) we had a visit of HE J. Eduardo Malaya, the Ambassador of the Philippines to The Hague, together with Dr Stephanie Coo and Mr Carlos González. They are interested in the Philippine collection that was given to the TRC a few years ago by Ruurdje Laarhoven, a Dutch academic living in the US, who worked for many years in the Philippines (click here). Dr Malaya also saw the TRC’s mini-exhibition on wooden shoes and has promised a Philippine version that is worn indoors.
Our visitors also had the chance to see a pair of lotus shoes – of the type worn by Han Chinese women over a hundred years ago. Seeing one of these shoes in a picture and actually holding one in the palm of your hand are two very different things. It is an emotional and intellectual shock. Such is the power of dress to bring reality home about what some textiles and garments actually mean and involve.
Ikat cloth from Mindanao, Philippines, 20th century (TRC 2022.2914).Carlos Gonzáles is a Peruvian researcher working in Belgium, looking at Philippine- Peruvian trade and material culture. I love how some people have a broad view of cultural heritage and actual and potential links between various groups.
Stephanie Coo is interested in the idea of setting up a regional dress institute and collection in the Philippines and is visiting various institutes to get ideas. We have offered the assistance of the TRC in giving practical advice in how to set up and run a small knowledge centre of this type.
Dr Coo would very much like to come again to the TRC for a few weeks in order to see our Philippine textiles and garments and to help update the data on these pieces. It would also provide her with an opportunity to see and experience the running of a knowledge centre.
Vivienne Rivis (right) and Gillian Vogelsang (left) at the TRC, showing the 1872 sampler worked by Jane Hardy, Yorkshire.I must admit, the idea of being able to offer a ‘Researcher in Residence’ position for one to four weeks is very appealing and would mean we could add depth to the TRC Collection by being able to have specialists look at various aspects of our textiles, dress and accessories collection.
If anyone knows of a suitable funding body who would be willing to help with such a fellowship, could they please let me know?
On a totally different subject, some years ago we were given a small school sampler (TRC 2020.1606) made by a girl called Jane Hardy who attended Burton Leonard school, near Harrogate in Yorkshire, England, in 1872 (a TRC blog on the subject can be downloaded here).
She made the sampler when she was ten years old. We have been in contact with the school she went to, nearly 150 years ago, and they kindly sent photographs and a school uniform (TRC 2020.3704) !
Sampler made by Jane Hardy at Burton Leonard, Yorkshire, in 1872 (TRC 2020.1606).And today, Monday 24 April, we had a visit by Vivienne Rivis, a local historian based at Burton Leonard in Yorkshire who wanted to see the sampler.
She will be visiting the school on her return home telling the modern-day pupils about Jane Hardy and how she lived, etc. A moment when history comes alive.
And to top it all, this week sees the TRC’s Intensive Textile Course with participants from a variety of backgrounds and interests. I wonder if they realise how tired they will be at the end of the week. There is a reason why the course is called ‘intensive’!
Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 24 April 2023
