Woman's apron from Lindhorst, Lower Saxony, Germany, 20th century (TRC 2016.0823).Over the years we have slowly been building up the TRC’s collection of Scandinavian and West European textiles and clothing, including Dutch regional dress. In particular, we were helped by a very generous donation of over 1700 items by Magdalena Kircher in 2016. Since then we have been adding more and more photographs and details about these objects, plus welcoming new objects.
As part of our co-operation with Prof. Bärbel Schmidt, of the Textile Department at Osnabrück University, Germany, we had plans to invite various groups of students to come to Leiden to help catalogue the German collection and for the students to be inspired in their own work and study by being physically able to handle the items. However, because of the corona crisis the students have not been able to come to Leiden. How to get around this situation? We have just had some good news!
Postcard from Schwarzwald, Germany, 1897, depicting a man and woman in local dress (TRC 2020.4241).We have just heard that thanks to Prof. Schmidt, funding has been provided by the State of Lower Saxony to put all the TRC’s German collection online so the students can work on the collection in Osnabrück without having to travel. Together we are going to provide more details about these objects, make digital exhibitions about various relevant subjects, as well as making short films about how the objects have inspired the students. In addition, Prof. Schmidt will make a selection of about fifteen objects and then she will personally come to Leiden to borrow the items for in-depth study by her and her students back in Osnabrück.
Woman's cap from German Schwarzwald, 20th century (TRC 2016.1076).But what about the rest of Europe, especially Central and East Europe? Well, by coincidence a few days ago we accepted the offer of a large collection of dress and textiles from various European countries, especially Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. This particular collection was assembled by the Hungarian physicist, Prof. Georges Amsel (1933 - 2017) and his wife, Monique, and is now housed in Paris.
Over the next few months, one of the TRC volunteers will be regularly travelling to France to pick up the collection. We are deliberately doing this over a longer period and group by group, so that we can properly photograph and catalogue everything, especially as Monique is going to prepare background information about where the pieces were acquired and what they meant to the couple. Apparently, Prof. Amsel used to attend scientific conferences in Hungarian dress to emphasise his cultural background and bring a bit of sartorial colour to the more sombre ambiance.
PS. We are weak in Baltic and Russian regional dress….. or is this tempting fate?
Gillian Vogelsang, 28 juli 2021
