Wednesday, January 9, 2013

For my 1000th Post, I present....











From the seller:

This is a rare and unusual late 18th century textile-an unmade silk satin waistcoat that has been embroidered in the most beautiful fashion. Laying flat, it measures 22 1/4" wide by 37 1/2" long. The bottom shows the pockets flaps which have been cut, pressed under and basted in the pocket position with the original silk thread. This textile also came with a skein of silk thread which is included.

The floral decoration is outstanding-the colors are unfaded soft natural hues of green, pink, blue and yellow. The embroidery is flawless except for the black chenille trim in the outer margin area (shown) and two tiny areas below the flaps. The fabric has an almost complete vertical breakage due to a crease where it was, no doubt, folded for a very long time. This would be a candidate for textile conservation-washing and flattening and proper mounting would go a long way to preserving this marvelous piece of histoy. There are two water stains at top and bottom and two tiny holes-one is 1/2" by 1/4" wide, the other is 1/4" by 1/16" -they are not on the embroidery and barely noticeable. Provinance of Brenda Ginsberg antiques.


From Me:

So, for my 1000th post to this blog, I wanted something truly spectacular and I think I found it in this. This is an uncut gentleman's waistcoat from probably about the 1760's. It might be a bit later but the length suggests an earlier date. No matter what, it is Rococo. I've seen some uncut waistcoats before but normally only in museums. For one to pop up on ebay is amazing. Also, thank you to the seller for providing some great close up pictures so you can truly appreciate the embroidery in this piece. This piece is why I started this blog - I wanted to preserve a record of all the fabulous fashion history related items I saw pop up online only to disappear a month or two after they were sold. I wanted something that would not only help document the items, but help others document "how things were really done" during a certain period. This is how they started to build a waistcoat. They did the embroidery first. :-)

3 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Of course! It was too pretty not to share. :-)

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  2. Oh my gosh, they even made little embroidered button covers! I've seen pictures of panels like this before, but none of them had button covers.
    These pictures make me so happy!

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