Friday Video: Sparkly Little Pink Coat by Balenciaga

Loretta reports:

On a blog post a while back, I offered some images from the Balenciaga, Shaping Fashion exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Today’s video will give you an idea of the level of artistry and amount of work that went into one element of making a single garment displayed in the exhibition. After you view it, I strongly recommend you take a look at the closeups of the pink, feathery coat on the V&A website.

 

You might also want to take a look at some of the other V&A videos dealing with the exhibition. They’re short, and, among other things, provide some glimpses of the Conservation Department and its work, which I had the rare privilege of visiting, thanks to a thoughtful friend from London.*

The image above left is a still from the video, since nowhere, in the thousands of photos my husband and I took during this year’s travels, could I find one of this particular item. But then, none of our photos, shot through glass, would have been nearly as crisply close up as those on the V&A website.

*I mean you, Betsy!

V&A video: Lesage and Balenciaga, via YouTube

Clicking on the image will enlarge it, but it will be fuzzy.

The Wallace Collection

Loretta reports from London:

Though I had already put the Wallace Collection on my list of must-sees, the enthusiasm of our guide on a Marylebone walking tour led us to seek it out sooner rather than later.

As we came through the entrance, I think my head snapped back, and I had an image of myself with my eyes popping out of my head like a cartoon character. I've been to quite a few stately homes and museums, but I must say that none quite matched the visual impact of this. Though no photos can fully capture the experience, these will, I hope, offer a sense of the house. I also urge you to explore the website.

Meanwhile, we have our fingers crossed that time and circumstances will allow us to go back before we have to leave London.

A Beautiful Needle Lace Sampler, 1795

Isabella reporting,

Last week I visited one of my favorite places, Winterthur Museum, and among the current exhibitions is Embroidery: The Language of Art. Our readers know that embroidery is one of my absolute favorite things, and this exhibition had plenty of examples to make me ooh and ahh.

For most modern people, the word "sampler" means cross-stitched letters and designs. It can be that, yes, but a sampler can also feature all kinds of needlework, from decorative stitching to darning stitches and even the so-called plain stitches used to construct clothing and household goods. Most samplers were worked by schoolgirls as they learned the various stitches. Not only were the samplers an educational tool, but they could become a kind of record of stitches for future projects. If a sampler was decorative as well, then it could also be proudly displayed by the girl's family as proof of her newly-acquired expertise.

The identity of this sampler's maker is now sadly lost beyond her initials, but her exquisite workmanship remains. Worked in a school in the Philadelphia area, the sampler features both traditional embroidery stitches and needle lace to create a stylized basket of flowers, a motif popular with embroiderers in many different cultures. The sampler is worked in silk thread on linen. (As always, please click on the images to enlarge them.)

Needle lace, sometimes called Dresden work, involves cutting or drawing away parts of the supporting fabric and then using the needle to weave elaborate patterns to fill in the empty spaces. This example must have required phenomenal skill and patience from its young maker. The needle lace sections are done with very tiny stitches - the geometric circles shown in the details are only about 1-1/2" in diameter. (The pink backing is modern to provide contrast.)

Yet there's an unmistakable exuberance and joy to the design as well. Too often fine embroidery seems like drudgery to 21st century eyes, but a piece like this is clearly as much an expression of the young needleworker's imagination as a painting might have been. You can see her enjoyment in her design and her pride in the precision of her stitches. How fortunate her work has survived so we can enjoy it, too!

Winterthur will be hosting a needlework conference in connection with this exhibition on October 14-15, 2016. Entitled Embroidery: The Language of Art, the conference speakers will include international experts on needlework as well as hands-on workshops in the needle arts. Click here for the conference brochure for more information.

Above: Sampler, by "M.S.", worked in the Delaware Valley, 1795. Winterthur Museum.

Friday Video: The Singing Bird Pistols & Their Restoration

Loretta reports:

Readers familiar with my short story, “Lord Lovedon’s Duel,” (from the Royally Ever After duet) will remember the Singing Bird Pistols. I’ve shown the pistols in operation in a previous blog. What I didn’t realize was how much restoration work went into making them look like this.

Today's video tells the incredible story of that restoration (you may have to overlook the highly energetic introduction & music).

You can watch the same program without the noisy TV intro here on Vimeo.
In both cases, you will notice some odd spelling in the subtitles. Ever wonder how this happens? I sure do. Hello? Dictionary?

Many thanks to reader Kafryn W Lieder for sending me the link!

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Those Tiny 1890s Waists & What Adorned Them

Loretta reports:

Following up a little on the Belle Èpoque video—

My most recent trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts had me taking a closer look at the Kreuzer collection of belt buckles from the late 19th & early 20th centuries and, in particular, information about the collection. The printed placard offers a good example of the difference between engraved images of fashion and real people wearing them. I think this contrast is pretty stark, and it would be more so if these weren’t models but average women, who would probably be a bit more full-figured. Then, as always, models tended to represent a fashionable ideal rather than reality, though not as extremely as the images on the catalog page.

Previously I’ve posted a garnet belt buckle as well as other objects from the VMFA’s outstanding collection, including sporting prints, Art Nouveau furniture, Art Nouveau & Art Deco jewelry (here and here), and decorative objects. These are only small samples of the offerings. The VMFA is a splendid museum, well worth a visit—or several.

Please click on images to enlarge.

Beautiful Leaded Glass Lamps by Louis Comfort Tiffany, c. 1905-1910

Isabella reporting,

This afternoon I visited a vibrantly beautiful new exhibition at Winterthur Museum. Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light is exactly that - a glowing selection of some of the most iconic leaded glass works designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Organized by The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, the exhibition includes several large windows as well as the justly famous lamps, some anchored by bronze bases or suspended like brilliant lanterns in the air. Forget all those cheesy bad replicas in casual dining restaurants - the originals are breathtaking works of art, like jewels of light.

While I'd known that the Tiffany shades were leaded glass - small pieces of colored glass fitted together and held together with strips of copper and lead - I hadn't realized that the process was much like making a mosaic. There was no additional painting or tinting of the pieces of glass. Each piece of specially made opalescent glass was chosen individually to fit the design by skilled craftspeople. It must have been painstaking work, but the care and artistry showed in every item.

One of the things that really brought the lamps to life were the "jewels," molded pieces of colored glass in various shapes that were used as accents along with the pieces of flat glass. The jewels were a Tiffany speciality, and added texture as well as color. The jewels are particularly evident in the dragonfly shade, above left - they're the rounded bubbles of luminous blue glass. Magic!

I'm going to share more about the fascinating process of creating the shades in a future blog. The exhibition runs now through January 3, 2016; click here for more information.

Top left: Dragonfly hanging shade, c.1905. Tiffany Studios.
Right: Peony library lamp, c.1905. Tiffany Studios.
Bottom left: Poinsettia Border reading lamp, c. 1910. Tiffany Studios.
All lamps from The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass.
Photographs ©2015 Susan Holloway Scott.