- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Chintz apron with cream embroidery on black fabric. One of two: a front apron and a back apron, part of a complete costume from Piestany, Slovakia. [JN 1/6/2016]
- Long description
- Chintz apron, one of two, a front apron and a back apron, part of a complete costume from Piestany, Slovakia. The apron is made from a black cotton textile with a sheen to one side of it. The apron has a waistband of the same textile approximately 50 mm wide with a line of black stitching down the centre. Stitched to both ends of the waistband is a length of green green cotton textile knotted into loops for fastening. The front of the apron is pleated just below the waistband. Around the inside edge of the apron a pattern of flowers and foliage has been embroidered in gold yarn. Around the very edge of the apron a length of white machine lace approximately 80 mm wide has been stitched to the apron. In-between the embroidered floral decorative pattern on the apron and the machine lace four embroidered boarders have been stitched. The inner most is a narrow length of pink ribbon stitched to the apron with white cotton yarn. The next boarder is a braid that consists of red, green, white, yellow and brown yarn with different shades of blue yarn going down the centre of the braid and is approximately 13 mm wide. On the other side of this braid is another length of narrow pink ribbon stitched to the apron with white cotton yarn. The braid nearest to the outside edge is the same as the other braid used and is 13 mm wide and consists of red, green, white, yellow and brown yarn with different shades of blue yarn going down the centre of the braid. [FC 23/11/2009]
- Person
- Field collector Sheila Rosemary Paine
- PRM source Julia Nicholson
- PRM source Pitt Rivers Museum
- PRM source Dreweatts Auctioneers
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1990
- Acquisition information
- Purchased: 2008
- Materials and processes
- Material Lace Textile, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Textile Plant, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Yarn Plant, Material Ribbon Textile, Process Stitched, Process Embroidered
- Dimensions
- Width: max 790 mm, Length: max 680 mm including lace
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 2008.117.4 Other numbers: SP EE 11 144
- Research and responses
Taken from the sales catalogue, information about the time Sheila Paine spent in Czechoslovakia: "I first went to Czechoslovakia in 1987. it was then still only possible to go behind the Iron Curtain s part of an Intourist group. Instead, I used to catch a Penam flight to West Berlin , as they continued after the Berlin airlift to keep the city open to the West with regular, cheap flights. I then caught the S-Bahn through to East Berlin and from there could go by train anywhere in Communist Europe. At the stations there were usually old ladies offering people a room. These were unofficial and illegal, but this is what I always did if I could.
On this first visit in 1987, I was invited back again by the ethnographic museum in Martin to study and report on the embroidery of the villages. The British Council in Prague then told me that they would send me officially and pay for the trip (flight to Vienna and through to Bratislava) and I could invite the curator of the Martin museum (Dr Jana Bumbalova) to England. This I did, arranging for her to look at conservation methods in various museums. My second trip was for two weeks in 1988, under the auspices of the Martin museum. It was an enjoyable shambles as they had nothing, and nothing worked. This was just when communism was ending and separatist movements between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I returned again in 1990. For almost all the examples of Slovak costume I have in my collection being worn see Viera Nosalova: Slovensky l'udovy odev". [FC 19/11/2009]
- Associated publications
- Reproduced in colour on page 48 of the sale catalogue: The Sheila Paine Embroidery Collection Tuesday 22nd April 2008, Drewetts Auctioneers, Donnington Priory Salerooms, where is is listed as Lot 144: "A complete costume from Piestany, Slovakia, comprising: white cotton blouse with red and yellow broderie anglaise on sleeves, including a band of needleweaving, with an added cuff of machine lace with tamboured stitchery, a pointed collar of needleweaving with metal thread and yellow braid, and with yellow and red tambouring down the centre front; two front and back black chintz aprons, with white floral embroidery around the edges, and machine lace, 66 cm and 69 cm long including lace; canvas waistcoat applied with brocaded silks and 'gold' lace; red floral brocaded ribbon for waist; two white cotton caps, of two-horned shape, the first with yellow/white broderie anglaise, the other yellow and blue [EE-11)... 'I spotted this in a antique shop in Prague just as I was leaving. I paid for it but they couldn't get it out of the window. My landlady collected it for me eventually and passed it to a woman (Drashka Pavelkova) whom I met on the night train from Prague to East Berlin. She posted it a year later to the Ethnographic Museum in Martin when I returned there". [FC 19/11/2009]
Search terms: Clothing, Clothing Textile, Skirt