I spent the day yesterday looking at the embroidered linen altar cloths from the Altenberger Monastery, and they were really, really breathtaking. It took me a good long while to puzzle out how some of the intricate braided stitches were made, and after that I spent another good long while to look at all the stitch patterns to find that there are not so very many - but they are cunningly worked and varied in a way to look like many more different stitches.

As usual for a special exhibition, it was not permitted to take photographs, so you can picture me standing in front of the displays, periodically putting my nose close to the glass, squinting at details, then straightening back up and sketching manically. These altar cloths are large, and they are just filled with embroidery - thousands and thousands of stitches, an incredible amount of work.

If you can go there and have a look, it is really worth it - the exhibition is running until September 25, so there's still time to pay a visit to Frankfurt.

Speaking of textiles, here are a few links:

Biblical motifs and symbolism in medieval textiles.

By now, you've probably heard of it already, but I will post the link to the world's oldest needle anyways.

And finally, Cathy has an interesting blog article about tutorials for making historical clothing.

 

If you are interested in late medieval embroideries, you might consider a trip to Frankfurt this summer to visit the Städelmuseum. From June 22 to September 25, the museum has a special exhibition called "Heaven on Display" with the stunning liturgical artwork from the convent of Altenberg.

The exhibition features not only the paintings and sculptural art, but also the linen embroidery, with the Altenberg pieces coming together from different museums - from New York to St. Petersburg. Getting all the pieces together again will allow a really outstanding impression of the interplay of the many different media used in early fourteenth-century church furnishing. The Altenberg ensemble is unique in that respect, and I'm definitely planning to go see this.

If you can't make it to Frankfurt, or if you'd like to have a closer look at the individual items first, there's also an accompanying book available, with texts both in German and in English.

It's the middle of a week! And a shorter one at that - time for some links!

Jane Austen's novel "Emma" has its 200 year anniversary this year, and there's an exhibition about it at Chawton House Library, Hampshire, UK. The exhibition will run until September 25, 2016, so if you want to see it, there's still plenty of time left to plan a trip. If you like textiles (which you probably do, since you are reading this blog), it gets even better: part of the exhibition features contemporary embroideries, inspired by patterns from Austen's time. This part is called Stitch-Off, and you can read more about it here. If you're curious about the patterns used, you can find them here, and if your fingers are itching, it's still possible to join in on the project.

Totally unrelated, but rather funny: the UK is building a new polar research ship and they have invited the public to suggest names for their vessel - with interesting results. The leading suggestion is Boaty McBoatface. (The Council responsible was smart, though, as they are only inviting suggestions - they'll be free to pick whatever name they like best in the end.)

 

Here's some textile-related stuff (finally, as promised) that has popped up during the last few days. Enjoy!

Tracy Hudson has an article up in the EXARC digital journal, looking at spinning experiments and how much they can tell us.

Another exciting thing, right at my doorstep: The Kaisermäntel ("emperor's cloaks) in Bamberg are getting some quality research time, and it already looks like the researchers will find exciting things, such as remains of pre-drawings on the fabric (link goes to a German article). There are six pieces counted as Kaisergewänder, and they are the oldest extant textiles of European rulers, dating back mostly to the 11th century. Only mostly, as the fine gold embroidery was cut out from the original ground cloth and transferred to new silk ground fabrics.

It was assumed until now that the original placement of the embroideries was preserved during that transfer, but current research will look into that. Art historian Dr. Tanja Kohwagner-Nikolai, who is working on these wonderful textiles, is doubting that the original arrangement has been preserved especially regarding the Sternenmantel, which is a cloak with embroideries of constellations. She suspects that the embroideries were purposefully arranged differently, with the intention of supporting a cult around the rulers Heinrich and Kunigunde.

The project will run for the next four years, looking into different questions around the pieces and their history from the 11th to the 15th century, up to their last conservation and restauration in mid-20th century. Research will be interdisciplinary, with material and technological analyses, historical and art historical methods combined.

This is a very exciting project - I do hope they will get a lot of good results from the analyses! If you'd like more information, here is the (German) page of Uni Bamberg about the project. If you are in the area, you can visit the Diözesanmuseum and see the garments for yourself (the museum is open Tue-Sun 10-17 o'clock).

Sarah Bendall has posted the next chapter on her effigy bodies reconstruction: Boning and Binding.

Finally, rather unrelated, but really interesting: Barbie dolls dressed up with hijabs.

I'm a little late for this announcement, but better late than never, right?

The Jewish Museum in Berlin has an exhibtion (running for about one more week, until March 1) called "Snip it - Stances on Ritual Circumcision".

That exhibition features a few manuscripts from the British Library with interesting scenes, and for those you don't need to go to Berlin, as they were shown on the BL blog.

And now I'll return to my wrangling of lists and pictures and things to do before this week runs out...

A while ago, I posted about an upcoming exhibition of early modern dresses in Nuremburg. I've since received an update about this - it will start in December 2015. You can read more about the exhibition here.

Also, it's time for me to bleg again...

Together with a colleague, Gillian, whom I met in Leeds, I've been working on a book about medieval England these past years. The book is going to give an overview about England from c 1050 to 1315. We have tried hard to write a book that gives enough detail for those readers who would like to use medieval England as a basis for their own projects - such as a medieval-based fantasy world, or writing a historical novel, or getting started with Living History.

We're now actually in the last stage - copyediting, getting the last few stray bits and pieces in line, and... illustrating it. We have the opportunity of putting pictures into the book, even colour pictures, which is just wonderful. The only drawback? Our deadline is approaching, fast. And we need to get the illustration done double-quick...

A while ago, I've already gotten a few gorgeous pictures for the book, but there are still quite a few topics that are not covered. We would love to have pictures that show actual live persons using good-quality replicas of stuff from England (or non-regional things), from the time-span 11th to very early 14th century. Daily life scenarios, craftspeople doing their work, children playing, any combination of things that actually existed and were used and people using them would be helpful, whether secular, religious, or military. Good pictures of just tools and maybe half-finished products would be very welcome as well.

So... if you have a photo, or several photos, that fit the bill and you would be happy with them being published, please send it to me at Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein.. And we will be ever so grateful for your help!

Ages ago (or at least what feels like ages), I posted about there being an exhibition about fabulous replicated textiles being shown in Dresden: Parade Textiles for August the Strong.

Special exhibitions somewhere off across the country are a tricky beast, if you ask me. You have to find out about them, and then you have to find a time and a way to get there. And until you've done that and been there, unless you happen across somebody else who already has and whom you can ask, you will not know whether it's worth the effort or not.

I've both traveled to a special exhibition to be totally exhilarated and in love with the thing, coming out of the door after hours and hours of monument-al pleasure, and traveled to a special exhibition that I would have regretted the time and effort put in had it been in the neighbouring town with 15 mins travel time, let alone three hours in the car. Single trip three hours, of course.

I also learned, over the years, that a Spec Ex will not necessarily be large - they can, in fact, be tiny. Which may be a good thing, or a bad one, or neutral, depending on a multitude of things.

Long story short - the most patient of all husbands joined me in travelling to Dresden over the weekend, to see the special exhibition, while the best of all neighbours kindly took care of the cat. (She has lots of personnel, you see.) We had opted for the train, since it's about the same time to spend in car or train, and with the costs our car is running, train was actually cheaper (plus gives you more reading, sleeping, and knitting time.) The special exhibition is one of the very small ones, which I had sort of half-expected, but the textiles shown are really, really beautiful. I would have liked some more in-depth info about the manufacture of the replicas, including more video of how they were made, and some inkling about the costs involved in having them replicated, but that was sadly lacking. The texts accompanying the textiles, both the old and the new ones, were also too technical to let non-textile geeks understand what was meant; an explanation of how velvet is woven, for example, would surely have heightened the appreciation of many of the visitors. I'd also have appreciated some close-up photographs together with the textiles shown, so that you could see the bindings a bit easier. The textiles are not all fully replicated yet, and we were dubious about the colours used in one of the hangings, but I found all the others truly spectacular; lots of gold and silk and a nice deep dark blue and nice shades of red.

After the room with the textiles, we went to look at some of the other exhibits. The museum is quite, quite large (even if you don't book the Historical Green Vault with your ticket), and it's chock-full of those baroque splendour thingies where small items are embellished with even smaller designs, and lots of bling added around it, and precious materials are turned into breathtaking things. Sunglasses, at some places, would be a good idea to dampen down some of the splendour.

And after our museum tour, we did what all good archaeologists do - we visited the museum (book) shop, which was a mixture of a museum shop with the necessary souvenirs, trinkets and postcards; a bookshop; and what Germans call "Modernes Antiquariat" where you can buy older books that have gone out of print for a reduced price.

Now, your typical archaeologist has a thing for buying books (ask our friends who helped us move!) and I am no exception. Especially exhibition catalogues - experience says that if you don't buy them when you can, you may not get the chance again. So we went home with... some more books.

In case you are interested in seeing the exhibition about the splendid textiles, it will still run until February 24. It's a small room with about one dozen pieces, part of those originals and part reconstructions, and being a textile geek will help you appreciate what is meant by "velvet, cut" and "or frisé". If you are a textile geek, though, you might really love it.