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We were in Cluny in central France the other day and although I knew the Benedictine abbey was an important medieval religious and cultural centre, I had not realised just how big the whole complex was.

Piece of woven silk with a design of roundels enclosing cockerels. Iranian, 4th/6th century (?)

Studying the relics of St Thomas Becket in Sens Museum (photograph Willem Vogelsang).We have just spent a lovely two days in Sens, just southeast of Paris. It’s a medieval city (with Roman remains) and well worth a visit. More importantly, from my (unbiased) point of view, Sens Museum, next to the cathedral, has one of the best collections of medieval textiles in this part of Europe!

All of which is thanks to being home to many items from Sens Cathedral (the current cathedral dates from 1135, but it is built on a much older complex). They include many finds from medieval tombs inside the cathedral, such as burial shrouds, as well as other remains such as altar furnishings of various types, reliquary coverings and bags made of cloth.

The textiles include both woven and embroidered forms from Iran, Byzantium, as well as Italy, Spain and northwestern Europe. It even houses a small, knitted bag with an Arabic text that probably dates to about the 13th century!

If you are expecting a dramatic story of war-torn Leiden, bombs and fighting, then stop reading now. This is a very much smaller tale of domestic up-cycling in an imaginative manner!

Child's little cardigan, knitted from cotton left-overs in war-torn Leiden, September 1941 (TRC 2022.1882a).

At the end of February 2022 the Textile Research Centre in Leiden was contacted by Karin Scheper and Anouk Mansfeld of the University Libraries Leiden (UB), about the proposed donation of a large collection of personal letters, documents, publications, photo albums, as well as furniture, statuettes, textiles and garments. The department Bijzondere Collecties of the UB was seriously thinking about accepting many of the items, but not the textiles and garments. Was the TRC interested?

Official hand-over by the Ottow family of documents and textiles to the University Libraries and the TRC: Sitting behind the table: Prof. Annetje Ottow (Chair, Leiden University Board, second from the left), and her husband (to the far left), sister (right), and brother (far right). Standing behind them, from left to right: Dr Alette Stas-Bax (Chair Leids Universiteitsfonds), Dr Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood (Director Textile Research Centre), and Dr Kurt De Belder (Director Leiden University Libraries). Photograph by Guus Janssen, Leiden University Libraries.

I often comment  that the TRC Collection is diverse, but life at the TRC this week has been equally so! We have been working, for example, very hard on the Arizona collection (some 900 objects, mainly from southeastern Europe) and on Friday we added the last item to the catalogue. All being well, everything will have been photographed by the end of the coming week.

Appliqué panel from Egypt, c. 2000. Part of the so-called Arizona collection, recently acquired by the TRC (TRC 2022.1805). The scene appears to be inspired by a print by David Robert (1796-1864) called the 'Bazaar of the Silk Mercers' (c. 1846).

The sheer range of items of three large donations, including the Arizona gift, which have come in since March is amazing. They range from Indonesian ikats (more about these below), Central Asian embroideries, Egyptian appliqués,  American First Nation items, to molas from Panama, not to forget all the textiles and garments from Central and southeastern Europe.

On June 18th the Textile Research Centre gave a workshop on pharaoh Tutankhamun’s clothing, as part of the Tutankhamun month organised by Huis van Horus, a society for Egyptology in the Netherlands and Flanders.

Gillian Vogelsang helping a participant to wear a (replica) nemes headdress. Photograph by Gerton Hermers.When Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, he didn’t just find coffins and gold, but also hundreds of textiles. Dr. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood has done extensive research on the actual garments now housed at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Cairo, and producing replicas of several of them to display their dazzling colours and designs and also to test how they would have been worn and used.

We were given a hands-on demonstration of a number of (replica) royal garments, starting with his Majesty’s underwear. A large linen triangle was tied around the waist of one of the workshop participants and then tucked in at the front, demonstrating that the king’s hips were probably quite wide.

A linen skirt was wrapped around the waist and fastened with a sash with a colourful, woven feather pattern. The pictures we see so often in museums and books were starting to come alive before our eyes.

Next, we were shown a tunic covered in an elaborate pattern of blue bead netting and golden buttons. While the replica version only had a painted pattern, the original must have been very heavy with all the faience and gold appliqués. Trying the tunic out on another one of the participants, we understood why only the front of the garment was decorated: it is quite impossible to sit down on a layer of beads and buttons. Alternatively, if the king is sitting down, the back of his tunic can’t be seen anyway, so there was apparently no need to decorate it.

We are pleased to announce that in conjunction with graphic illustrator, Martin Hense (Rotterdam) and Bloomsbury Publishing, London, and hopefully with many volunteers from all over the world, the TRC Leiden is building a new Portal for Embroidery Stitches. In doing so we hope to complement the entries on stitches in the TRC Needles, both as regards the stitches themselves and additional information.

Sampler with a variety of stitches, embroidered by Grethe la Croix in the Netherlands, 1960s (TRC 2017.0216). To the left are different rows of stitches, and to the right the same stitches, but with added beads.

Where else in Europe can you go from bobbin lace making, velvet identification, to hand knitted lace, card weaving and Tutankhamun’s Wardrobe in just over a week? Those are a few of the subjects that have been or will be taught or discussed at the TRC within a week, with groups of various sizes, all of whom have especially come to Leiden and the TRC.

Two participants of the TRC velvet identification study-day, on 11 June 2022