Exquisite treasures on display
The latest display at Bath & North East Somerset Council’s
Fashion Museum includes twenty pairs of beautifully decorated
gloves from the Gloves’ Collection Trust, all intricately
embroidered in a variety of materials from tiny seed pearls to
sparkling metal thread. The current display also includes five
pieces of silver ware of comparable date, and of a similar high
quality, which have been generously lent to the Museum by the
Holburne Museum of Art.
The display includes two rare early seventeenth-century English
pieces - a bell salt, one of only five known examples and a wine
goblet. Pre 1640s English silver is extremely rare because so much
was melted during the civil war to turn into coinage.
Also on show are three pieces of highly decorated German silver.
German silver - made chiefly in the cities of Augsburg and
Nuremberg - was highly prized and exported throughout Europe.
Rosemary Harden, Manager of the Council-run Museum commented: ‘ The
idea is that these exquisite treasures will give visitors an idea
of the richness and opulence of the 17th century, reinforcing the
impression given by the embroidered gloves. There are also
similarities in the use of design motifs between the silver and the
gloves, for example a similar treatment of a sea creature, as in
the dolphin in the silver and the whale on the gloves.’
‘It is great that these two museums in Bath have such exquisite
collections of such high quality, and its good to be able to work
in partnership to display such fantastic historic treasures for our
visitors.’
Matthew Winterbottom, Curator of Decorative Art at the Holburne
Museum writes: 'This is a rare opportunity to see a juxtaposition
of some of the most glamorous luxury goods of the seventeenth
century. Most of the people who owned such magnificent gloves would
have also owned splendid pieces of silver and vice versa. It's a
window into seventeenth-century taste.'
For more information on the Gloves exhibition and the Fashion
Museum, log onto http://www.fashionmuseum.co.uk/
The Museum is open daily, 11.00-17.00, exit 18.00.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
Attached images:
Silver gilt cup, shaped like a shell with the tail of a dolphin
acting as a stem, with chased decoration. Made in Augsburg, Germany
about 1650. On loan from Holburne Museum of Art
Whale detail from white goat skin gloves, with tabbed gauntlet
of silk satin embroidered in coloured silks and gold purl wire and
gold thread, and edged with gold bobbin lace, 1600 – 1620. Gloves’
Collection Trust.
For images contact: Maggie Bone, Museums Publicity Officer, Bath
& North East Somerset Council, on 01225 477736, or e-mail
maggie_bone@bathnes.gov.uk
For comment:
Rosemary Harden, Manager, Fashion Museum, on 01225 477282 or email
rosemary_harden@bathnes.gov.uk
Fashion Museum
• The Fashion Museum was formerly known as the Museum of Costume,
it is owned and operated by Bath & North East Somerset Council.
A major redisplay and relaunch of the Museum began in January 2007
and was completed in July 2007.
• The Museum has an outstanding collection of more than 60,000
objects of fashionable dress - including dresses, shirts, skirts,
jumpers, and even underwear and nightgowns, plus shoes and
accessories from the late sixteenth century to the present day. The
Collection also includes works on paper (for example, fashion
drawings, photographs and dressmaking patterns) that relate to the
history of fashion.
• It is one of the largest and finest collections of original
fashionable dress in the world, and in 1999 it was awarded
Designated status by the UK government as a non-national museum
that holds a pre-eminent collection.