It has been big news for the past week:a – literally – turned up dress from the seventeenth century. Much of the research into the garment has yet to begin, but speculation is rampant. Who wore the dress? When did the ship sink? Various experts, from materials scientists to art historians, will try to find an answer to this in the near future.
The dress was in a box that surfaced from a wreck off the Texel coast. Additional items of clothing were found, including a cloak, silk stockings, and bodies with large amounts of gold and silver thread. In addition, there were leather book covers with the coat of arms of the English king Charles I (reigned between 1625 and 1649) in gold, which immediately says something about the dating of the dress. Furthermore, the divers have brought all kinds of other luxury items to the surface such as pomanders (balls for fragrant herbs or flowers), glazed jugs and a gilded silver goblet. So no load of poor slobs.
Sustainability in the Golden Age
The most special thing about this find is the wardrobe. In the seventeenth century, textiles were expensive and when a model went out of fashion, the fabric was made into something else. Throwing away discarded clothes, as we do now, did not happen, even among rich people. What has been found of textiles from this period are generally small pieces of worn fabric from cesspools, the place for waste from that time.
Finding such a complete wardrobe has never happened before in Europe, according to Maarten van Bommel. The natural scientist in the textile restoration and conservation program at the University of Amsterdam was therefore surprised when he saw the garments for the first time. “I was called to come and have a look at the find and had expected it to be a few fragments. I was therefore perplexed when I got my hands on an entire dress. And the great thing about this find is that everyone has it. The realization that you are looking at something very special, even if you don't understand it."
The real thing
Van Bommel has been researching textiles with a few students since January. The clothing had been submerged for nearly four hundred years, and because of the lack of oxygen, it was not badly affected. So they had to know as soon as possible how to keep the items of clothing above water. And exhibit it, because the dress has been one of the highlights of the exhibition Garde Robe since April 14. in the Texel museum Kaap Skil.
Van Bommel:“The precious textiles are in relatively good condition. The next step is to look at the textile fibers and metal threads and the dye research. The dress from the exhibition, for example, is also called the magic ball dress because of the blending colors of orange, green, brown, red, yellow and black.”
Using dye research, the researchers find out which colors are where and whether they were originally there. Van Bommel:"We are not yet sure about the original colors of the dress. I actually think that the fabric only had one color and that all those other colors come from other clothing that has been against the dress, causing them to give off We will gain more clarity on this with the help of liquid chromatography, a technique in which the dyes in a very small sample are separated from each other and identified."
Scientific research must answer questions from different disciplines. For example, in addition to investigating the original color and fibers, art historians will look at the model of the dress and historians will examine the context of the find; when did the ship sink and who was on board?
“This research is important on so many different levels. We only know this type of clothing from paintings. Restorers can now finally see how such a dress is put together and how metal wire was made," says Van Bommel. “And how were individual parts handled? For example, there is also a jacket full of silver thread on the front but with a less luxurious silk back. How did the lady in question wear this jacket? Was it loose? You don't see all that in a painting."
Beautiful lady
The dress, which in the seventeenth century would be called a tabard, is made of silk and woven in damask. With this weaving technique, flowers are applied in the same color as the background. The dress consists of a bodice with a gathered skirt that opens at the front. The sleeves are set in with loose sleeves and sleeve caps over them and the collar is open.
A lot of fabric has been used for the dress and it is also quite to size. “That doesn't mean the wearer was fat, but tall. She was a tall lady from well-to-do circles,” says Van Bommel. He concludes this because of the luxurious fabrics of which the various garments are made and the fact that many clothes have the same size. It was probably all from the same woman. The big question now is:who oh who was she? The name Jean Kerr has already been mentioned, an English lady-in-waiting who lost her cargo off the Texel coast in a shipping disaster in 1642. To be continued!