Blog

Constance Whitehead, 1921-2020.The TRC has just been given a donation of various textiles that belonged to Mrs. Constance Whitehead (1921-2020), who sadly died not long ago. The following account of Mrs. Whitehead and her love of textiles was written by her daughter, Ann Cable, who now lives in Leiden.

"My mother was widowed in 1945 when her husband's Mosquito plane was shot down over Germany. Her second husband, George Whitehead, was a diplomat, which led to a peripatetic life. She lived in Australia, India and Canada and travelled widely, particularly with her daughters, to places such as Pakistan and Syria.

Constance Whitehead was a remarkable needlewoman. As children our dresses were beautifully hand smocked. In Kolkata she knitted baby jackets for Mother Teresa’s clinic where she worked as a volunteer. In Canada she started making patchwork quilts. She would pore over fabrics looking to see how she could combine different textures and colours.

Whenever she travelled she would pick up different examples of the local textiles - on one occasion, while our bus was at a traffic light in Syria, she got me to haggle out of the window for a damask tablecloth which I still have. As she grew older she downsized much of the beautiful china and glass she had had in her diplomatic life, but she kept all her textiles and had many of them on display so she could be 'surrounded by beautiful things' as she said."

All of the pieces given to the TRC are currently being catalogued and it has been decided that several items from the donation will be the subject of various blogs over the next few weeks. The first of these blogs concerns a woollen wall hanging.

Not long ago (6th September 2020) we published a blog by Charles Knobler about a tapestry weaver called Michael Rohde from southern California, and in particular one of his tapestries that featured the Dalai Llama. While preparing the blog I thought about how few tapestry woven items we actually had in the TRC Collection.

Wall hanging, mid-20th century. The design is based on a print by the Dutch artist, Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972). The print is called "Reptiles" and was printed in 1943 (TRC 2020.3742).By coincidence, among the objects from Mrs Whitehead there was a tapestry panel based on an etching by the famous Dutch graphic artist, Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972). In 1922 Escher visited Spain, and in particular went to the amazing Moorish palace known as the Alhambra in Granada (southern Spain).

The palace has numerous walls covered in intricate and interlocking tiles. He became intrigued by these tiles and this led to a series of designs of interlocking, repetitive patterns. He revisited the Alhambra in 1936 and continued his study of the tiles and their mathematical principles that come under the heading of tessellation. One of the first examples of Esher’s tessellation was a watercolour called ‘Study of Regular Division of the Plane with Reptiles' (1939). This was used for a lithograph called 'Reptiles' that was published in 1943.

It is this design that was used for the tapestry panel now in the TRC Collection (TRC 2020.3742). It has white cotton warps and woollen wefts in dark brown, dark red, brown, grey and white yarns, and is woven using a tapestry technique.

Unfortunately, there are no details concerning when (it must have been post 1943), where or indeed who wove the panel, but it is clear that it is very precisely woven and shows considerable skill in how the various colours and shapes were worked to re-create Escher’s intricate tessellated design.

Ann Cable and Gillian Vogelsang, 18th September 2020

Feestrok made by Ms Cornelia van Ingen Schenau, dated 1947 (TRC 2020.3753).Yesterday was a day of hard work, seeing friends, the opening of the new exhibition (Textile Tales from the Second World War) and, to top it all, an unexpected parcel with a wonderful surprise. When the postman gave me three packages I was initially not so intrigued, as I had been expecting some items for the next exhibition about the Paisley motif.

So I was a little confused, after opening one of the parcels,  when I saw (literally) a patchwork of textile scraps. I was not expecting a quilt top! Then it dawned on me, it was a feestrok! These are unique Dutch items from the late 1940’s and were made from a colourful patchwork of cloth pieces. They were made at home to celebrate the liberation of the country after the Second World War. Over the last few years we have published several TRC blogs about these garments.

Over the last few months we have been working very hard on organising, preparing and setting up the TRC’s latest exhibtion, ‘Textile Tales from the Second World War’.

We had originally planned an official opening with a special guest, a large audience, a lecture, buffet meal, etc. Instead, and directly thanks to the covid-19 virus, we had to change our plans, but we still wanted to mark the event, so this afternoon there was a ‘non-opening opening’!

Because of social distancing and the general limit on the number of people who could be present in the TRC Gallery, we decided to celebrate the opening of the exhibition with representatives from the Mennonite community, the TRC Board and community, and those who have helped put up the exhibition. Seven people were at the opening and most had the chance to say a few words about the history of the exhibition, to make some general comments, as well as to provide more personal accounts about certain objects.

Cover of the booklet 'Merklappen. Oud en Nieuw' ("Samplers. Old and New") by Hillegonda Bottema (Kampen, 1942).The new TRC exhibition, Textile Tales from the Second World War, opens next week (16th September 2020). The exhibition contains many objects, almost all of them with a story behind them, some of which are sad and moving, while others are deep, funny and/or intriguing.

Over the next few months we are going to publish a series of blogs about one or more items from the exhibition. These will be written by various people and cover a wide range of subjects.

Earlier in the year – before the start of the Corona-virus crisis, we added a ‘Dutch farmer’s wife’ outfit to the TRC Collection. The garments were made in 1945 for a parade in the De Sitterlaan, Leiden, to celebrate the liberation of Leiden by the Canadians and others in May 1945. The dress will feature in the forthcoming TRC exhibition 'Textile Tales from the Second World War', which will open on the 16th September.

Mw Tineke van der Staaij, 81 years old, sitting in front of the Volendam-style outfit (with the characteristic white cap) made for her by her mother when she was six years old. She wore the garments at a liberation parade in Leiden (May 1945).The outfit was made by Mw. Van der Staaij for her daughter, Tineke, who was six years old at the time. The clothing was based on regional dress worn in Volendam in Noord-Holland and consists of a black blouse, bodice, scarf, white cap, as well as a striped skirt and apron (TRC 2020.0592a-f). All sorts of material were used to make the outfit, including part of a 19th century curtain for the apron. The family, so we heard, still treasures the sewing machine that was used for these and many other items.

This morning we welcomed two unexpected visitors – Tineke van der Staaij, who is now 81 years old, and her younger sister!

Although the exhibition is not quite finished, we did a special guided tour for them, including showing the ‘Volendam’ outfit which Tineke had worn as a little girl 75 years ago. She and her sister are going to come back after the opening on the 16th September, with more members of their respective families – it's not often that a six-year old Tineke is in an exhibition!

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 7th September 2020

The TRC in Leiden has a small collection of tapestry woven textiles, among which some early examples from Coptic Egypt. Tapestry weaving has a long and fascinating history, and we are pleased to publish a blog about contemporary tapestry weaving, written by Charles Knobler from Los Angeles. He writes:

"The Lady and the Unicorn: Desire." Tapestry in the Cluny Museum, Paris.

To most people the term “tapestry” likely brings to mind the monumental medieval and renaissance woven wall hangings, such as “The Lady and the Unicorn”, which fills a room in the Cluny Museum in Paris. Such tapestries were designed by an artist and woven by teams of artisans.

Due to the covid crisis, in April 2020 (it seems a very long time ago…..), I was working from home on a mini-project called ‘What is Gingham’, as part of our building up a reference collection of various types of cloth. It was published in a TRC Blog called ‘Gingham thoughts’ that appeared on the 10th April 2020.

Jane Hardy’s sampler made at the Burton Leonard School, North Yorkshire (1872; TRC 2020.1606).

In the same month we also added a sampler (TRC 2020.1606) to the TRC Collection that was made by Jane Hardy of Burton Leonard, North Yorkshire (England). The sampler was dated to 1872 when Jane was ten years old. We contacted the Burton Leonard Church of England school where she had made the sampler to see if they had any further details about her. This led to emails between the school and a local historian called Vivienne Rivis, who was very excited about the sampler, as it is one of the few items made by pupils that have survived from this period.

Poster announcing the new TRC exhibition about the Second World War. The poster photograph in the centre, showing garments from the exhibition, was taken by Joost Kolkman.During the last five days the TRC in Leiden has been very busy with (finally) taking down the American Quilt exhibition, which we put up in February, took down in March, put back up again in June up and now it is finally down.

Together with Lies, Sophie and Augusta, three of our dedicated volunteers, we cleaned the TRC Gallery and slowly started adding items for the new exhibition, including numerous panels, over twenty mannequins dressed in the relevant clothing from the 1930’s and 1940’s, photographs and many small items, ranging from lapel badges to heavy leather boots with massive wooden soles.