archive 2004

 

Arts Minister Places Temporary Export Bar On Sole Surviving Linen Doublet From 1650s

Estelle Morris, Minister for the Arts, has placed a temporary export bar on an extremely rare and exquisitely embroidered linen doublet from the 1650s. It is one of only five British doublets to survive from the period 1650 to 1660 and is, as far as known, a unique use of linen for a fashionable garment in this decade.  It is also embellished with a very rare form of needlework. 

 

Such an exceptional garment is an essential resource for dress, textile, social and economic historians as almost nothing remains from the period and pictorial evidence is scarce due to a decline in full-length portraiture during the Civil War and Commonwealth eras. It is also important as an inspiration for contemporary fashion designers and costume designers for stage and screen. This will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the doublet in the United Kingdom.

 

Estelle Morris‘s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art that the export decision be deferred. The deferral will enable purchase offers to be made at the following agreed fair market price:

 

An embroidered linen doublet (1650s), deferred at the recommended price of £25,935 (including VAT), until after 27 July 2004 with the possibility of an extension until after 27 September 2004 if there is a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase.

 

Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the doublet should contact the owner’s agent through: 

The Secretary
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
2-4 Cockspur Street
London
SW1Y 5DH

 

Notes to Editors

 

1. Pictures of these items can be downloaded free of charge from our site on PA Picselect.  Please go to the DCMS folder situated within the Arts section of Picselect either at www.papicselect.com or through the PA bulleting board.

 

2. The doublet was in the collection of the Marquesses of Lansdowne for many years.  According to family history, the doublet, along with two other garments of the mid-17th century (another doublet and a surcoat), was found at the family home, Meikleour House in Perthshire. Family tradition associated the three garments with Mary Queen of Scots, but the clear dating of the pieces to the mid-17th century negates this connection.  It is possible, however, that they were acquired by a member of the Lansdowne family (or one of their ancestor families) in the 19th century, in the belief that they once belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. 

 

3.  The doublet, with the two other items, was lent to the Perth Museum from before 1975 until 1992, when all three were transferred to the Royal Scottish Museum (later the National Museum of Scotland). The doublet had thus been available for public study for at least twenty years before its recent sale.  In 1999 the three garments were offered for sale at Sotheby’s on 7 October 2003.

 

4. The doublet is an exceptional example of mid-17th-century tailoring and needlework. It is made of linen and is richly embellished with embroidery in white thread – a style known as whitework.  It embodies a technique of couched, knotted cord, of which there are very few surviving examples. The cord is applied in curvilinear patterns within a defined geometric space, usually a rectangle running vertically on the garment. Additional embroidery in the form of satin stitch and French knots fills some of the spaces created by the lines of the couched cording, to suggest the shapes of leaves and flowers. The overall effect of this use of cord and embroidery is more abstract than in other forms of needlework of the period, which tended to be much more naturalistic. 

 

5. Only four other garments decorated in a similar manner appear to have survived in Britain, all from the 1620s and 1630s. The patterning of the Lansdowne doublet is slightly denser than that of 1630s examples, which may demonstrate an evolution in design characteristic of its later date. The Lansdowne doublet is the first evidence we have of this style of embroidery continuing into the 1650s. As far as we know, this technique was applied exclusively to dress and not to furnishing textiles. 

6.  While all silks had to be imported in the 17th century, the production of linen was an important British industry. Some two dozen embroidered linen jackets for women survive from the first half of the 17th century, but the masculine examples are much rarer.  The combination of linen and whitework may indicate summer attire, clearly for a wealthy or aristocratic owner.

 

7. The Lansdowne doublet has survived in good condition and, remarkably, retains all its original buttons, fine examples of thread-covered buttons in the passementerie technique.

 

8. Very little survives in the way of historical dress from the 17th century, whether for men or for women.  Dress from the 1640s and 1650s is particularly rare, probably as a result of the political unrest in Britain during the period. The other surviving doublets from this period are all made of silk. The Lansdowne doublet is the only example of a 1650s doublet made of linen and the only one of that date bearing embroidery. 

 

9. The importance of the doublet for study is all the greater, given the lack of pictorial evidence for the form of men’s clothes at the time. The period of the Civil War and Commonwealth saw a decline in portraiture, as the generation of artists who had served the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts died. The Commonwealth did not patronise the arts to the same degree as the Stuart Court.  Miniature painting predominated, but this format provides little information about dress.  Peter Lely and Pieter Nason were among the few artists executing full-length portaiture and their style favoured ‘artistic drapery’, which obscures the details of the clothing worn. This lack of visual illustration of clothing hugely increases the importance of surviving garments of this period as documents of the history of men’s dress.

 

10. The doublet represents the final stylistic form of a garment that had a long history in the male wardrobe. It began as an arming garment in the 14th century, plain and heavily padded with quilting, worn under the breastplate to protect the body from the chafing of the metal. By the late 1300s it had crossed over into civilian dress and was worn by men under a long gown, providing a means to support the hose that covered the legs. In the 1550s, the doublet developed as a garment for outerwear, made of luxurious fabrics and lavishly embellished. It was worn as an ensemble, with cloak and breeches, often of matching fabric, and became the standard fashionable dress of the Tudor court.  This trio of garments remained the staple elements of men’s dress well into the 1670s.  In 1666 Charles II introduced a new set of garments as fashionable men’s attire, the vest and coat to be worn with breeches, the latest style from France. The doublet continued to be worn for another 10 to 15 years, but as an increasingly old-fashioned garment.  The Lansdowne doublet is a unique record of the form of such garments in the decade before they were superseded by what was, in effect, the forerunner of the modern three-piece suit, of coat, waistcoat and breeches/trousers.

 

11. Since the beginning of the 17th century, the doublet had been evolving slowly in terms of cut and shape.  From a fairly long garment with a pointed waist and tight sleeves, the doublet shortened and the sleeves grew more voluminous.  The Lansdowne doublet, made in the 1650s, is characterised by its straight lower edge and short length, which would have exposed the shirt between it and the breeches. The sleeve seams of this doublet have been left open for the shirt sleeves to show through.  The short doublet attracted the attention of satirists and the condemnation of moralists in the late 1640s, when it first appeared.