{"id":3376,"date":"2015-07-27T10:58:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T17:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/?p=3376"},"modified":"2015-07-27T10:59:30","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T17:59:30","slug":"assiut-at-the-met","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/2015\/07\/assiut-at-the-met\/","title":{"rendered":"Assiut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AssiutThe venerable New York institution The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has a vast collection of textiles, clothing and accessory pieces in their collection. \u00a0In 1946, The Metropolitan incorporated the old Museum of Costume Art as a\u00a0curatorial department, renaming it the Costume Institute. In January 2009, The Brooklyn Museum transferred its costume collection to the Met. Shortly thereafter, the museum remodeled its costume storage, research and display facilities. Today, The Anna Winter Costume Center is home to 4,200 square foot state of the art exhibition space for their collection.<\/p>\n

Although this is a large space, only a fraction of the costume holdings can be displayed at one time. So as a boon to costume historians, scholars and researchers, much of the 35,000+ pieces of the Costume Instute are available for view online.<\/p>\n

Info About the Met’s Costume Institute<\/a>
\nPortal for The Collection Online<\/a><\/p>\n

Assiut Highlights<\/strong>
\nHowever, you won\u2019t find \u201cassiut\u201d in a simple search. The museum identifies artworks using standard art curatorial methods. Simple details such as title, artist, date, medium are all included in the basic descriptions of objects in the museum. Unfortunately, textiles are also described using this system, so many textiles become difficult to search for. \u00a0So instead of trying to find assiut fabric, researchers should search for the keywords, such as location ie, Egyptian or Egypt, and medium, cotton and metal. \u00a0The Metropolitan has made it easy to save your searches. \u00a0When you find objects that fit your search parameters, you can set up a free MyMet account, which will allow you to save your research items for easy future viewing.<\/p>\n

Fashion Garments<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Evening Coat: French, 1926\u00a0<\/strong>
\nSource: Metropolitan Museum<\/a>
\nThis gorgeous 1926 cocoon coat appears to have been made from one single densely stitched assiut piano shawl. \u00a0This absolutely gorgeous coat is a virtual mystery. \u00a0It is unknown who designed it, or who it was made for. Did the original owner purchase the assiut shawl on holiday in Egypt? \u00a0Did the seamstress or designer purchase it in bulk? \u00a0Was the assiut made in the 1920\u2019s? \u00a0Or was it a family heirloom picked up during the Belle Epoque? \u00a0Even though we don\u2019t know the specifics, we can certainly admire the design of the coat, with the complicated border pattern strategically used to emphasize the collar, hips, and back.<\/p>\n

\"CI56.6.11_F\"Ethnographic Garments<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Dress<\/strong>
\nSource: Metropolitan Museum<\/a>
\nThere are also a few ethnographic garments held within the Met’s collection. \u00a0One in that I particularly like is the lovely assiut robe below. \u00a0Although not displayed so you can see it effectively, this garment is made in the traditional manner with straight sleeves and gussets, rather than a curved, set-in sleeve used today. \u00a0This style was once popularly worn as the top layer of a wedding dresses in Upper Egypt, but is now worn almost exclusively by dancers, especially those leading the wedding procession know as the zeffa, or who are performing cultural dances regionally specific to Upper Egypt.<\/p>\n

Scarves, Stoles and Wraps<\/strong>
\nAssiut scarves and shawls entered the museum collection over the course of the last century as both donations and purchases. \u00a0Often the descriptions of a textile piece will reflect the taste of the day. \u00a0So what I might\u00a0call a shawl, might be listed as a stole, or wrap. \u00a0A small scarf might be listed as a head scarf or even kerchief. \u00a0The beautiful assiut shawl below is a great example of how names can vary. \u00a0I might not be obvious from just the description “Middle Eastern Stole” that this is, in fact Egyptian Assiut.<\/p>\n

Middle Eastern Stole<\/strong>
\nSource: Metropolitan Museum<\/a> \"Egyptian<\/p>\n

There are several more garments, and many more shawls, stoles, and scarves to peek at in the Met’s collection. \u00a0If you’re interested in seeing more, you might want to try clicking through one of these links, and then check out the “related items” or simply type in a search for Egyptian, cotton and metal. \u00a0I hope you enjoy your visit to the virtual Met!<\/p>\n

Dawn Devine ~ Davina
\nJuly 27, 2015<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

The venerable New York institution The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has a vast collection of textiles, clothing and accessory pieces in their collection. \u00a0In 1946, The Metropolitan incorporated the old Museum of Costume Art as a\u00a0curatorial department, renaming it the Costume Institute. In January 2009, The Brooklyn Museum transferred its costume collection to the Met. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[45,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assiut-assuit","category-design"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Met-Assiut-Cocoon-Coat.jpg?fit=696%2C2826&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YZtR-Ss","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3376"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3400,"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376\/revisions\/3400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}