Un Schall de Cachemire - le Comble du Bon Genre

 In July 2020 - that short period of time when we could nearly forget that a pandemic is going on - we've met at Fabrice's place to record two projects.

One was a play by von Rochow "Die Schleppen", the other a conversation about shawls.
(Or Schalls, or Shauls, or Schaals)

Well - the conversation went down pretty well, but I've felt that there is so much more to say about the topic, that I asked Christian to hold back with publishing the video until I would be happy with the accompanying blogpost.

Today was the day, both the video and the blogpost are now online.

You will find the video on YouTube, or via this (hopefully working) embedded view:

The blogpost with the information mentioned during the talk is here:
https://www.lessoireesamusantes.com/post/un-schall-de-cachemire-le-comble-du-bon-genre

I won't crosspost the article over to this blog, but more information and trouvailles will be published here, at Pavillon de la Paix, as I go along.

For some giggles - an accidental "pause" hit turned us into ghosts of the past

Un habit d'étiquette

Monsieur wished for some new clothes for the Grand Bal in Lucca, and he wanted it to be fitting for a court ball, thus he made it very clear that his green woollen coat will not do, and that I've promised him a new outfit years ago. True: I started the jacket and the culottes in black silk taffetas last year, originally destined for him to wear in Malmaison, for the 2ième Jubilé Impérial. As so often, it wasn't to be. He was sick like a dog the whole week before the event and dragged himself more or less out of the hotel room for the official bits, but wore his new silk waistcoat with silver bullion embroidery and his old reliable fraque (way underdressed, but I simply couldn't finish in time)

For Lucca, he searched for a year for nice cut-steel buttons, and was asking me more or less non-stop 'I will have my new outfit, won't I?'
To my friends great amusement I was sewing like a princess in a fairytale most of Friday and Saturday, stitch, gossip, eat nothing what could stain, stitch, stitch.
I managed the buttonholes in the culottes (don't look too closely), but had then to decide between covering buttons or setting in sleeves.
The sleeves won, as he could always wear his off-white culottes, but no fraque, that wouldn't do. And thus I've sat in our room, basting, matching, ironing, sewing. I discovered that tailoring is not my pleasure, nor my gift. And when he saw the state of my poor joints afterwards, he contacted a tailor the same evening to start a business relationship for his future wardrobe extension, to my great relief.

Anyway: here are some pictures, I am still quite proud he looked that handsome.

Picture by Coltrane Koh,
http://www.coleshot.co.uk/lucca-2016/

The outer material is silk taffeta, the curved edge reinforcement is very starched linen (basically glued linen. The body (and the tails, because they are cut in one) are lined with handwoven silk, the sleeves in muslin (I've run out of silk at the time). The pocket flaps are just that. Flaps. No pockets. The embroidered buttonholes didn't manifest in time, but I doubt anyone noticed, as his buttons were sparkly enough to attract all attention.

Sewing during the garden fete at Palazzo Pfanner
Picture by Antonia Mandic

The culottes were not finished (or rather the buttons were not), thus he's still wearing his woolen culottes, still with the 2 year old waistcoat (new one in red silk satin needs buttonholes, but I guess he'll have it for the next event)

For closing the most fairytale like picture (fitting to the enchanted seamstress, luckily not being the Lady of Shalott, even though I wanted so badly to leave my tower and go out into the town), by Charo Palacios:

Picture by Charo Palacios

I for myself wore the Vernet Toilette de Spectacle, the beautiful comb Monsieur presented me with two years ago in the back of the coiffure, the new comb flanked by silk flowers on the front. My dressing was actually faster than Monsieurs, including a quick wash and hairdo I was finished in 8 minutes. 

La dame avec schall bleue

A bit over three months ago, I was happily perusing the webstore of the renounced "Emporium of Ephraim Bay", and pinning onto my latest Pinterest spleen - the shawl colour boards (see e.g. here - Blue shawl) when I stumbled over this lovely lady.

Her graceful expression and clever use of accessories (blue ribbon belt, blue shawl, blue earrings) had me in a "What an elegant lady! Who must she have been?" happy dance. I pinned her, and went sometimes back checking on the auction, silently counting my centimes and hoping against all reason that the lady would still be there when I managed to save the sum to buy her miniature. A couple of days later, she was gone. I was sad, but shrugged it off, there are so many beautiful things at Mr Bays Emporium, one day I might find something what captures me equally.

About 2 weeks later, a Saturday morning when the mailman called my husband to sign for a parcel. When he returned, he handed me the package, and said "I believe, this is for you".
Lo and behold:

It's her! The Lady with the Blue Shawl!

Thanks to the sweetest husband of all, there was this lovely painting in our home.
You may notice, that the upper right corner is clouded. So did I: for the last couple of months I tried to figure out, if it's but the glass, or the wafer. And if it's just the glass, is it scratches or dirt? Would I damage the wafer?

Today I took up all my courage, and started loosening the already torn paper on the back.

Backside, before carefully cutting
 away the paper

The paper was already so frail,
that it tore away without much help.

     

It's the glass! It's just the glass. And the grime was easily giving way to gentle cleaning with cotton wool and water!

And while I was cleaning the glass, I took the chance to take some pictures of Madame Ne m'oubliez Pas (Mrs Forget-me-Not, due to the shade of blue) without the glass.

She's undamaged, it was just the glass!

The wafer has been damaged a little bit, you see the missing sliver on the left
side, and the piece of painted ivory below it, on the newspaper. 

The glass was surprisingly easy to clean, first I tried when it was still in the frame, then I was able to remove it and gave it a good wash.

The cleaned glass on a newspaper reprint of March 1814

Apart from the little bubbles and imperfection from it's making, it's clean and flawless. Fitting the well dried glass back into it's frame was a tad fiddlier, it's not quite symmetrical, and only fits in one way.

I finished the repair by glueing some replica printed paper from the Basel Historical Museum onto the back. When all is dry, Mme Ne m'oubliez-pas will find a place among some 1792 prints by Angelika Kauffman and some gravures of Journal des Dames.
I am still insanely happy that it was just a dirty glass, and not a damaged painting!

The new backing, and the penknife I used to loosen the old paper.

In the cleaned frame

Modern helpers: paper tissues, Q-tips, clean water, scissors to cut the new backing.

Many thanks again to my most generous and sweet husband. And also to Sabine for the newspaper, what gave me a nice surface to see if the cleaning is effective. (One could also use a modern paper, but it was more fun and inspirational to use a 1814 reprin