■ロンドンにある通称V&A (正式: Victoria and Albert Museumヴィクトリア・アンド・アルバート博物館)は、私の好きな博物館のひとつ。　昨年12月のコラムにも書かせていただいたナショナルギャラリーも素晴らしいが、V&Aは特に芸術とデザインに関するコレクション内容とその数の多さは素晴らしく、3,000 年余りに及ぶ多彩な世界文明の遺物がコレクションされています。
■今回の新たな発見と驚き!! ウッーこの感動を誰かに話さずにいられよか・・・。「ねぇ、ねぇ、見て見て。これってすごいと思いません? だって1860年のこの時代に既にガラスのビーズタッセルがついたティーコージーがあったなんて!! 今のビーズブームも真っ青デス」。

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■TEA COSY About 1860
Techniques & Materials: Glass beads on a linen canvas ground lined with silk; with twisted silk braid trimming and silk and glass tassels
Place of Manufacture: Probably embroidered in England
Height: 27 x Width: 46 x Depth: 7.5
【Object Type】
This tea cosy decorated with glass beads is a typical example of mid-19th-century amateur embroidery. The design of roses and lilies on a bright blue ground is characteristic of popular floral design in the 1850s and early 1860s. The cosy would have been kept for special occasions and used with the ‘best’ silver or porcelain tea pot when entertaining important visitors for afternoon tea.
【Materials Making】
Beads were popular for all forms of Victorian embroidered decoration on dress and for a wide range of domestic items in middle-class homes, such as upholstery, cushions, bell-pulls and fire screens. The glass industries of Germany and Italy produced and exported vast numbers of glass beads for this use in a wide variety of colours. The beads used in this example were known as ‘pound’ beads as they were purchased by weight. This tea cosy is decorated with two popular types: those in bright opaque colours and others in translucent clear shades.
【Gallery Label】
This tea cosy would have been made from a kit or perhaps from a pattern in a ladies’ magazine. It would not have been used in fashionable homes, as it was advised that a tea cosy ‘should never be seen in a lady’s drawing room’. Instead, tea cosies became popular in more modest homes.
Given by Mrs M. O’Meara
Museum no. Circ.177-1963
※掲載許可申請中。幻の写真に終わるか・・・