Silk Ribbons in Museum Amager: A Window to Europe c. 1780-1920
Presentation by Morten Grymer-Hansen (CTR) and Camilla Cziffery Nielsen (Museum Amager).
The project aims to shed new light on one of the largest collections of traditional dress in Denmark and its history in a European perspective.
Museum Amager’s collection of dress and dress articles contains more than 400 ribbons, which represent the large and varied European production of silk ribbons c. 1750-1920. The provenance of the ribbons is generally unclear, as they have entered the museum collection as heirlooms with little to no information of their use, date and place of production. The project seeks to mediate this through a systematic technical analysis of all the ribbons, followed by comparative studies in the main European production centres for silk ribbons in France and Switzerland.
The aim is three-fold:
- To establish the provenance or likely provenance of the ribbons in the museum collection
- To understand the consumption of silk ribbons in Denmark, and its relationship to the Danish and European production of silk ribbons
- To study how mass-produced objects such as silk ribbons became a part of local dress and identity on Amager.
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