Description:
Wool or silk and wool shawl woven in a twill weave, and printed with a polychrome boteh or paisley design. This kind of asymmetrical shawl in which the main border appears only on two sides at a right angle, and only the outer border edges all four sides, was known in French as a chale boiteaux, or lop-sided shawl. These kinds of shawls grew out of the fashion for taking earlier long shawls (rectangular in shape) and cutting or altering them to make them wide and more square shaped. While shawls could be worn in many different ways, the wearer of this shawl probably had the wider main borders hanging down, possibly turning inside/underneath at the top, outer horizontal border over. The outer border is 2" wide. The configuration of these kinds of shawls leaves the field (in this case black) off-center. Decorative knots (which may have been fringed at one time) are evenly spaced into the edges on all four sides. The shawl was a gift of Parker Dole Hubbard (1919-1994), son of George Caleb Hubbard (b.1878) and Florence Graves Hubbard, grandson of Parker Dole Hubbard (1825-1895) and Elizabeth Newton Hubbard (1842-1915), great-grandson of Ashley Hubbard and Betsey Dole Hubbard (1794-1862), and great-great grandson of Caleb Hubbard (1754-1850) and Lucretia Ashley Hubbard (1767-1853) of the Hubbard Tavern in the Plumtrees section of Sunderland, Mass. During the middle of the 19th century, shawls were a ubiquitous accessory to women's dress, available in many different qualities and pricepoints. These large square or rectangular wraps complimented the full-skirted silhouettes of women's fashion at this time. Derived from India, Kashmir shawls were originally woven from the fine underhair of goats. Coved by wealthy Europeans at the turn of the 19th century, they quickly developed as an export item. Europeans soon began weaving their own shawls in imitation of original, Indian-produced examples; first in Norwich, England, later in France. One such area included Paisley, Scotland, which soon gave its name to the stylized leaf or boteh (the original Indian name) common on many examples.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+89.074 |
