Hankies galore ... at the TRC in Leiden
an online talk about European ‘Handkerchiefs as tokens’ for Selvedge, the London based textile magazine. It’s a subject I am interested in, but never had the time to go into in any depth. While preparing the talk I remember thinking that we only had a relatively small collection of late 19th and 20th century handkerchiefs at the TRC and I really wanted to know more about their full history, variations and indeed, even how many different ways are there to fold handkerchiefs?
On Wednesday 10th November I gaveI should not have expressed such thoughts! We have just been given a large shopping bag full of handkerchiefs, more than 150, many of them in their original boxes (for example, TRC 2021.3394), and yes, folded in a variety of different ways, for both display purposes and practical use.
The handkerchiefs range in date from about 1900 to the 1960s. The donation includes handkerchiefs that had been used, as well as others that seem to be purchasing models (with numbers for re-ordering), as well as general shop stock including several of the same type. Not to mention, of course, a range of identically decorated handkerchiefs, but in different colour ways.