Headdress, woven wool and cotton, Hungary, 1800s.

Woven wool and cotton, woven with vertical stripes in red, yellow, dark green and purple. At the bottom, two horizontal bands of lozenges in bright colours, edged with stripes of silvered thread. Round the bottom edge, there is an addition of silver-gilt braid on green silk. At the sides and the bottom is a short red and white cotton fringe.

The register records that this object was a gift from H.M. Queen Mary, who was gifted it by the Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, 'to whom it was entrusted by a Hungarian lady'.

A newpaper clipping accompanying the register entry suggests this piece first came into the country as part of an exhibition of Hungarian needlework in Aberdeen. The article records a 'Scots tartan embroidered over...with Turkish or Moorish embroidery', and explains that 'early in the 17th century a Scottish princess named Agathe marries a Hungarian prince and packed away in her bridal chest a number of pieces of tartan from her native land. So enamoured were they of this new material that the ladies of the court took pieces of tartan, added fringes to them, and heavily embroidered that tartan with cross-stitch and other stitches. These two paticular pieces I secured from a Hungarian contess in whose family they had been handed down and, as you observe, the embroidery bears the Turkish influence - the Turks having invaded Hungary soon after the royal wedding between Scotland and Hungary.'

T.199-1928