Jacket, silk velvet, metal thread, cotton, Albania, c.1810

A man's jacket of red silk velvet with a small round opening for the neck; it is open down the centre front; there are no fastenings. It is lined with red cotton throughout except for inside the lower sleeve which is lined with green silk velvet. This would have been visible when worn because a triangular section has been cut from the back of the lower sleeve, revealing this lining.
The seams have been decorated with gold-coloured metal braid - the metal thread being silver strip wound around a yellow silk core. Similar metal braid has been applied along the edges and around the main decorative panel on the back of each sleeve. Three strips of it extend for 3 cm below the front hem, towards either side. The main decoration is formed by couched gold-coloured metal thread (see above). This forms S-shapes on either side of the seams and more elaborate swirling patterns on the centre front panels, across the shoulders on the upper back panel and on the back of both sleeves. In addition there is a band of woven white and green silk and gold-coloured metal thread around the neck and a broaded band of yellow, red, green and blue silk enhanced for part of its length with metal thread along the triangular opening of the sleeves.
A broad silk braid has been applied to the inside edges of the jacket: it is striped with half of it being red and white and the other half a combination of green, yellow, red, white and brown. On the inside of the left front panel is a large pocket with a side opening. This is also lined with red cotton and is reinforced at the bottom with a small panel black velvet. It is edged with the broad silk braid and further decorated with two stylised floral motifs worked in couched white silk thread.

Given by Jane Blakemore

Remarkably similar to a jacket and waistcoat purchased by Lord Byron in Tepalene, Albania in 1809.

The tablet-woven braid that runs diagonally from the upper left towards the lower right of this sleeve is quite astonishing. It is made from many colours of silk thread forming fine stripes and its lower part has been embroidered with metal thread across the width to form more complex patterns. The diagonal opening it decorates is on the under part of the wrist and would not always have been visible, but attention to detail was evidently important. Metal threads decorate the rest of the jacket but they appear unremarkable compared with the exquisite beauty of the short length of embroidery on each cuff.

When it was acquired by the Museum this jacket was thought to have been made in North Africa but it was re-catalogued as Albanian when further research indicated that it was remarkably similar to a jacket and waistcoat purchased by the English poet Lord Byron in Tepalene, Albania in 1809.

T.1114-2000