Jytte Harboesgaard gave a wonderful tour at Greve Museum today. She focused on white-on-white embroidered linens, and showed how they were displayed in an 1800s prosperous Danish farmhouse. They were decorative, non-functional status symbols, brightening the dark winter days as they were hung and placed around the house.
At special times white embroideries were added to the beds. Inside the bed curtains, pillows were displayed with an embroidered edge peeking out. The higher the stack of pillows, the more obvious your wealth.
Of course, embroidered tablecloths were typical. The embroidered wool textile beneath enhances the white cloth on top.
Jytte said that sometimes there was a rod in the room where socks or other clothing were hung to dry. A display opportunity!
And a pillow, always a good choice.
This was a bit unusual–a sofa bow tie?
And I had never seen this, a narrow hanging tied to the pillar of a storage chest.
And if you had all these textiles, you would need a place to store them.
As if an antidote to the excess of elegant, complex textiles, of so much visual stimulation, my hotel room tonight may be the most spartan I have encountered. A red chair in a sea of white, hard edges.
