Uncovering objects: the importance of context for the textiles of Tyninghame House, Scotland, circa 1700-1800

Abstract

• In 1977 the Earl of Haddington approached museums in Edinburgh, Scotland, with an offer of textiles and dress stored at Tyninghame House, East Lothian, south of the city. After consultation, the resulting sale saw a large collection of pieces split between the Royal Scottish Museum and the Museum of Antiquities. Ten years later, the two museums amalgamated into the National Museums Scotland, but Tyninghame House was sold. As the dress collection was reunited, the contents of the house were dispersed. In 2013 a capital project prompted a full reappraisal of the dress collection, through which the Tyninghame stories, hidden by time and dispersal, began to be uncovered: matching fragments of complex silks from Europe and China were found to be parts of unpicked dresses of the 1720s and 1730s; a 1760s court mantua was so small it could only be mounted on a modern child’s mannequin; and, handwritten notes or stitches marked items as belonging to Rachel Hamilton Baillie (1725-1797). A wealth of material relating to the first decades of the eighteenth century and to women, spoke of a strongly matriarchal household, led most notably by Lady Grisell Baille, née Hume, whose mastery of her father’s and family’s accounts defies subsequent notions of gender roles. Using this rich collection, the proposed paper will show the importance of context and associations in revealing the hidden lives of objects. It will challenge notions of gender roles within privileged families and discuss how textiles aided social maneuver, expressed personality, and reflected familial interests for both sexes. The social framework described by the objects will form a basis of discussion about how luxury textiles were experienced domestically in the eighteenth century. Discussion will question the ways in which silk weaving was supported by global trade and the moral compass of historical luxury fashion consumption.