Woman’s dress (outer garment), open-front, straight, long sleeves, constructed of tightly woven warp-faced wool, indigo blue color, from 38 cm. wide fabric. Lower front opening and bottom edge of sleeves and entire bottom edge of pleated skirt (including 13 cm. high side slits) are embellished with narrow white plain-woven strip 3 cm. wide, attached with four rows of red running stitches. Sleeve edge bears additional loop design of yarn and cross-stitched diamond motif in blue and green. Entire outer edge of garment and ventilated underarm seams are edged with 3 rows of braiding, red, yellow and blue, and one raised, wrapped cord (or gimp) of alternating black and white bands (black and blue on sleeves). Bands of embroidery 4.5 cm. are around bodice neck opening, across shoulders and around seam of sleeves. Edges of embroidery are red, yellow and white chevrons, central motifs on shoulders and sleeves are red crosses, fancy reverse Z’s in red, yellow and green. There are beaded medallions on inside of back waistband. Dyes are probably from the Georgian plains. Width at waist: 80 cm; length of garment: 93 cm; total circumference at skirt bottom: ~355 cm; length of sleeve: 28 cm; total length from sleeve cuff to sleeve cuff: 116 cm; width of sleeve opening: 19 cm (38 cm circumference). Back of skirt (pleated portion) is composed of 17 gores, each ~19 cm wide at the bottom. Back skirt pleats are constructed from raised seams of gores and reinforced by downward projections of embroidery from the back of the waist.
Donor:
Shorena Kurtsikidze
Collection place:
Bokchvilo village, Khevsureti region, Eastern Georgia
Verbatim coll. place:
Eastern Georgia, highland province of Khevsureti,Bokchvilo Village
Culture or time period:
Georgians (Caucasus)
Collector:
Vakhatng Chikovani
Collection date:
1978
Materials:
Glass (material) and Wool (textile)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Clothing and Textiles (visual works)
Function:
2.1 Daily Garb
Production date:
18th century
Accession date:
February 9, 1994
Context of use:
18th Century traditional woman’s dress. The abundantly decorated clothing, woman’s tunic (Katibi in Georgian, Koklo in the local dialect) was purchased in 1978 by the ethnographer Vakhatng Chikovani (the donor’s spouse) in the village of Bokchvilo of the Barisakho Community in the Khevsureti Province of Georgia, one of the highland provinces of eastern Georgia, bordering Chechnya. Traditional clothing of the highlanders of this province, called T’alavari (comp. Spanish and Mexican Talavera) is known to be richly ornamented with multi-colored geometric embroidered figures, among which the crosses of various types sizes are prominently featured. For this reason, and also because of many peculiar characteristics of the traditional lifestyle of the highlanders of this province, Arnold Zisserman, Russian military historian and a participant of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, regarded the highlanders of Khevsureti Province as the successors of those of western European crusaders (Twenty Five Years in the Caucasus,1842-1867, Volume I: The Early Years, 1842-1851, by Arnold L. Zisserman, Translated from the Russian by Inna Kiziriya, With an Introduction and Notes by Peter F.Skinner, Narikala Publications, Inc., New York, London. Tbilisi, 2017,pp.162-3). Ref.: Ornement Khevsourien, by Vera Bardavelidze & Giorgi Citaia, Tbilisi, 1939, in Georgian, French and Russian). (fide Dr. Kurtsikidze)
Department:
Europe and western Russia (except Classical Mediterranean)