Saturday, April 24, 2010

Das Deutsche Stickmuster Museum


My visit to the Sampler Museum in the charming town of Celle was such a treat.   I read on the Needleprint Blog that the future of the museum was uncertain since the couple that owned it wanted to retire.  Well, some issues on that front have been worked out - the City of Celle has bought the collection - that is the good news.  If it will remain in the building it is in now is not certain.  The bad news is that some items remain in dispute and are therefore under lock and key until the courts can decide what should happen.  Some of these disputed items include the inventory of the gift shop.... hence there was no stash enhancements to be had.  In addition Mr. Conneman ( the owner) passed away and was buried the day prior to my visit.  But lets start in the beginning.

Here I am eagerly approaching the building...


As you can see  - the windows are covered to protect the samplers from the sun.  Olivia came along, and as we entered we were greeted by a very nice man who had settled in for a quiet afternoon.  I was ready to pay my 3 Euro entrance fee plus my fee for the guided tour, but he said just to go ahead and look around while I waited for my tour guide.  I asked permission to take pics  and he smiled and said gave his permission... when I asked him if he prefer I not use my flash, he had a confused look on his face and after a moment shrugged his shoulders and said that was fine.  I was surprised that he even gave me permission to photograph the samplers.  We were the only people in the museum, and so I popped my head back into the reception and asked how busy they usually are, he smiled and said that hardly any people come to the museum.  What a shame.... 

In the first room the samplers displayed were from the Saxony area of Germany - I saw two samplers on the wall that just took my breath away...one was pictured in the most recent issue of SANQ. This is one of the oldest samplers in this collection dating from 1643. 



Here is a close-up of the lace followed by a close-up of the bottom stitching.





The portion of the sampler pictured below hangs next to this sampler - one side is all white work (not pictured), and the other is a band sampler - this one dates closer to 1630 and I am amazed at the colors.



Most of the samplers in the first room are long narrow band samplers, heavy on religious symbolism without any verses and just a smattering of alphabets.




This almost concludes the first room.  Now I am off to seven hours of baseball, softball and soccer... something I did not consider when I had 4 children.  At least it is sunny and beautiful out.  More later.

5 comments:

  1. Oh wow! Thanks for the great pictures! Since I'll never get there myself, this is the only way I'll see these pieces. Interesting info about the museum -- bummer that you couldn't shop. :( But boy, those samplers are spectacular! I love that first sampler with the lace parts and the beautiful color! Hope the hours of sports were fun. :D

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  2. What a gorgeous post. Thanks!! I loved getting to see the pics. It makes me want to stitch the SL SDW sampler. What a shame that the museum doesn't get many visitors--that's so sad. :(

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  3. Oh wow!!! Stunning!! I am so glad you were able to go. The pieces are wonderful (of course, I especially love the A&E). And how sad that they don't get many visitors. What a shame!

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  4. Positively swooning here, show towels are divine, thx for the posts celebrating this sadly overlooked museum, sounds like a hidden gem. After all, in the end, isn't this why we stitch~hoping that one day maybe a scrap of ours might end up being a treasure to another? As they say ~ wish I was there:)

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  5. Thank you for sharing these Samplers with us. I was born in Germany, but was not aware of this Museum. It is sad that the Museum doesn't get many visitors. When I'm visiting Germany, I did get the feeling that younger gals were not interested in handwork anymore. It seemed to be a "get it done today" society. I hope I'm mistaken and I just hung around the "wrong" people.

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