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Calash

Date1780-1790 or 1830-1840

MediumHand-stitched silk and glazed cotton with loosely woven cottons, reed, wire, cording, and silk ribbon

DimensionsComponent (height x width x depth): 13 x 13 x 12in. (33 x 33 x 30.5cm)

Credit LineConnecticut Museum of Culture and History collection

DescriptionWoman's calash of a warm, golden brown silk lined in a pink glazed cotton. The front edge of the calash is trimmed with a strip of fabric 2 1/8 inches wide, corded along each edge, folded into box pleats, and attached down the center to the first reed, thus creating two one-inch-wide pleated ruffles. The structure of the calash is formed with alternating rows of taller and shorter curves of a single reed inserted into a casing. There are five shorter curves, approximately 24 inches in length and ten inches high. The pink glazed cotton was sewn separately and is attached to the silk along the bottom and some of the shorter reed casings. The back is made of two consecutively smaller ovals of reed with a gathered seam at the center back. The base of the calash is bound with a strip of the pink glazed cotton, under which is visible the wire and starched cotton fabric. A curtain, 2 1/2 inches wide, is stitched to the entire base of the calalsh, covering the binding. The bias-cut curtain is lined with a loosely woven fabric. Only one tie exists, on the proper right, made from a fragile pink or peach silk, 2 3/8 inches wide and approximately fifteen inches long. There is no other ribbon on the calash.

Object number1988.189.0

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