After reading my post about surprising goldwork from Croatia, my friend Elisabeth has sent me information about traditional goldwork in her home district of Austria. I’ve copied and posted a few shots of girls wearing the goldwork caps, apparently for a festive celebration that included a procession. Click on the images for enlargements.
These photos are from
DIE GOLODHAÖUBE KOPFTUCH, HAUBE & HUT
MITTEILUNGEN FÜR OÖ. GOLDHAUBEN-, HUT & KOPFTUCHGRUPPEN
AUSGABE 02/08
You can see more examples of truly magnificent work here. This is the website she left in her comment. I’m asking Ernie, once fluent in German, to read and tell me as much about this work as he can. It is truly amazing.
wonder how much those little caps weigh?
Well, the smaller Girl’s Caps are not so heavy and rest better on your head than the Adult’s “Goldhauben”.
The modern materials used for Goldwork are very different from antique material dating from the 19th Century and earlier. In those days the paillettes (“Flitter”) were made of goldplated silverwire (wire is wound in circles, cut into rings and then flattened), but nowadays copper is used instead of silver. Silver can be made into much thinner foils than copper and so the modern material is unfortunately much heavier.
Antique “Goldhauben” (the Adult’s ones) weight around 300 to 400 gramms, if really heavyly embroidered, mine has around one kilogram.