The Jefferson University Textile and Costume Institute Collection
Essay by Emma Ruth Burns, BMC '21
The majority of the textiles in the exhibition ReconTEXTILEize: Byzantine Textiles from Late Antiquity to the Present are on loan to Bryn Mawr College from the Jefferson University Textile and Costume Institute. The Costume Institute houses a large collection of Early Byzantine Egyptian textile fragments, as well as a number of larger tunics and household furnishing textiles. The collection history of the textiles helps shed light on them as a unique resource for students studying fashion and textile design.
Herman Blum
The Byzantine textiles in the Costume and Textile Institute collection are thought to have been donated by Herman Blum (1885-1973), a self-made millionaire who owned and operated a textile company outside of Philadelphia called Craftex Mills. However, this provenance is not certain for a number of reasons. First, the archival records of Jefferson University are inconclusive. There is no record of a donation of Early Byzantine Egyptian textiles, and what evidence there is of a donor is found in individual textile accession files. Second, these accession files, when they do refer to a donor, refer not to Herman Blum but to “Herbert Blum,” with the exception of the file for acc. no. 1980.1.22 A, B, which records the donor as “Herman Blum.” However, Herman Blum was a Trustee of the Philadelphia Textile Institute and the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science in the 1950s and 1960s. Both institutions were predecessors of Jefferson University. Blum's descendants have also “verified that Herman had a Coptic textile collection,” and have indicated that it was likely that he donated this collection to the university. It is almost certain that the name was recorded incorrectly and that it was Herman Blum – not Herbert – who donated the textiles to the Costume Institute.
Further evidence in support of Blum’s donation is apparent in the archival timeline. The accession numbers on the fragments show that they were processed beginning in 1974 and ending in 1989. This could indicate that they reached the museum in installments over 14 years, but it is more likely that the Costume and Textile Institute staff was able to catalog them only slowly. The 1974 date is important because it indicates a terminus ante quem for when some of the textiles arrived at Jefferson University. Blum passed away in 1973, and a 1974 initial processing date could indicate that he had willed the collection to the institution upon his death.
Blum recorded that he had at least some of his larger textiles treated by professional conservators. Jade Papa, Curator of the Costume and Textile Institute, has noted that for the time period, Blum – or his hired conservator – often used methods that were remarkably nondestructive for the time. For example a large-scale tunic has a soft support laid between the back and front layers of fabric to keep the shoulder-area from creasing too sharply, which can cause degradation of the fabric. Other textile fragments, which have been sewn down to netting or fabric, may have come to Blum already ‘preserved,’ or he may have orchestrated these outdated methods of conservation.
Herman Blum never went to Egypt. He appears to have bought his textiles through a dealer on the East Coast. Handwritten notes found in the Costume Institute files indicate that he purchased some (if not all) of his textiles through the New York City-based dealers Dikran and Charles Kelekian. One such note was found in the accession file of 1980.1.25, which Jade Papas notes is similar in motif to a second textile, 1980.1.30, which is also thought to have been bought from the same dealer. This note in the file of 1980.1.25 records that the textile was purchased at a sale in October 1953. In 1953, Blum would have been 68 years old and wealthy enough to invest in the antiquities, manuscripts, and art that eventually comprised his collection, which was housed at his library in Northern Philadelphia. In fact, it is plausible that he had already been collecting for at least a decade or two by this point, and that he continued to collect until his death.
The Kelekian Family
Dikran Garabad Kelekian was an influential art and antiquities dealer at the turn of the century. Having opened his first gallery in Istanbul about 1892, he quickly moved into the international art business, opening multiple galleries in Paris, New York, London, and Cairo. His influence can be found in the collections of many major museums in the United States and Europe, in particular at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Kelekian is recorded as having been a conscientious dealer. He collected and sold items from around the world, respecting the cultures with which he interacted for the beauty of their art. The elder Kelekian died in 1951. Blum would have been purchasing from Dikran Garabad's son, Charles Dikran Kelekian, who took over the family business upon his father’s death.
The exact dates of the sales to Blum is unknown. It seems possible that some of the textiles were bought together. For example, items 1989.1.30.1 and 1978.26 feature the same pattern and could have been taken from the same tunic at the time of excavation. There is also a number of textiles featuring artificial-purple tapestry bands that are very similar stylistically. Items that were not similar stylistically could have been bought at the same sale as well. Ironically, without a proper paper trail it can be easier to determine whether two fragments are from the same tunic or workshop in the first century C.E. than whether they were sold together in 1920. The Kelekians could have sold a group of stylistically similar textiles from one excavation location all at once having acquired them at the same time, but they also worked with large quantities of textiles on a daily basis and could have simply not noticed that they had fragments from the same tunic coming through their galleries. The Kelekians could also have acquired one of the fragments after having sold the first to Blum and reached out to him, knowing that he had a similar piece in a sort of “complete-the-set” arrangement.
Approaches to the Jefferson Textiles
A popular practice around the turn of the century was to snip textiles and paste them into albums. Dikran Kelekian assembled a number of albums; his 1910 textile album was a massive volume incorporating over 1,000 swatches, of which 63 can be defined as Early Byzantine Egyptian in origin. The swatches were organized by color and pattern, and roughly by time period (although inconsistencies show that this was less of a consideration). These textile albums pertain to the Jefferson Collection because they show the way in which Kelekian appreciated textiles primarily for their aesthetic value. In creating these books, he hoped to produce sophisticated consumers who would understand the beauty of the pieces. This is, thus, the way that Kelekian sold Early Byzantine Egyptian textiles, and the objects would have presumably been presented to Herman Blum with an emphasis on their artistic qualities.
Herman Blum, it can be assumed, was interested in both the aesthetic and material qualities of the textiles. Craftex Mills was a jacquard mill which produced specialty rayon upholstery fabric. Jaquard looms are unique in their ability to depict complex patterns and designs. Craftex’s upholstery was “bright polychrome brocade,” which suggests that Blum may have been influenced by the colors of Early Byzantine Egyptian textiles. He would not have been the only one to be inspired by the bright colors, abstracted shapes, and heavy lines of Early Byzantine Egyptian textiles – artists such as Georges Rouault and Henri Matisse cited the Early Byzantine Egyptian textiles displayed at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris as stylistic inspiration for some of their work as well.
Because of his immersion in the textile industry, Blum inevitably would have seen the textiles’ weave, composition, and texture – their materiality – alongside their color and decoration. Blum was interested in how fabrics were made in his factory, and even wrote a book about jacquard looms titled The Loom Has A Brain. Blum could have studied the textiles’ weave structures and incorporated them into the products that Craftex created. One of the most interesting things about fabric is how it feels in your hands – and with his handling fabric every day it is inevitable that Blum noticed and considered the differences in texture between the jacquard from his own looms, the cotton of his shirts, and the wool textiles with which he had filled his collection. Particularly with upholstery, durability in the construction is a priority, and it is recorded that Craftex paid attention to minute details in construction, going in by hand after taking the fabric from the loom to look over the weave and fix inconsistencies.
A last thought for consideration of this collection is that Herman Blum and the Kelekian family both profited from the sale of textiles. Textiles for them, then, would have held a particular meaning connected to work and livelihood. While most modern viewers of the collection would not have Blum’s intimate connection with the process of making and collecting textiles, nor Kelekian’s connection with the acquisition and selling of textiles, this history has shaped the textiles that are a part of the collection and how the collection itself came to be.
Conclusion
The combination of the material and aesthetic makes this collection ideal for inclusion in the collections of the Costume and Textile Institute, where it is available for study by students in fashion and industrial textile design. The collection, having passed through the hands of art dealers, opportunistic archaeologists, and finally an industrially-minded fabric producer, has a unique history that blends the practical and the abstract, the physical and the artistic, much in the way the textiles themselves are emblems of the unity of the beautiful and useful.
Bibliography
“Coptic Textile Fragments in the Textile and Costume Collection.” Unpublished report. The Design Center: Jefferson University, n.d.
“Dikran Garabed Kelekian (1868-1951).” Dumbarton Oaks, n.d. https://www.doaks.org/ resources/bliss-tyler-correspondence/annotations/dikran-garabed-kelekian.
Papas, Jade, November 1, 2018.
Reif, Rita. “Charles Dikran Kelekian, 82, Major Dealer in Ancient Art.” New York Times. January 18, 1982.
Smith, Roberta. “How a Renowned Painter Found Inspiration in Cloth.” New York Times. June 24, 2005.
Thomas, Thelma K. “From Curiosities to Objects of Art: Modern Reception of Late Antique Egyptian Textiles as Reflected in Dikran Kelekian’s Textile Album of ca. 1910.” In Anathēmata Eortika: Studies in Honor of Thomas F. Mathews, edited by J.D. Alchermes, H.C. Evans, and T.K. Thomas, 300–312. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2009.
Weber, Carmen, Irving Kosmin, and Muriel Kirkpatrick. “Craftex Mills, Inc., 1923.” Workshop of the World, n.d. http://www.workshopoftheworld.com/kensington/craftex.html.
