Our twentieth advent calendar post is a small fragment of linen. Also today we show a quite unusual piece. It is a dark red linen fabric from Italy.
The fragment have got a small seam but we can’t say what it use to be. We know from sources that dyed linen did occur during the late medieval period in Italy. But it’s not the dye that we want you to focus on today.

We would like you to look at the seam. Check out the tiny back stitches. The scale above show millimeters. The stitches are less than 1 mm each.

They fragment is dated to late 15th early 16th century. 

Now part of the secret Italian collection.
/ Amica and Maria
Photo: Historical Textiles