The Tassenmuseum in Amstelveen
August 31, 2005 at 8:47 AM
by Ashleigh
(This article has already been published in Ellen Chester's With My Needle and Pen newsletter. For information on how to receive the newsletter, please visit Ellen's site.)
Oh my, what can I say! I was completely overwhelmed by the exhibits at the Tassenmuseum (The Bag Museum) here in Amstelveen, Holland. The museum is in a leafy street, which is actually just 2 kilometres away from me on the bicycle and Sunday was such a sunny and lovely day that I thought I'd take a ride there. I was so glad I did!
I was met by the curator of the museum and when I explained to her my interest in handworked bags she immediately said I would feel most at home on the 3rd floor which is where the exhibits begin. The third floor is home to the 16th century to 18th century exhibit, second floor is where you find 18th century items and items made from different materials like leather, lace, lace made from pineapple plant fibre(!), tortoiseshell, rattan, straw etc. On the ground floor is the modern exhibit of 20th and 21st century bags. The ground floor is also where the reception for the museum is, as well as their very extensive history on bags and associated items. They had some very interesting looking books on chatelaines, needlework tools and various others on fashion through history.
Now, the items themselves! I was most taken with the embroidered pieces from the 16th century. Its difficult to believe that these textiles were not only used by their owners but sufficient care was taken to allow them to survive until now - 400 years later! Some of the pieces are embroidered with gold, others are worked with a tambour. I enjoyed looking at the closures on the bags most of all as I often find it difficult to envisage a competent closure for the bags I make.
A sort of bag I hadn't seen before was the 'stocking bag' which was originally a sock with both ends closed and a hole in the middle for inserting coins. Over time it became more decorative and was made of lace, chain mail or beadwork. They were used mostly by men. These are really interesting to see and difficult to explain!
Sweetbags were explained at length and they were used both as containers for pot pourri or scented herbs, but also utilised as a container for a monetary tribute to be offered to a monarch or person of rank. The money could then be taken out and the purse used to hold the pot pourri.
Another type of bag was the gaming purse which is like a sweetbag, but made to stand upright on a table holding their contents and embroidered with the owners coat of arms so that there could be no mistake in who owned which bag at the gambling tables.
Some of the lace work bags are beautiful and also the beadwork is intensely beautiful and due to the beads being made of glass they haven't lost their colour at all over the years. There are pieces in the museum's collection that are beaded with beads the size of a grain of sand. It's impossible to tell that the work is beaded until you look very closely and can see the glint of the light reflecting from the beads. These pieces were worked either with human hair or with silk that had been dipped in wax to allow it some strength as it went through the bead. A beading needle would have been too thick. Other beaded bags were made using a knitted beading technique where the bags were knitted on 5 needles or more using thread and stringing the beads on as the item was shaped with the knitting needles.
Another category of exhibit was the souvenirs section which showed bags made as souvenirs for travellers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Wow! I wish we had souvenirs like that now. The prettiest one I saw was a bag made of chain mail with Limoges china tableaus at intervals around the circumference showing different scenes from around Paris. It was designed to sit upright on a table. Absolutely stunning!
The chatelaine and its attached bags were shown too as was the linen pocket, which I was interested to read is still part of the Dutch national costume! Bags also have a history as part of the bridal costume and some of the examples of hand worked lace and Irish crocheted lace were exquisite.
I was aghast to realise that some of the petit point pieces were stitched at a count of 400 stitches to the centimetre! Now, remember, an inch has 2.54 cm in it! My own work looks incredible clumsy in comparison. To think that these pieces were accomplished without electric light is quite startling!
The modern exhibits were interesting too, but my attention was taken up with the older pieces. I will definitely have to return to view some of the items more intensively.
You can see some of the photos I took here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos
The museum is at :
They currently have 500 pieces on exhibit and 2500 in their collection. Due to their location they can't display more of their pieces. The museum has a lovely garden where you can take tea and an extensive library. They also offer a book displaying 500 pieces from their collection. If anyone would like one sent to them please contact me and we can work it out. Its such an inspiring book that I would like to give others the opportunity to own it too! The photos I took at the museum in no way compare to the ones in the book which are extremely detailed and very close-up.