A Royal Mystery: A Multianalytical Approach for Dyestuff Identification in Seventeenth Century Waistcoats

Abstract

Early modern materials are not well represented in dye and mordant analyses despite extensive documentary evidence suggesting the enormous demand for coloured fabrics, even among those below the elite. Non-wovens likewise receive less attention than woven textiles despite their ubiquity in the early modern historical record. Knitted garments, in particular, have rarely been subjected to dye analysis. One garment is noteworthy for its colourfulness, despite not being visible in formal wear. Men throughout society wore knitted undergarments known as waistcoats from the late sixteenth century. The waistcoats under investigation here are from the collections at the London Museum and the Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust, Scotland. They are made of silk and are now a pale blue-green colour. Small samples were taken from each and subjected to a series of analytical techniques: micro-Raman spectroscopy, UV-Vis microspectrofluorimetry, and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with a mass spectrometer. Using this protocol, it was possible to characterise the dyes in the waistcoats by ensuring that maximum information was gleaned from a sample before it was exhausted.