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Kenneth Gambin (ed.), Peasant Costumes, Insights into Rural Life and Society, Heritage Malta, Malta, 2012, 112 pp.
The exhibition on peasant costumes organised by Heritage Malta in Gozo proved a great crowd-puller but, as is the nature of all temporary exhibitions, it had to close after its two-month stint. Fortunately, the excellent catalogue that was published to accompany it will survive and prove an invaluable source of information for future scholars and all those who could not visit the exhibition.
Still, the good news is that many of the items in the exhibition will be used for a permanent exhibition at the Folklore Museum in the Victoria citadel.
Written by six officials from Heritage Malta and edited by Kenneth Gambin, senior curator of the Ethnography department, Peasant Costumes, Insights into Rural Life and Society is a very pleasantly laid-out and richly-illustrated publication.
A very pleasantly laid-out and richly-illustrated publication
The book highlights a particular aspect of our cultural heritage that many tend to look down upon or ignore altogether, in preference for fine lace and expensive brocade. Since such clothes tended to be worn threadbare and were not considered worthy keeping, it is much harder to find genuine examples of peasant clothes.
Indeed, the national collection of costumes and textiles at the Inquisitor’s Palace in Vittoriosa is an important section within Heritage Malta which now holds over 1,000 items, and this exhibition provided an ideal showcase.
Cotton was the primary material used in making the clothes of peasants and country folk. Godwin Vella, senior curator of the Ethnography department of Heritage Malta, writes about cotton cultivation and wool harvesting in rural Gozo which, with a few areas in the largely uninhabited north of Malta, came to represent the epitome of rusticity in the islands, and as such, much sought after by artists searching to depict the ‘genuine’ Maltese native. He focuses in particular on the situation during the 19th century.
Under the Order of St John, the islands exported about 3,000,000 scudi worth of cotton every year, but commercial embargoes in the early years of British rule saw to a serious decline in production, alleviated only for a time in the early 1860s when the American Civil War reduced supply. A small revival apparently occurred in Gozo in the 1950s and 1960s. Vella also explains the technical aspects of the growing and cultivation of the cotton crop, as well as some folkloristic details.
He also looks at the raising of sheep for wool, which was the other material used by common people for their attire, especially in the winter months.
Textile conservator Claire Bonavia contributes an extensive and very informative paper on the manufacture of country-folk costumes, that goes through the whole range of the preparation of the wool and cotton and the manufacture of the various items of apparel.
This is a paper of great value from a cultural, historical, social, folkloristic, and even linguistic point of view, made even more relevant by the wealth of illustrations that accompany it.
Kenneth Cassar, curator for costumes and textiles, writes about costume representation and gives a very useful pictorial narrative of peasant attire. This is another richly illustrated paper which traces the development of the artistic depictions of peasant wear such as Houel. It includes such well-known local illustrators as Francesco Zimelli (c.1748-1803) with his charming set of 20 Raccolti di Costumi Maltesi, who found several imitators; Vincenzo Fenech (late 18th to19th century); Pietro Paolo Caruana (1793-1852), who introduced lithography to the island; Michele Bellanti; the Schranzes and the Brocktorffs, and Edward Caruana Dingli (1876-1950), with his iconic representations of peasant costumes that appeared in his The Life and Colour of Malta.
Nicoline Sagona, manager of Gozo’s museums and sites, writes about peasant costumes in local views in late 18th- and 19th-century Malta, which is a fine companion piece to Cassar’s contribution.
By examining the costumes represented in some well-known and some lesser-known views of the Maltese and Gozitan countryside, Sagona notes that such illustrations “are of relevance… not only because the production of the artwork helps to date the type of clothing coming down to us, but also because they provide insight into the rural world of a great part of the Maltese population of the time”.
The only snag is that in several cases the illustrations are a little too small to appreciate the full details, but there must have been understandable economic reasons behind such a decision.
Sandro Debono, the senior curator for arts and palaces, writes about the għonella, which is usually considered as Malta’s national costume and which is first visually recorded in the 16th-century.
It was in the British period, however, that the għonella was transformed into a sort of iconic image that represented an allegorical depiction of Malta itself in the early 20th century, reaching a sort of apotheosis in the drawings of Edward Caruana Dingli.
The last contribution is by Claire Bonavia and Jeannette Huij, conservator and restorer of textiles and costumes, who discuss the caring for historic textile artefacts. Textiles are so susceptible to deterioration that they are very often a conservator’s nightmare.
The authors write from their own experiences and give some basic advice about handling, storing, looking after and conserving textiles, especially as a significant number of people may have important artefacts at home that they may wish to keep for their enjoyment and that of their children in future.
Bonavia and Huij also help us look at such precious items displayed in museums with a new pair of eyes.
The book also contains an invaluable exhibition catalogue that illustrates all the items that were displayed at the exhibition, most of which will now make their way to the permanent exhibition.