In a collection that spans the globe, many of the Fine Arts Museums’ artworks enable connections to be drawn across cultures. Sometimes, cultural confluences can even be found within a single object. With its collarless neckline, long sleeves, and flared hem, this waistcoat is a refined example of European menswear from the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Made of natural linen, it is embroidered to shape with foliate and feather designs in brilliant yellow silk on a ground of vermicular quilting. Its vividly stitched embroideries, which evoke the abstract foliate motifs of contemporary Indian palampores and the curling flowers of Turkish brocades and embroideries, would have formed the main decorative interest when worn with a suit of plain fabric. By this time, stylish English men wore simple jackets and breeches of finely made cloth and linen, which would become the sartorial standard of Western men’s dress by mid-century.

For the purposes of economy, the unseen parts of the waistcoat— its upper sleeves and back—were undecorated. The use of yellow silk on a plain linen ground is evocative of Bengali colcha, or coverlets. These embroideries were made from indigenous yellow tussah silk, whose natural golden color was achieved by the silk-moth caterpillars’ consumption of tannin-rich plants. First imported into Portugal in the late sixteenth century, the textiles inspired furnishings and fashions throughout Europe as continental trade flourished. llc