Vintage Dresses...Antique Belts

We went to the wonderful Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin and I thought I'd share two beautiful dresses that I saw there-the one above from the 1920s has beautiful beading on the sheer overdress (a notch up from the simple black dress!) and the one below from the later 19th century has simply the most amazing beading and pearls and check out the ribbon rose! (We also saw wonderful Art Nouveau glass there (Tiffany and Lalique and others) but it didn't photograph well at all.)

We went to services Friday night at the Neue Synogogue (1859) and then back on Sunday to see the little museum but unfortunately they didn't allow photos-the front part of the building survived the war although it needed some repairs and so you can see the wonderful dome and inside the beautiful wall paintings. (The building was protected by the local police chief and wasn't touched on Kristalnacht (Nov. 9, 1938) when synagogues were burnt down by the Nazis all over Germany.)

We also went to the Jewish Museum, a wonderful history museum, which had some embroideries but I wanted to share these very interesting wedding belts. Now this is a tradition that I knew nothing about. Apparently in the Middle Ages, it was the custom for the bride to wear a beautiful jeweled belt...

and for the groom to wear a simpler one (still pretty fancy!) I found this fascinating...did they have to buy these belts? That is a much bigger outlay than a pair of wedding rings!, did the community provide them-sort of lend them out-or did the couples rent them like Israeli brides rent their wedding dresses?

(Israeli wedding dress rental is something I just don't get-you can pay as much as $2000 to rent a wedding gown with fittings and everything so the dress fits perfectly but then after the wedding, you return the dress to the shop! Now, what does the shop do with that dress??? wait for someone with the exact same shape or smaller (shorter... thinner...) so they can alter the dress down to size? Totally incomprehensible to me!)

We're off to Bad Homburg (near Frankfurt) and then home!

The Neues Museum and Nefertiti

The Neues Museum in Berlin just reopened on Oct. 16, 2009. It was originally built in the mid 19th century and the building was heavily destroyed during WWII (the art work had been moved). There was alot of controversy as to how to restore it...I've written about all of the "reproduction" buildings I've seen in Germany-the original idea was to do that with the Neues Museum, completely restore it but in 1997 the English architect,David Chipperfield took over the project and changed it wonderfully.

He left the building as it was...with the bare brick walls (reconstructing the walls where needed) and added the original painted plaster fragments whenever they were available (having been found in the rubble). He added new stairs, etc where needed and created a wonderful mix of old and new. When I first entered the Museum I wasn't quite sure what I was seeing, but once I got it...I loved it!

The Museum is wonderful but the best is that I actually saw-in person- Nefertiti! She is more beautiful than I imagined and like the Mona Lisa, photos just don't do her justice...but here are mine.

Isn't her smile wonderful! Her skin seems almost luminencent when seen in person...and here's a view you never get in books:

We'll be out of internet contact for the next few days...have fun everyone!

The Berlin Wall-20th Anniversary of the Fall

We got to Berlin just in time for the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Here you can see how the line of the Wall has been marked in the pavement...

and here it continues onto the sidewalk with one of the pieces of the Wall. This is at Alexanderplatz where there was a "History Walk" set up as part of the festivities to celebrate the anniversary-the sigh says Democracy and Human Rights. DH and I spent about 2 hours walking along and reading everything that led up to the Fall on November 9, 1989. I, of course, remember it from the news but it was quite different to be standing right where the Wall had been.

We went to the nearby Mall to warm up! :) (What a difference 20 years makes!) I thought it was a lovely mall...DH thinks they all look the same!

We didn't go out for the big party at Brandenburger Gate (we watched it on TV :) as it was very rainy and miserable last night! How old are we!

We’ve arrived in Hannover…and I love it! Everyone down south was saying how it is a boring city but to me, it is a lovely small city, very easy to get around in. We’re staying in a small hotel near the Leibniz Library and I can easily walk to several museums while Dan is busy at the archives. The picture above is the old City Hall...isn't it just a classic! Does your City Hall (new or old) look like that?! :)

There is a beautiful park right in the center of town, the weather has been wonderful and we've had a great time just walking through the park.

Yep, that's me resting on a bench with the City Hall reflected in the lake!

My favorite tree-a weeping willow! There was one growing on the lake near our house when I was growing up.

The lecture went very well…played to a full house :)…and afterwards we went to a lovely dinner.

Wine, Wonder and Wurzberg

We broke our train trip from Munich to Hannover with a three hour stop in Wurzberg- for a luncheon meeting with one of Dan’s collegues and a quickie tour of the town! After a lovely lunch in a local restaurant ( I had a regional specialty-a soup called Leberknoedelsuppe) we made a mad dash through town to one of the special vinters of the local Franconian wine. The wine comes in a distinctive blue bottle and it is said that wine has been produced in this area for over 1000 years. (We’re taking the wine to friends in Hannover. ) You can see the vines have been cut back for winter.

We stopped off to view the famous staircase…isn’t it mystically dreamy!

And the fall colors! I am so enjoying being here to see the leaves change…its been years and I will probably continue to bore you all with photos of the leaf colors across Germany! :)

More embroidered beauties from Munich

I wanted to share some more of the wonderful things I saw in Munich (Picasa is very bossy and would only let me upload 4 pictures! in my last post.)

This is a corner of the Courtly Love embroidery showing a kneeling woman. The embroidery was done in silk and gold threads…I’m not sure what the red background was-it may have been paint!

IThis is from a different embroidery-isn’t it a wonderful face!

Does this make you think of an applique quilt?...its a wood inlay table!

All in all, we’re having a wonderful visit so far-days visiting museums and evenings talking and eating with friends! And enjoying the beautiful fall foliage!

Report from Germany: Frankfurt, Munich and an antique embroidery

You know how I and many other quilters like to make reproduction quilts…well in Germany, they have reproduction buildings!

On this major-square in Frankfurt, these half timbered buildings have been rebuilt to replace the buildings destroyed in WWII-using pre-war photos to exactly reproduce the buildings.

In Munich, we went to the Residence-also a reproduction building!The Residence was the palace home of the Dukes of Bavaria. They were later called the Electors and then the Kings of Bavaria. They were called the Electors as they were part of the select 7 who elected the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.Did you know that the Holy Romany Empire continued until the 18^th century? I didn’t-I thought it ended with the Fall of Constantinople in the 15^th century-apparently not. Only the Eastern Holy Roman Empire ended then the Western continued until Napolean. (I’m learning quite a lot of history on this trip…I really only know American and British history!)

This is a photo of the building from one of the interior courtyards-it is trompe l’oeil–click on the photo and you will see that all of the shadows recreating the look of a stone exterior are painted on a simple stucco exterior.

The Residence is chock full of wonderful reproduction rooms…rooms with Rococo wall and ceiling plasterwork, rooms with painted wooden ceilings and rooms with brocaded walls…I think I am more impressed that this is reproduction work being done today than if these were 17-18^th century rooms! What a wonderful job! Unfortunately, no flash was allowed and none of my photos came out.

The Residence also has a wonderful Treasury full of the crowns and jewels of the Bavarian Dukes/Electors/Kings. From the 13^th century, there is a wonderful crown and a jeweled necklace, both with semi-precious stones the size of eggs!

We also went to the Bavarian National Museum-this building is partially original and partially reconstructed-and used to house the King’s wonderful collections-sort of an overflow repository for the treasures he just didn’t have room for in the Residence! There’s a whole silver state dinner service including plates, servers and silverware…made me feel better-it, like my silver, needs polishing!, a wonderful display of Meissen porcelain figurines-showing both painted and white (pre over painting) examples of the same figurines!, and down in the basement wonderful rooms filled with painted Bavarian furniture (a complete bedroom set for one) and local redware pottery that looks so like the painted furniture and Redware from Pennsylvania!

Some wonderful embroidery pieces-this is one of two couples that are the center design of this “courtly love” 14-15^th century Bavarian embroidery.

It was very dark in this room and I, of course, didn’t use a flash-wow! the wonders of digital manipulation!)