Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card: 'Elaborate blue cotton cloak. Richly embroidered and decorated with many sewn-on metal pieces. Lining of blue cotton floral design (?Liberty!!).'

Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Related Documents)
The V&A handwritten register, completed on entry notes 'Robe. Cloak of dark blue silk ornamented with silver gilt bosses and fastenings tagged with silver pendents'. The printed register described the cloak in more detail as 'Cloak of blue silk, (semicircular), bordered with a series of scallop forms cut out of red, blue and yellow silks, patched together. The patches are outlined with black and white cord stitched down. On the back are beaten and pierced silver gilt bosses with clusters of silver pendents. Abyssinian, 19th century, L. 4ft 2in. W. at lower hem 7ft 6.5 in.... See similar embroidery in No. 396-1869 [Z 19188].... The ornaments of the bosses consist of pairs of sphinxes and serpents, crocodiles and lions, vis-a-vis with trees between them, an ancient Assyrian and later Byzantine ornamental device to be found in decorative works in all sorts of materials'
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Amendments / updates)
Catalogue card: 'See 1944.25. [ceremonial cloak]'
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Other owners)
Previously owned by Queen Woyzaro Terunesh, the second wife of the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros (Theodore), and mother of the prince Alamayehu. Presumed to have by British troops during or afer the siege of Magdala (Mek'dala) in 1868.

Event Date 1868
Author: rachel hand

Context (Acquisition Details)
Given to the V&A 28 April 1869 by the Secretary of State for India. The handwritten V&A register, completed on entry notes the cloak as 'belonging formerly to the Queen of Abyssinia'. The printed V&A register confirms this and notes 'This cloak formerly belonged to the Queen of Abyssinia'.
Event Date 28/4/1868
Author: Rachel Hand

Description (Physical description)
The cloak is decorated with yellow, red and blue triangular cloths forming the edge of the robe. Many of the sewn-on pieces are awkwardly shaped. There are a lot of little metal bells dangling from the robe and it is torn in one place.
Event Date 19/9/2005
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Amendments / updates)
Information supplied by Nicola Stylianou, PhD student at the V&A and taken from the V&A archives, offers evidence that Z 19184-5, Z 18161 and Z 19188 were transferred from the Victoria and Albert Museum on 24/8/1934, with the Hawaiian cape 1934.1159, three Chinese textiles, a Russian silk, and a fringed woven vegetable fibre textile, with bands of geometrical patterns' from the South Seas, the latter items as yet unidentified.

Event Date 15/11/2010
Author: Rachel Hand

Context (Analysis)
Stylianou, Nicola Stella (2012) Producing and Collecting for Empire: African Textiles in the V&A 1852-2000. PhD thesis, University of the Arts London and the Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 234-6 noted:

'six pieces of clothing from Ethiopia that appear to go to the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge (now known as the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology). All six of these textiles came to the V&A as a result of the Battle of Magdala in 1868 and four of them had belonged to Queen Terunesh... /The only evidence that these textiles were, indeed, sent to the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a memo to the transit room dated 24 August 1934 asking them to ‘pack and despatch the objects in the attached list’.

The objects listed are the five Ethiopian textiles, three Chinese textiles, some Russian silk, something from the South Seas and a Hawai’ian cape. There are no records in the V&A archive relating to the transfer of these pieces so it unclear if the V&A approached the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology or vice versa... There were four Ethiopian pieces on the catalogue of uncertain provenance that, judging from the descriptions, seemed likely to be the ‘lost’ V&A items.

This was confirmed by a visit to Cambridge on 7 September 2010. A comparison between the V&A descriptions, which are fortunately quite detailed, of the objects and the textiles themselves confirmed beyond doubt that the four Ethiopian robes in the museum of Archaeology and Anthropology are the ones that were in the V&A. These are 395 and 396-1869 [MAA Z 19184 and MAA Z 19188] which are two silk cloaks donated to the V&A by the Secretary of State for India and that once belonged to /Queen Terunesh the wife of Emperor Tewodros of Ethiopia (see Chapter 2). The other two robes are similar 923-1873 (Z18161) and 211-1869 (Z 19185) which was sold to the V&A by a Colonel Stanton, the provenance of this robe is unquestionable as it has a small label on the hem identifying it as Stanton’s (Fig. 6.7).

Unfortunately it has not been possible to locate the final two Ethiopian objects ‘398-1869 Drawers, Silk Damask’ and ‘397-1869 Robe with sleeves’ in the MAA collection.
Event Date 2012
Author: rachel hand

Context (References)
Stylianou, Nicola Stella (2012) Producing and Collecting for Empire: African Textiles in the V&A 1852-2000. PhD thesis, University of the Arts London and the Victoria and Albert Museum. , p. 86-9
'two pieces of clothing that belonged to Queen Terunesh at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge... The second item of Queen Terunesh’s clothing in the MAA is also a dark blue silk kabba lined with a contrasting silk, this time a floral pattern. It is of similar construction to the Z 19184 and also has a scalloped border (Z 19184, previously V&A: 395-1869). It is 147 cm long from the tip of its hood to its base. However, Z 19184 is heavily decorated with pierced and beaten silver gilt bosses (Fig. 2.8). Something that appears to be a censer / hangs from the tip of the cloak, it is 6cm long and attached to a chain (Fig. 2.9). The chain has bugle shaped metal pieces hanging from it, which continue around the edge of the dress and would have fallen into the face if the hood of the kabba was up. These shapes are repeated in Queen Terunesh’s jewellery which remain in the V&A. The fastening across the neck is a large, metal buckle attached to the cloth with three arms and decorated with filigree (Fig. 2.10). The level of work on the cloak obviously denotes high status and its weight alone would suggest it was only suitable for ceremonial use.... / The bosses were described as follows on V&A labels dating from 1888. ‘The ornaments on the bosses consist of pairs of sphinxes, and serpents, crocodiles and lions, vis-à-vis with a tress between them, an ancient Assyrian and later Byzantine ornamental device to be found in decorative work in all sorts of materials (Central Inventory 395-1869).'
Event Date 2012
Author: rachel hand

Context (Amendments / updates)
Dorothea McEwan suggested that the material would have come via the Secretary of State for India as the following the seige of Mek'dala, the British troops would have returned via the port of Goa. From notes made during a visit of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society 17/5/2017
[The Secretary of State for India is likely to be George John Douglas Campbell, the Duke of Argyle, whose term of office was 9 December 1868 to 17 February 1874]
Event Date 23/5/2017
Author: Rachel Hand

Description (Physical description)
Queen Woyzaro Terunesh's cotton cloak, richly embroidered and decorated with heavy repousse metalwork, lined with a floral patterned fabric
Event Date 31/8/2022
Author: rachel hand

Description (Physical description)
Queen Woyzaro Terunesh's blue cotton cloak with hood, with a trim of applied yellow, red and blue fabric triangles. The front fastening consists of a large repoussé gold plate, with six gold clasps. Decorated with small metal ornaments along the front trim and across the hood, and four large metal plates with animal motifs. Large metal ornament on chain attached to the top of the hood; a triangular patch of yellow, red and blue is applied to the front two corners. Lined with blue floral fabric.
Event Date 16/9/2022
Author: Emily Shorter