Context (Related Documents)
The V&A's printed register notes '396-1869 Cloak, of dark blue silk (semicircular), bordered with a series of scallop forms cut out of yellow, red, and blue silks patched together. The patches are outlined with a black and white cord stitched down. Abyssinian. 19th century. L.5ft 1in., W. of lower hem 7ft 1.5 in The band to fasten the cloak around the neck is similar to the morse in medieval church vestments.'
Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card: 'Navy blue silk cloak with red silk lining. Hood with tassel and embroidery on front of cloak.'
Event Date
Author: maa

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

Context (Related Documents)
The Handwritten V&A register, completed on entry, noted it was given by the Secretary of State for India, and the date of receipt from stores as April 28th 1869. The V&A printed register adds 'This cloak formerly belonged to the Queen of Abyssinia'. This is a reference to Queen Woyzaro Terunesh, the second wife of the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros (Theodore), and mother of the prince Alamayehu. presumably acquired by British troops at the siege of Magdala (Mek'dala) in 1868 along with Z 19184.
Event Date 28/4/1869
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 (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. 86-7 notes that two 'pieces of clothing that belonged to Queen Terunesh at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge...
The first is a kabba (cloak) (MAA: Z 19188, previously V&A: 396-1869) 153 cm long and approximately 105cm wide at the base (Fig. 2.6). The kabba is made of dark blue silk lined with red silk. It would form a roughly semicircular shape laid out flat but has been folded in to create a pointed hood. There is a neck band 10 cm across creating a neck opening 23cm long. A 34 cm tassel is attached to the point of the hood. The kabba is decorated around the opening with an 8 cm band of scallop shapes cut out of yellow, red and blue silk and appliquéd on. There are 33 cm long triangles of similar decoration at the base of the robe.
Event Date 2012
Author: rachel hand

Conservation (Pest Debris Removed)
CON.2015.1612 | Pest Debris Removed
Event Date 17/6/2015
Author: cft31

Description (Physical description)
Blue hooded cloak with red inner lining. Red, blue, and yellow appliqué trim with laid blue and white thread. Piece of fabric across neck. Long multicoloured tassel from peak of hood.
Event Date 7/12/2016
Author: maa

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 22/5/2017
Author: Rachel Hand

Description (Physical description)
Kabba. Queen Woyzaro Terunesh's embroidered blue silk cloak. Blue hooded cloak with red silk inner lining. Around the edges is a red, blue, and yellow appliqué trim with embroidered blue and white thread. The neck fastening is of red silk with green trim and striped patterned blue fabric, and red an yellow braided threads. One long multicoloured tassel is attached from the peak of the hood. Seeds attached sporadically throughout.
Event Date 16/9/2022
Author: Annie Tomkins