Description (Labels & Markings)
Paper label adhered to object with printed text reads: '13BL'. This likely corresponds to field collection numbers used by W.W. Skeat.
Event Date
Author: rachel hand

Description (Physical description)
Small square embroidered cloth with floral designs in a central square, bordered with curvilinear floral designs. Edged in red cloth, green embroidered border and backed with cream cotton cloth.
Event Date 24/7/2020
Author: rachel hand

Context (Amendments / updates)
W.W. Skeat made two collections in Southeast Asia. The first was made while he was District Magistrate in Selangor, Malaysia in 1896-1897 and is known as the First Skeat Collection or Skeat I. The Second was made in 1899-1900 on the Cambridge Exploring Expedition to the Malay Provinces of Lower Siam and known as the Second Skeat Collection, or Skeat II. Most objects were not given accession numbers on acquisition by MAA, and given Z Numbers during reorganisation in the 1980s. Several objects presumed to be from the Skeat Collections, but which cannot be traced either to an existing Z number or to Skeat’s catalogues, have been given TEMP numbers. Some of these are definitely Skeat, and some are not. The work of matching objects to their Skeat catalogue numbers is ongoing and likely to remain incomplete.
Event Date 17/10/2024
Author: Nora J. Klages-Miller

Context (Found together / assemblage)
Thought to be part of the Skeat Collections not accessioned by 1988. This object was found in a box marked as being unaccessioned Skeat Malaysian textiles. According to a note by Fanny Veys and Jean Somerville, dated 24/11/2005, twenty-one textiles, now TEMP.01087.1-21, were noted as possibly belonging to the Skeat I series but could not be matched to any of the object descriptions during the Shorts Textile Project. The twenty-one similar textiles encompass a series of printed black numbers from 13 BA- BZ, but BC, BR, BS, BT, and BY were not located by Rachel Hand in 2020.
Event Date 17/10/2024
Author: rachel hand

Context (Amendments / updates)
The alphanumeric number found on this object is characteristic of a numbering system associated with the collections formed by Walter William Skeat. However, It is missing its Skeat catalogue number and cannot currently be match to an entry in the Skeat I or Skeat II catalogues. It was previously suggested by Jean Somerville in 2005 that it could be associated with Skeat I: 723-732, but this is not certain. The description given in the Catalogue of First Skeat Collection (1899) reads: 'Ten Gtdebong, i.e. embroidered cloths in which the betrothed wrap up presents of betel-leaf for each other: the leaf itself being wrapped in the smallest gtde- bong, which is then wrapped in the next biggest, and the latter again in the largest cloth which forms the outside wrapper of the parcel'. This is not descriptive enough to say for certain that the two are connected.
Event Date 17/10/2024
Author: Nora J. Klages-Miller

Description (Physical description)
Square embroidered cloth with many embroidered flowers in the centre. Border of thin strips of red fabric; embroidered floral design in blue, green, yellow, and red on a cream background; central square of embroidery with yellow and blue zigzag border; band of floral embroidery around this with zigzag border before red fabric. 12 coloured glass panels in the inner square. Backed with blue and white striped cloth.
Event Date 17/10/2024
Author: Nora J. Klages-Miller

Conservation (Freezing)
CON.2024.6089 | Freezing
Event Date 11/11/2024
Author: Kirsty Kernohan