Pinafore

The apron for women's costume, the so-called sieve costume, was made at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. It comes from the area of Biłgoraj and Tarnogród. The maker and owner are unknown, but the exhibit and other costume elements were a gift from Jan Brandt, a regionalist and collector. The acquired ethnographic exhibits were earlier presented in 1901 at the Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition in Lublin. After the exhibition ended, J. Brandt donated part of his collection to the Lublin Museum, giving rise to its ethnographic collection, and several peasant and burgher corsets to the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków in 1928.

The presented apron was made of cream-coloured silk, creased in the upper part and sewn into a narrow belt with straps. It did not wrap around the figure but reached to the hips and was shorter at the bottom than the skirt over which it was worn by about 15 cm. The lower part was decorated with embroidery made with coloured mouliné. The ornament consists of an elaborate floral motif in the form of wavy tendrils, leaves, bunches and various flowers. The dominant colour of the embroidery is green, beige, blue, pale blue, light blue, cherry, light pink, dark red, yellow, gold and cream. The stylised flowers, buds and leaves are embroidered with multicolour-shaded thread.

It is the only apron of this type preserved in our collection. The material, thread and embroidery testify to the uniqueness of this item of clothing, which is classified as bourgeois and, in this case, closely associated with a professional group, the so-called sieves. They created a different type of outfit modelled on the noble one sewn from expensive imported materials, thanks to which it stood out from the local folk clothes.