Single glove

Single glove, before 1750, Andalusia? UK-London, Natural History Museum, Department of Zoology, Invertebrates I (Mollusca) Label: Sloane specimen no. 4912 (MS Inventory 15).

Sea silk, plain right knit, 7 stitches/cm, b wrist 8 cm, end 11 cm, length 28 cm, fringes on end and wrist.

Label to the object: A women’s glove in stockinet (knitted). From the Sloane collection ?1778. Two rows of reversed stockinet with knitted fringe at the cuff, the same decorative work round the wrist. 6.5 stitches to 10mm. From Andalusia. Illustrated in J. and A. van Rymsdyk Museum Britannicum pXII fig 2. (SLOANE 4912) – Displayed during NHM Sloane Collections visit July 10th 2013.

This glove is reproduced in the book of J. & A. van Rymsdyk of 1778 Magnificent Cabinet, the British Museum. It includes ”several figures of Sloane shells; in particular a plate devoted to the Pinna, ‚Pinna marina‘ or Fan Mussel, with figures of the shell, and a pair of gloves woven from the fibres of its silky byssus, from Andalusia, presented to Sir Hans Sloane by the Duke of Richmond. One of these gloves is still extant and in good preservation». If these gloves really did come from Andalusia, it would be the only object from Spain known to date.

Label: “One of the most curious items among the invertebrate collections is a glove made from the byssal threads of a Pinna shell. This glove, one of a pair, was figured by J. & A. Van Rymsdyk in Museum Britannicum, 1778″.

Richard Rutt, an authority in the history of hand knitting, analysed this glove in 1992. He describes it as “a woman’s glove, one only, Sloane 4912. It is knitted in stockinet: Two rows of reversed stockinet with knitted fringe at the cuff, the same decorative work round the wrist. 6.5 stitches to 10 mm.”