Export Of Striking 18TH Century Waistcoat

Culture Minister, David Lammy, has placed a temporary export bar on an eighteenth-century embroidered banyan and waistcoat. This will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the banyan and waistcoat in the United Kingdom.

The Minister's ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, run by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The Committee recommended that the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the waistcoat and banyan are of outstanding aesthetic importance and of outstanding significance for the study of dress history. This unusual and striking matching man's gown and waistcoat represents an exceptionally rare survival.

The ensemble has been constructed from an earlier late seventeenth century Indian hanging or bedcover, which had been exotically embroidered in a bold 'tree of life' type design. The cream cotton grounds are very richly embroidered in chain stitch with scarlet, blue and purple exotic fruit and flowers, which are attached to rather spiky greeny-blue leaves, all edged and joined with scrolling stems in lustrous tamboured metal thread.

The decision on the export licence application for waistcoat and banyan will be deferred for a period ending on 24 February 2007 inclusive. This period may be extended until 24 May 2007 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the waistcoat and banyan at the recommended price of £21,525 (including VAT) is expressed. -- www.mla.gov.uk