The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Full conservation statement
  This knitted waistcoat is made of green silk yarn patterned with metallic yarn, worked mainly in stockinette stitch in five shaped pieces—the back, the left and right front, and the arms—with a center front opening. The hem and sleeve cuffs are worked in a checked/basket pattern made by alternating sections of purl and knit stitches (each section 10 stitches by 10 rows) and have scalloped shaped edges. The center fronts, sides, and back neck edges are worked in alternating rows of knit and purl stitches at 4 stitches wide. The five knit pieces of the waistcoat were worked flat individually and then seamed together with whip stitching using the same green silk yarn as throughout the garment. These features are common to other knitted waistcoats found in collections [1]. There are no extant closure mechanisms at the center front opening—buttons or ties for example—or evidence of their past use on the waistcoat. The waistcoat approximately measures 26 inches in length at the center back, with 18-inch sleeves from the top of the shoulder seam, and with a chest circumference of 30 inches.
  
  The green silk yarn is unplied with a 1 mm diameter. The metallic yarns, 0.5 mm in diameter, are metal strips wrapped with purposeful spacing around a core of unplied yellow silk, allowing that core to be visible. The overall gauge is approximately 15 stitches and rows per inch. The floral pattern is worked with the metallic yarns and is likely inspired by popular woven brocaded silks of the period [2]. The yarns, when not worked in the pattern, float across the back of the textile—now the interior of the waistcoat. These floats are not caught but run in long lengths.
  
  When worked by hand, many colorwork knitting techniques involve catching the unused yarns every few stitches at the back to avoid long floats which are vulnerable to being pulled and/or broken during dressing and undressing. Of other extant knitted waistcoats, some are lined, which would nullify this concern with long floats; it has been argued that the vast majority of these multicolored knit garments were likely lined for this reason [2]. Some scholars believed the long, uncaught floats of these knitted waistcoats pointed to their fabrication using a framework knitting machine [3]. The earliest knit machine was invented in 1589 by William Lee in England, called the stocking frame as it was initially used for the production of stockings [4]. Others argue the frame had not yet evolved enough to produce these knits [5]. Specifically, the stocking frame was not more widely used in Europe until the early to mid-1600s [4], with the 1730s as the earliest suggested occurrence of the frame modification for purl stitches [5], and similarly 1768 as the earliest known use with metallic yarns [2]. This waistcoat is unlined and in very good condition, with the yarn floats generally intact. It is unclear if this garment was intentionally unlined, maybe having been little worn and/or excellently maintained, or if a lining was intended but not realized.
  
  [1] Susan North and Jenny Tiramani, ed. Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns: Book One (London: V&A Publishing, 2011), 88–97.
  [2] Maj Ringgaard, "Silk Knitted Waistcoats: A 17th-century fashion item." In Fashionable Encounters: Perspectives and trends in textile and dress in the Early Modern Nordic World. Ed. by Tove Engelhardt Mathaissen, et al. (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2014), 73–104.
  [3] Richard Rutt, Hand Knitting (London: Interweave Press, 1987).
  [4] Pat Earnshaw, Lace Machines and Machine Lace (London: B. T. Batsford, 1986).
  [5] Avril Hart and Susan North, Historical Fashion in Detail – The 17th and 18th Centuries (London: V&A Publications, 1998).
• Citations
  Hart, Avril, Leonie Davis, Susan North, and Richard Davis. Historical Fashion in Detail: The 17th and 18th Centuries. London: V & A Publications, 1998. p. 182-85

  Pulliam, Deborah. "Knitted Silk and Silver: Those Mysterious Jackets". Silk roads, other roads : proceedings of the 8th biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, September 26-28, 2002.by Textile Society of America. Symposium (8th : 2002 : Northampton, Mass.)

  Musella Guida, Silvana. 2013. "La nascita della maglieria a Napoli in età moderna: " ... calzette di seta, lana ... capisciola, bambace, argento e oro filato, guanti, berrettini, calzoni, camiciole, et ogni altro fatto a maglia". Jacquard / a Cura Della Fondazione Arte Della Seta Lisio. 3-21. p. 8, fig. 7

  O’Neil, Margaret. “Knit in Gold: An Examination of a Seventeenth-Century Knitted Waistcoat.” Dress 49, no. 2 (2023). p. 137–48 doi.org
• Exhibition History
  Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian Houses. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 9, 2025-February 1, 2026).
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=Knitted Hunting Jacket|url=false|author=|year=1600s|access-date=16 May 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}