Adding beads

Note: This post has been updated from its original form thanks to something Beth Chamberlain pointed out.

Among the bandeau and coronet style headdresses speckling museum collections is this black velvet bandeau with black beads from the MET’s collection. Well, numerous pins on Pinterest attribute it to the MET, yet link only to the search page with the connection to the items page broken. I’ve spent hours digging through the collection for it, searching headdress, cap,velvet, coronet, without success.After initially posting about this piece, Beth pointed out that what I thought was two different examples were indeed the same piece – The one attributed to the MET with a broken link was the same as the one from the 2014 Ebay listing when the piece was deaccessioned. I was skeptical at first, then finally convinced when she showed me this photo that allowed the back proportion to be seen clearly.

This bandeau has a very full bow with numerous loops made with inch to maybe and inch and a quarter ribbon. Clusters of round and seed beads alternate – one design has loops of seed beads that are sorta petal like, the other has narrower loops. The loops among the bow combine two size seed beads, the smaller of which may be silver, with tube beads. The foundation is a wire band covered and a black net or buckram like pad at the base of the bow loops.

My example uses inch and a half wide black satin black back velvet wrapped around a wire and batting base. I alternated antique black faceted glass beads with a row of antique black cut steel beads around the crown and in the bow’s loops. This piece used shy of 5 yards of 1 1/2″ satin back velvet ribbon by Hyman Hendler, a strand of antique black cut steel beads, a short strand of antique black glass beads, millinery wire and cotton batting. (I found my single order of beads was enough for only one piece rather than the three I had thought. This makes the beads a rather pricey component.)

I almost forgot: Yes, this is available in my Etsy shop.