100 years – 100 artefacts
The negative on glass was made by Romulus Vuia, in 1923, in Hunedoara county and it shows the image of a peasant family, dressed up in folk costume specific to Jiu Valley, sitting on a wooden bench. The boy has cut hair, covered with a dark felt hat, with brims hanging down and decorated with flowers. The boy’s long shirt with “barburi” (gussets inserted in the middle of the chest and back) is made of white cloth, it has very wide sleeves and it is worn over white trousers with vertical stripes. The shirt has a narrow collar, finished with cuffs, decorated with geometric motifs. The hemmed mouth is positioned centrally, going above the geometric motif on the chest, arranged in the shape of a cross. The boy is tight-belted over his shirt with a leather girdle (“belt”), an element that is also found in the man’s outfit. The man with the long, twisted mustache wears a dark fur hat with a special cut, wider at the top than at the bottom. The man’s shirt is made of cloth, woven with horizontal stripes (“striped cloth”), with very wide sleeves. Over the shirt, the man has a clogged breastplate, made of white fur, with lining leather applications on the neck, sleeves’ cut, on pockets and edge. The mouth of the breastplate is short, placed centrally, decorated with lining leather applications, finished with buttons and a floral decoration below the opening. On the lower part of the breastplate, there are applied two pockets, decorated with lining leather applications and fine stitches, placed symmetrically, having a special value due to the dating: “1869”, sewn on both pockets.
Women of different ages, with hair braided in strands worn on the right side (by girls) or combed with a parting on the middle (by women), have their heads covered with a black headscarf with printed flowers, tied at the back and with a “tindeu” / white, long huckaback (“propoadă”), made of home-woven cloth with horizontal stripes, having the exposed end decorated with floral-geometric motifs and lace at the corners.
The shirt worn by the woman, made of home-woven cloth, has wide sleeves that start from the narrow collar and end with a large welt (“fodor”), obtained with the help of the bracelet applied to the curls. The shirt decoration, consisting of geometric and floral-geometric motifs, presents fine stitching on the collar in the form of a ribbon, the bracelet under the collar sewn on curls, at the mouth of the shirt, over the shoulder (“umerița”), along the sleeve and on the edge of welts, which ends with industrial lace. The woman’s outfit is completed with a breastplate split at the front, made of white fur, with decoration made of lining leather applications, fine embroidery and buttons, and an unadorned double-sheet black skirt (“catrință”). The girl’s shirt is simpler, it has the decoration placed only on the narrow collar (geometric motifs), from which the wide sleeves start with large welts. Around her neck, the girl wears a beaded necklace woven in geometric motifs, a necklace made of coins and natural flowers which are also found on the short, dark-colored corsage (“laibăr”), embroidered with floral motifs. Over her lap, the girl wears a black skirt with a few decorations at the bottom.
The cliché, registered with title “Peasants”, with inventory no. 57, is made in the gelatin-silver bromide technique on glass support, with dimensions of 9 cm x 12 cm.
Photo: the MET archive
