No one can say when the thimble appeared. Thimble

who invented the thimble?

The first thimble appeared in China during the Han Dynasty, that is, more than two thousand years ago, when trade and cultural ties with states were established Central Asia and India. To this day, thimbles dating from the 11th to 15th centuries are found in these countries. On the territory of Russia thimbles eastern origin, dating from the 13th-14th centuries, are found in the Caucasus. They appeared in Europe relatively recently. In the 80s In the 17th century, a Dutch jeweler made the first thimble, wanting to give his friend an object for her birthday that would protect her hardworking hands from needle pricks. At the end of the 16th century, the Dutchman’s invention had already spread to England, at the beginning of the 18th century - to France and Germany, and later - to Russia.

In China, thimbles were made from mother-of-pearl and decorated with gold. In Indochina they were used as wedding rings, indicating on them the woman’s name and the date of her marriage. From those ancient times, when thimbles were precious decorations, there remain elegant, richly engraved and ornamented thimbles-masterpieces and legends associated with their origin. According to one of them, in ancient times there lived a very hardworking tailor who, from early morning until late evening, pored over his work and endlessly pierced his fingers with a needle. One evening he took a break from work and looked at his garden. Suddenly, among his favorite flowers, which resembled small red bells, he saw an amazing scene: several gnomes picked the bells and silently disappeared between the beds. In the morning, the tailor discovered that the flowers were standing in place untouched. The next night everything was repeated, but this time the tailor went after the gnomes. A mysterious path led to underground kingdom, and this is what he saw: tiny elves were sitting at a long table, cutting and sewing shirts, pants and cloaks for the gnomes. And on middle finger everyone was wearing red bells - flowers from the tailor's garden. It was then that he remembered his pricked fingers. He returned to his home and the next morning, as always, got to work. And when he turned his head to the window, he noticed on the windowsill a sparkling thimble made of pure silver that fit his finger perfectly. This was a reward from the dwarves for the flowers he grew and for his silence. With the thimble, the work went more quickly, and the wounded fingers soon healed.

The most ancient thimbles that have come down to us were made of gold. Later they were made from gilded silver or traditional bronze yellow color- perhaps to make the needle more noticeable, which was most often made of white metal. Of course, the most beautiful samples were made on behalf of the daughters of kings, kings and princes. These rare specimens were usually made of gold with mother-of-pearl decorations and precious stones. Factory production of thimbles began in the 20s XIX century at one of the factories metal products. In 1824, the owner of the factory invented a special device for making thimbles of “any kind.”

What were they like before, thimbles?
The earliest thimbles preserved in different countries Europe, have flat heads. Such thimbles existed in the 9th - 10th centuries; they date back to the period Byzantine Empire. And small, round thimbles were brought to Europe from Asia a little later.

In the middle of the 14th century, cast, forged and chased thimbles were made in Europe from bronze or copper. They are characterized by an acorn-shaped head. These samples are kept in the Museum of Archeology in Madrid, where you can see large collection thimbles made by Spanish craftsmen. Bronze thimbles were made in Turkey. In those samples that were discovered by archaeologists, you can see the dates of their manufacture - from the 10th to the 16th centuries.

Anyone interested in art knows the Renaissance period - from the 15th to XVI century, which in the history of Italian culture is marked by flourishing in all areas artistic crafts. At this time, the tailor became a respected person in society.

But not only tailoring required certain tools for work, but also needle lace, which was being revived at that time, that is, lace sewn with a needle. This type of needlework was especially developed in Venice. Thimbles were also made here, in the creation of which jewelers, artists, and bronze craftsmen took part. Thimbles were made in gold, silver, and from the 16th century they began to be made from brass (an alloy of copper and zinc). On thimbles made of precious metals, craftsmen put their name and date of manufacture. Thimbles were a necessary item in needlework, because at that time many people were engaged not only in sewing, but also in embroidery.

Everyone loved embroidery, and it decorated both men's and women's clothing. And not only women, but also men embroidered. An example could be this famous person, like Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), who had everything of his own free time dedicated to this activity. That’s why the thimble itself also became a work of art, since everyone needed it. It was decorated and admired.

At the same time, in England they began to take thimbles seriously. The Thread-needle factory was founded in Buckingham, where, among other things, various items Thimbles were also made for sewing. The British made them from brass, gold and silver, decorated them with small reliefs in the form of tiny circles and even applied religious texts. English thimbles were distinguished by their correct proportions and graceful shapes.

At the end of the 16th century, a new casting method appeared, and large thimble-making enterprises arose in Iceland. At the end of the 17th century, Christopher Pinchbeck created a new alloy, which consisted of five parts copper and one part zinc, which made it possible to create thimbles of different shapes and sizes. decorative design. Thimbles appear, which began to answer modern style, fashionable in a certain period.

Gold and silver thimbles

They became so interested in creating thimbles that their manufacture was no longer limited to metal or alloys. Thimbles were made from stone (rock crystal, amber), glass, leather, animal horn, tortoise shell, mother-of-pearl, porcelain, clay, wood, and even thick fabric. Of course, some of them were just objects that decorated the interior; they were called objets de virtue - cute little things, but they were a wonderful gift for woman. Among them were porcelain thimbles decorated with pictures depicting beautiful ladies with gallant gentlemen.

IN XVIII century these thimbles were especially popular. Silver filigree thimbles decorated with enamel were also in great demand at this time. In general, thimbles became more elegant and slender during this period, reminiscent of the grace and gallantry of the 18th century. IN late XVIII- V early XIX centuries, thimble toys have become very popular. Inside these thimbles were small vials of perfume.

In England there are entire monographs on thimbles with scientific articles. There are thimble museums in many countries: in the Netherlands, Germany, Scotland, and in Canada in Toronto there is a monument to him. This is how, remaining a constant assistant to all tailors and embroiderers, the thimble became a work of art.

In our 21st century, thimbles are decorated with other themes, for example, portraits of famous politicians or scenes of certain events of our day. There is a thimble in America decorated with a monument to Abraham Lincoln, and in England with a portrait of Lady Diana. Such thimbles become a collector's dream or are souvenirs that can be purchased after visiting a particular country in which it was created.

Such thimbles are decorated with scenes from ancient legends, folk legends or famous historical events events that occurred in the country. For example, in Spain there are thimbles with the image of a pilgrim monk, which explains to tourists the fact that in the city of Santiago de Compostello there is a shrine visited by pilgrims since the Middle Ages - the tomb of St. James, discovered in the 9th century. And there, in Spain, there are thimbles depicting bullfighting - a cruel and exciting spectacle.

What do you think they depicted on their thimble in France?... Yes, exactly a frog. There are also porcelain thimbles produced at the famous Limoges porcelain factory.

In Portugal, a cockerel is often depicted on souvenirs. After all, the rooster has become a symbol of justice for Portugal. A legend is told that one day a pilgrim from Galicia came to visit the holy places in Santiago de Compostello, and, while in a small town, was accused of a false denunciation. He was facing execution. Then, taking advantage of the opportunity, he decided to justify his innocence to the judge. But the judge did not believe him, and, at that moment, about to dine on a roast rooster, he said that it was as impossible to believe the pilgrim as it was impossible that this rooster would now come to life. And as you may have guessed, the roasted rooster came to life and even crowed. The pilgrim was saved. That is why the rooster became a symbol of justice.

Who knows, if people remember and retell this for so long, perhaps it’s not just a legend...

On Finnish thimbles made of fine porcelain they like to depict beautiful landscapes country and girls in national Finnish costumes. Greek thimbles are decorated with heroes of Hellas, Czech porcelain thimbles are decorated with roses, national ornaments and famous castles.

Nowadays, all countries love and produce porcelain thimble souvenirs. Great Britain is especially superior in terms of decorative diversity. In the theme of English thimbles there are fragments of paintings by great artists, hunting scenes, there are thimbles with unusual shapes- in the form of houses, books, etc. There is also a Thimble Collectors Club in England.

The thimble was and remains an important item of tailoring art, with the help of which masterpieces are created. But he himself became not only a work of art, but also a witness to many events that took place in different countries.

If you have an ordinary simple thimble that does not attract attention, you still feel the need for it, it remains a faithful assistant.

http://mylitta.ru/2013-thimble.html

« Thimble" is an ancient word. It appeared in the Russian language a long time ago, but it acquired its current meaning - “a cap put on a finger when sewing” - later.

The world owes the birth of the thimble, the way we are accustomed to seeing it from our tailors and embroiderers, to one Dutch young man.

In the 17th century, Nicolas Benchotin, a goldsmith, lived in Amsterdam. The sullen and miserly Van Ranselier lived next door with his daughter Anita. Nicolas Benchotin liked Anita. Anita sat all day long doing needlework. Her hands with a needle, as if by magic, embroidered fairy-tale castles and unprecedented overseas birds on silk. Anita’s needle was very thin, it stung painfully on the girl’s thin fingers.

The young man often saw this and thought about how to help his beloved. Brought to Anita's house one of the summer days 1648 gold cap with markings incised on it. Attached to it was a message drawn up in accordance with all the laws of that time: “To the respected Madame van Ranselier, I present as a gift a trinket of my invention and creation, so that it will serve to protect her wonderful and hard-working fingers.” And signature: Nicolas Benchotin. Anita's friends must have also wanted to have such caps. That's how it started.

At the end of the 17th century, a metal finger cap also appeared in Rus'. He took root here quickly. A very old name was transferred to it - thimble, which the Russians long before called lead tassels-rings, used in fist fights to weight the hand. Over time, these tassels disappeared, were forgotten, but the name remained, attached to a peaceful cap for protecting fingers when sewing and needlework.

Even if you don’t sew your own outfits or do embroidery, you still have a thimble. A faithful assistant, a thimble, protects our fingers from needle damage. Any woman knows the need for this little helper, because we have to sew not only thin, but also coarse materials, even sew a button on jeans, and even then we need to put on a thimble.

What were they like before, thimbles?
The earliest thimbles preserved in various European countries have flat heads. Such thimbles existed in the 9th - 10th centuries; they date back to the period of the Byzantine Empire. And small, round thimbles were brought to Europe from Asia a little later.

In the middle of the 14th century, cast, forged and chased thimbles were made in Europe from bronze or copper. They are characterized by an acorn-shaped head. These examples are kept in the Museum of Archeology in Madrid, where you can see a large collection of thimbles made by Spanish craftsmen. Bronze thimbles were made in Turkey. In those samples that were discovered by archaeologists, you can see the dates of their manufacture - from the 10th to the 16th centuries.

Anyone interested in art knows the Renaissance period - from the 15th to the 16th centuries, which in the cultural history of Italy is marked by a flourishing in all areas of artistic crafts. At this time, the tailor became a respected person in society.

Everyone loved embroidery, and it decorated both men's and women's clothing. And not only women, but also men embroidered. An example would be such a famous person as Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), who devoted all his free time to this activity. That’s why the thimble itself also became a work of art, since everyone needed it. It was decorated and admired.

At the same time, in England they began to take thimbles seriously. A Thread-needle factory was founded in Buckingham, where thimbles were made, among various sewing items. The British made them from brass, gold and silver, decorated them with small reliefs in the form of tiny circles and even applied religious texts. English thimbles were distinguished by their correct proportions and graceful shapes.

At the end of the 16th century, a new casting method appeared, and large thimble-making enterprises arose in Iceland. At the end of the 17th century, Christopher Pinchbeck created a new alloy, which consisted of five parts copper and one part zinc, which made it possible to create thimbles of different shapes and decorations. Thimbles appeared that began to correspond to the modern style that was fashionable in a certain period.

Gold and silver thimbles

They became so interested in creating thimbles that their manufacture was no longer limited to metal or alloys. Thimbles were made from stone (rock crystal, amber), glass, leather, animal horn, tortoise shell, mother-of-pearl, porcelain, clay, wood, and even thick fabric. Of course, some of them were just objects that decorated the interior; they were called objets de virtue - cute little things, but they were a wonderful gift for a woman. Among them were porcelain thimbles decorated with pictures depicting beautiful ladies with gallant gentlemen.

In the 18th century, these thimbles were especially popular. Silver filigree thimbles decorated with enamel were also in great demand at this time. In general, thimbles became more elegant and slender during this period, reminiscent of the grace and gallantry of the 18th century. At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries, thimble toys became very popular. Inside these thimbles were small vials of perfume.

Mother-of-pearl thimbles, which were created by French masters, were real works of art; they were made in a single copy, decorated with enamel inserts in the form of flowers or the name of the owner of the thimble. The creation of unique thimbles also led to their collecting. And in 1851, at an exhibition in London's Crystal Palace, an entire exposition was dedicated to thimbles.
In England, there are entire monographs with scientific articles about thimbles. There are thimble museums in many countries: in the Netherlands, Germany, Scotland, and in Canada in Toronto there is a monument to him. This is how, remaining a constant assistant to all tailors and embroiderers, the thimble became a work of art.

Such thimbles are decorated with scenes from ancient legends, folk tales or famous historical events that took place in the country. For example, in Spain there are thimbles with the image of a pilgrim monk, which explains to tourists the fact that in the city of Santiago de Compostello there is a shrine visited by pilgrims since the Middle Ages - the tomb of St. James, discovered in the 9th century. And there, in Spain, there are thimbles depicting bullfighting - a cruel and exciting spectacle.

What do you think they depicted on their thimble in France?... Yes, exactly a frog. There are also porcelain thimbles produced at the famous Limoges porcelain factory.

Who knows, if people remember and retell this for so long, perhaps it’s not just a legend...

On Finnish thimbles made of fine porcelain they like to depict beautiful landscapes of the country and girls in national Finnish costumes. Greek thimbles are decorated with heroes of Hellas, Czech porcelain thimbles are decorated with roses, national ornaments and famous castles.

Nowadays, all countries love and produce porcelain thimble souvenirs. Great Britain is especially superior in terms of decorative diversity. The theme of English thimbles includes fragments of paintings by great artists, hunting scenes, and there are thimbles with unusual shapes - in the form of houses, books, etc. There is also a Thimble Collectors Club in England.

If you have an ordinary simple thimble that does not attract attention, you still feel the need for it, it remains a faithful assistant.

IN glacial period our ancestors felt an urgent need for warm clothes. They needed animal skin, and not alone. At first, the skins were connected like this: the veins of the animals were inserted into holes made like an awl. But as clothing became thinner, the need for thinner tools arose. About 20 thousand years ago, a needle with an eye appeared. Some of the samples found are so small that horsehair was probably inserted into them for sewing.

According to the well-known gospel expression, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Some interpreters of this maxim argue that it was not the animal itself that was meant, but a rope made of camel hair. With this reading, the fate of the rich seems a little more hopeful... Other scientists are of the opinion that we are not talking about a real needle, but about the city gates of Jerusalem. At night they were locked, leaving open a narrow gate, just called the “Eye of the Needle.” Some late merchant could have squeezed into it - but without his caravan. Be that as it may, the metaphor itself proves the ubiquity of the needle in the poorest strata of society, for whom the New Testament was written.

Antiquity did not know for a long time that their role was also played by needles: such pointed copper clasps are already found in the earliest Egyptian burials. Their blunt end was usually decorated with some kind of pommel (hence the Russian “pin” - from the word “mace”, the name ancient weapon, which looked like a stick with a round knob). The tip of such a fastener could injure, and even in the 13th century BC. e. in the north of what is now Italy, a safety pin was invented, which we now stubbornly call the English pin (by the way, completely without any reason, because later, in 1849, a safety pin was patented by New Yorker Walter Hunt. This means that it is rather “American”). IN Ancient Rome This device, without which it would be unthinkable to wear a toga with all its complex folds, was called “brooches.” All of antiquity is filled with brooches; Persians, Romans, and barbarians pinned clothes with them - and only in the Middle Ages these pins were replaced by hairpins, and then buttons.

But let's get back to the needle. Already in Ancient Egypt with its help they not only sewed, but also embroidered. Over time, embroidery spread from East to West, but that, of course, is a completely different story. The first iron needles were found not in the Roman, but in the Celtic area, in Manching (now Bavaria), and they belong to III century BC e. But in general the needle has changed little over the centuries. A technological breakthrough occurred only in the middle of the 14th century, when the method of wire drawing was mechanized using a hydraulic motor. The production of needles was concentrated in Germany and Spain. From there, the needles, called “Spanish peaks,” were also exported. In England, which was to become the main supplier of needles from the 19th century, their production began only in 1556. In Russia, its own needle business was established by decree of Peter I in 1717 in the Ryazan district, in two villages - Stolptsy and Kolentsy.

The needle has many different guises. With the advent of the eye, the eye was moved to a sharp end, the needle for surgical purposes became bent... Back in the 1670s, the needle began to be used for injections, but the modern syringe appeared only in 1853. Now there are painless microneedles that do not affect nerve endings. You won’t find such a needle not only in a haystack, but even in a smooth place.

Throughout its history, the needle remained a purely pragmatic subject. She transferred all the decorative functions to her sister, the brooches. The fate of the object that usually accompanies a needle, the thimble, turned out differently. It was independently invented by the Romans and Chinese at the turn of the Common Era. IN different eras and in different countries it was made of bronze, stone, clay, wood, leather, horn, bone, porcelain. In the 15th century, cheap non-solid thimbles were invented in Nuremberg, the production of which remained a secret for two centuries.

The technical improvement to this simple item was to prevent the needle from jumping off and injuring the seamstress. For this purpose, firstly, the working surface of the thimble gradually became smooth from spherical, and secondly, it was covered with a network of small depressions (if they are applied irregularly, it means that the thimble was made before the mid-19th century, when this process was finally mechanized).

Protecting delicate ladies' fingers from pricks was a matter of honor for the men for whom all these ladies' embroidered scarves were intended. As a result, the thimble - of course, not every one - became almost jewelry. To make it, tortoiseshell, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, agate were used... Silver and gold, with enamel and blackening, thimbles often became collectibles. And of course, the exquisite thing was a wonderful gift.