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I'm Phyllis Magidson.
I'm the Elizabeth Farran Tozer Curator
of Costumes and Textiles at Museum of the City of New York.
And we've looked at a few pieces in our collection
that are really typical of what one
would find in an historic costume collection.
But today, we have something completely different.
Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Jr, who was Eleanor Butler
Alexander-Roosevelt, made a vest for her friend, Alexander
Woollcott, who was a literary and theatrical critic
for The New Yorker magazine.
And she embroidered this vest that we're
looking at, which has, among other things on it,
heads of men who had met with untimely and grotesque deaths.
Many of the gruesome depictions are decapitated heads.
And they are being eaten by rats or brains being ladled
or little flies swarming about them.
But in the corner is a horizontal head,
which is a portrait of FDR with his brains being eaten by rats.
And she was, apparently, not a huge fan
of FDR and the New Deal.
Eleanor was a award-winning embroiderer.
She was not a dilettante in anything that she did.
And this Chinese split stitch that she utilizes
to really depict the heads and a couple of figures
was really of the very highest quality and a certainly
competitive quality.
There are initials on the front of the vest, Alexander
Woollcott, AW.
And then on the sides, she attributes the artwork
to her son Quentin, QR.
Eleanor was born into a socially prominent family.
And she married Theodore Roosevelt Jr,
the son of Theodore Roosevelt Sr, who was then
President of the United States.
And she's introduced, probably in the 1930s,
to Alexander Woollcott.
Woollcott was a very, very cutting wit.
And he gained a lot of weight in the time that Eleanor knew him.
And there was a moment where she decided
she was going to cut into him and really criticize his weight
gain.
And she emblazoned across the back of the vest,
"they are inclosed in their own fat.
With their mouth, they speak proudly."
And this was really a quote from a psalm.
And in a subsequent correspondence
we have in the collection between Eleanor and Woollcott,
he basically says, I have taken your hint
and have lost the weight.
I've had my tailors halve my suits.
But the notorious vest will probably be buried in some cave
by a museum.
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