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Textiles as household wealth in eighteenth-century Amsterdam

Титульна AI-згенерована ілюстрація / AI-generated cover illustration. Eighteenth-century Amsterdam household sorts and keeps garments and linens; conceptual historical reconstruction, not a specific documented household.

AI-generated supplementary illustration. Mended linen and wool garments on a wooden chest; conceptual still-life reconstruction.

AI-generated supplementary illustration. A clerk makes a household textile inventory in an eighteenth-century Amsterdam interior; reconstruction, no readable document text.

AI-generated supplementary illustration. A woman repairs a durable wool coat among carefully kept textiles; conceptual historical reconstruction.

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Титульна AI-згенерована ілюстрація / AI-generated cover illustration. Eighteenth-century Amsterdam household sorts and keeps garments and linens; conceptual historical reconstruction, not a specific documented household.

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More than 900 Amsterdam probate inventories from 1740–1782 show that textiles could make up a substantial share of the wealth of poorer and lower-middle households. Clothes and other textile goods were kept for years; some inventories even label items “old” or “very old.” This is evidence about particular households in one city, not proof that all Europeans owned only one change of clothes.