Summer mente of János Sobieski (caftan)

It has a straight cut, widening at the hip. It has a square-shoulder with a half-long sleeve widening to funnel-shaped. There is a square collar bending out. On the front it is closed with thirty openwork filigree silver-gilt buttons placed close to each other, and a brown silk hook. The once flesh- coloured silk cloth it now yellowish-brown. The pattern: sticks, cartouches and foliated branches with cones brocaded with gilt metal thread and palmettes alternating per lines among them. According to tradition it once belonged to John III Sobieski, King of Poland. According to the catalogue of the 1894 exhibition of costumes there had been a parchment sheet in it with the following description: "Haec vestis fuit Serenissimi et Potentissimi Joannis III. Polonarium regis, dum Turcam ab obsisioni Viennensi depelleret anno MDCLXXXIII" (Masner 1894. p. 10.). In the 1725 inventory of the Esterházy treasury in Fraknó there is a description of the dress: "King John III, who had fought at Vienna had a summer mente of flesh-colour with gilt flowers and buttons." (Inventarium Thesauri Fraknensis Anno 1725. Almarium Sub Nris. 79. et 80. Nro. 3- Inventory of the Museum of Applied Arts 236/1957).