Description: A Callot Soeurs couture purple velvet evening cape, 1920s, with remains of narrow purple satin label, the capelet collar terminating in shirred scarf panels to the front, lined in chiffon Provenance: The Countess Gwendolyn Currie Tolstoi. From a prominent Detroit family, she married Count Cyril Tolstoi in 1929. The Count, a cousin of the celebrated author -Leo Tolstoi, had fled Russia after serving with Czarist forces during the Bolshevik revolution. The couple met in Paris where they lived for several years after their marriage. They moved to her family home of Grosse Pointe Farms, USA in 1933. She had been previously married to Detroit socialite Wesson Seyburn, whom she divorced in 1922.

Condition Report: Discolorations along the vertical fold lines (hard to photograph). It was later dyed purple, was probably originally a paler colour such as ivory as the label is dyed also.