Alert! This item is currently on display at the RISD Museum of Art in Providence, through August 18, 2013. I have been to see it twice now.

As much as I am itching to get this on a table and investigate it, I am limited to craning my neck and squatting in front of the case. Awesomeness in cotton, this banyan has a five-button mariner’s cuff with a double arc like a broken pediment on a chest-on-chest. It would be a crazy thing for a Continental private to come strolling out of a tent in, not to mention impossible to make before the next camping excursion, but holy cats! that’s one fine banyan.

The RISD Museum is free on Sundays. You, too, can entertain the guards by craning your neck–photography is not allowed. Next visit: sketchbook.

There are a lot of other wonderful things to see, too–silk jersey breeches I expect to see on a colleague at some point, an indigo silk frock coat, the greatest great coat ever, and Fred Astaire’s tails, as well as a small section that I think does everything PUNK wanted but failed to do.