An English raised work and embroidered casket, third quarter of 17th century

Christie's, South Kensington, 23rd June 1987, lot 198.

Country Life Annual, 1963, p.47, pl. 5.

Of the various areas of textile production, it was embroidery that remained domestically produced, either as a pleasurable past time or as a means of income for some. It was a pursuit considered appropriate for the home, and was undertaken by women of all levels of society, including the daughters of professional families and aristocratic women, which had previously, famously included Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) and Bess of Hardwick (1527-1608).

There was a particularly distinctive and characteristic English interpretation of embroidered naturalistic and narrative panels, often made up into mirror frames and caskets, which form this quintessential group from the third quarter of the 17th century.

The techniques were learnt by completing samplers and graduated onto more elaborate pieces used for clothing and as decoration for luxury items. They were skills to be admired and the subject matters served as moralising lessons. Subjects being naturalistic, pastoral, allegorical and often biblical, and at this time of political and religious upheaval, loyalties were implied through the inclusion of particular figures. 

Many of the embroiderers were very young girls, aged only 11 or 12. It is rare for the name of the embroiderer to be known, and the earliest dated and attributed cabinet by Hannah Smith, 1556, is in the Whitworth Gallery, University of Manchester (Acc.No.T.8237.1). An embroidered casket in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (Acc.No.T432-1990) is recorded to have been embroidered by Martha Edlin (aged 11), in 1671, and was worked with panels including the lion and unicorn, the hart and the rarer motif of an elephant, and shows the stylised floral motifs.

For other notable public collections of English embroidered caskets and panels, see the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Lady Lever Art Gallery, the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Comparable Literature

Xanthe Brook, Lady Lever Art Gallery: Catalogue of Embroideries, 1992

Mary M Brooks, English Embroideries of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, in the Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, London, 2004, discussion on collectors, makers, sources and stitches.

Cora Ginsburg, A Book of Flowers, Fruits, Beasts, Birds and Flies, 17th century patterns for embroiderers, Curious Works Press, USA, 1995, for reproductions from Stenton's Third Booke of Flowers, Fruits, Beastes, Birds and Flies, drawn with additions by John Dunstall, 1661.

Alexander Globe, Peter Stent London Bookseller Circa 1642-1665, University of British Columbia Press, 1985.

Donald King & Santina Levey, The Victoria & Albert Museum Textile Collection, Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1750, V&A Publications, London, 1993, pp.26-27, pp.70-71, fig.69 (Ref.T.186-1960), and floral details figs.71&72.

Andrew Morrall and Melinda Watt, English Embroidery from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700, `Twixt Art and Nature’, Yale University Press, 2009, cat.no. 52. pp.208-212. 

Michael Snodin and John Styles, Design and the Decorative Arts, Tudor and Stuart Britain 1500-1714, Victoria and Albert Museum Publications, London, 2004, pg.138.pl.24

Lanto Synge, Art of Embroidery, History of Style and Technique, The Royal School of Needlework, London, 2001, Chapter Five, The Seventeenth Century, pp.110-159, Embroidered Pictures and Stumpwork, pp.131-143, discusses the technique, manufacture and subject matter of these panels, illustrating examples which were used on mirrors or made up into the caskets.

Christa, Thurman, Textiles in the Art Institute of Chicago, New York, 1982, pp.72-73.