An English raised work and embroidered jewel or work box, third quarter 17th century

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. Several included crowned figures of Kings and Queens, representing Charles I or Charles II and Henrietta Maria or Catherine of Braganza. Paradoxically these embroidered panels depicted biblical subjects, which at this time aroused controversy. The uncrowned figures identity on this piece could be interpreted accordingly by the owner. The dress was often contemporary Stewart fashion. 

There was a great demand for rich materials and elaborately ornamented pieces and also a fascination with the natural world. Pattern books emerged which had a great influence on design. An Italian, Federico Vinciolo published a pattern book, which due to popularity had to be constantly reprinted. European printers were all influenced by each other. In England illustrations in herbals were initially the source for inspiration, which later in the 17th century were supplied as patterns by the print sellers. Then the merchants marked the satin panels with the designs which could be purchased, worked by the embroiderer in the techniques and colours she desired, and could then be brought back to the merchant to be made up into the caskets which could be individualised to the requirements of the client with regard to the contents of the casket.

John Stent (born c.1615-1617) was an extremely influential English book and print seller, who had by 1662 accumulated the most extensive and diverse stock of engravings of any of his English competitors or predecessors. He published at least 218 different plates of natural history subjects which were used by artists, teachers and embroiderers and were available at different prices, as broadsheets or as books including a three part work, A Book of Flowers Beasts, Birds and Fruits, in three parts, 20 leaves in each l’art. Stent’s inventory included that of earlier engravers and printers, including Thomas Johnson’s work of 1530, and most importantly he was indebted to the four-part natural history work engraved by the German Jacob Hoefnagel, and designs by his father, printed in 1592. Stent also commissioned and used new designs by Wenceslaus Hollar, John Dunstall and John Payne and Johann Sibmacher all producers of pattern books. 

Many of the panels are variations of the well known pattern motifs and figural types. It is the overall design, the materials used and level of technical skill that distinguish them apart. In addition there are often different surviving internal elements, which can included elaborate mirrored and painted gardens. 

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, such as those used on the sides and reverse of the presently offered casket. Another public collection example, in the Art Institute of Chicago, has the initials I (which is often a J) P. and R.S on a back panel with entwined hearts, and a secret compartment containing a paper slip identifying the maker as Rebecca Stonier Plaisted (nee Stonier, who later married John Plaisted), is dated to 1668 in small seed pearls on the front. Both these cited tiered caskets, which include raised and detached work, are similarly highly skilled technical achievements.

In the Victoria and Albert Museum, there is a comparable casket which combines Biblical and allegorical subjects (Acc.No.78-1969). The raised wreath on the top is centred with the Biblical subject of Moses being found in the bulrushes, and the sides have personifications of the four elements. The museum holds an exceptional quality survivor, in the original protecting wooden case, which illustrates scenes from The Story of Tobias, the top showing Rebecca at the well (Acc.No.T.114:1-1999).

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.