1600~, Italy

1600~, Italy

Identifier
20.186.366
Transfer of custody
Victoria and Albert Museum
Acquisition
Rogers Fund, 1920
Collection
Material
Technique
Depiction
Production time
Production place

Description

This sampler features both colored silk embroidery and white cutwork, in addition to a bobbin lace edging (probably a later addition). Unfinished acorn and oak leaf, flower pot, and geometric motifs are stitched in a light brown thread on the top half of the sampler, while cutwork and drawnwork geometric patterns are present on the work’s bottom half and top left corner. Cutwork, from which needle lace developed, is a technique in which portions of the ground fabric are cut away and reinforced with embroidery stitches and filled in with needle lace. While many surviving English samplers include lace, cutwork, and drawnwork, very few examples of seventeenth-century lace have been attributed to English manufacture.