This is one of the most popular Elizabethan embroidery designs; it appears in numerous variations on caps, bodices, skirts and cushions. The motifs were derived from pattern books, herbals, and samplers.

Punto in aria.  The design consists of a row of squares filled by sprays of seed vessels and leaves, set diagonally on one edge are points made of leaf-like forms and finished with a seed vessel.  The horizontal bars are bobbin made braid.  Made to be used with 95.916.  95.916 and 95.917 were valued together by the donor at 200 francs.  Only part of the lace is shown in the photograph.

Portraits from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are replete with minutely detailed representations of garments and accessories decorated with emblematic motifs. The gauntlets of these gloves are embroidered with motifs which also appear on other objects made in the late Elizabethan era—a disembodied eye raining pale blue and silver tears, a colorful pansy flower, and a bright green parrot with pearls on its wings. The weeping eye is related to a contemporary emblem book, Henry Peacham's Minerva Britanna, or A Garden of Heroical Devises of 1612, though this motif was known as a symbol of unrequited love well before the publication of Peacham's book.The pansy, watered by the tears of the weeping eye, was a popular flower in the Elizabethan era. It was known to be a favorite of the queen herself and the pansy continued to appear in embroidery well into the seventeenth century.Despite the present fragile and somewhat degraded condition of these gloves, they retain enough of their sumptuous embroidery to convey the luxury of the highest quality needlework of the late Tudor and early Stuart era.

Beginning in the twelfth century, the Tuscan town of Lucca and the Adriatic port of Venice dominated European silk weaving, which subsequently spread to Genoa, Florence, and Milan. Spanish silk weavers, long established in Granada and Valencia, were, by the 1500s, emulating their Italian counterparts. Raw silk, imported from the Near East or cultivated locally, was spun, dyed, spooled, and woven within family workshops under the patronage of wealthy, sometimes noble, silk manufacturers. This crimson silk damask was displayed in Arms, Armor, and Textiles: 1492–1776, on view at the George Bruce branch, New York Public Library (visible at far right in the photograph of 1934), and later in European Textiles and Costume Figures, at Walton High School (visible at far right in the photograph of February 16, 1939).[Elizabeth Cleland, 2020]

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.

Silk, cut, uncut, and voided velvet aganst plain weave foundation

This luxurious, unmatched glove features a complex design embroidered in silver, gilded silver, and colored silks. The wide, tabbed gauntlets—edged with metallic lace and sequins—depict a hatted man, accompanied by a small dog, kneeling and aiming his gun at a deer. Teeming with natural elements, the other tabs present a serpent shimmying up a stalk, crenelated buildings, cattails, and sea-monsters undulating from below. These natural and supernatural symbols were popular embellishments for housewares, costume, and accessories, as can be seen in a portrait of Ellen Maurice (2017.249), where she holds a glove richly embroidered with gold serpents. This arrangement of symbols may suggest protection from something uncertain. The serpent was understood as a sign of wisdom or prudence—and sea monsters could emblemize danger or the unknown. It is, however, difficult to determine the precise meaning of the scene; the embroidery could represent a personal device or a shared memory with a thoughtful gift-giver. -Sarah Bochicchio, 2020

1600~, United Kingdom

1600~, United Kingdom