Embroidery

English Embroidery

English embroidery fell off greatly in excellence during the Wars of the Roses. In the later somewhat degenerate raised embroidery, it was customary to represent the hair of angels by little tufted curls of auburn silk!


Many of the most important examples of ancient ecclesiastical embroidery are in South Kensington Museum. A pair of orphreys of the fifteenth century, of German work (probably made at Cologne), shows a little choir of angels playing on musical instruments. These figures are cut out and applied on crimson silk, in what was called "cut work." This differed entirely from what modern embroiderers mean by cut work, as has been explained.


The Dalmatic of Charlemagne is given by Louis Farcy to the twelfth century. He calls it the Dalmatic of Leo III. But Lady Alford claims for this work a greater antiquity. Certainly, as one studies its details, one is convinced that it is not quite a Gothic work, nor yet is it Byzantine, for the figures have all the grace of Greek work prior to the age of Byzantine stiffness. It is embroidered chiefly in gold, on a delicate bluish satin ground, and has not been transferred, although it has been carefully restored.

The central ornament on the front is a circular composition, and the arrangement of the figures both here and on the back suggests that Sir Edward Burne Jones must have made a study of this magnificent dalmatic, from which it would seem that much of his inspiration might have been drawn. The composition is singularly restful and rhythmical. The little black outlines to the white silk faces, and to the glowing figures, give this work a peculiarly decorative quality, not often seen in other embroideries of the period.

It is unique and one of the most valuable examples of its art in the world. It is now in the Treasury of the Vatican. When Charlemagne sang the Gospel at High Mass on the day of his Coronation, this was his vestment. It must have been a strangely gorgeous sight when Cola di Rienzi, according to Lord Lindsay, took this dalmatic, and placed it over his armour, and, with his crown and truncheon, ascended to the palace of the Popes!


A very curious Italian piece of the fourteenth century is an altar frontal, on which the subjects introduced are strange. It displays scenes from the life of St. Ubaldo, with some incidents also in that of St. Julian Hospitaler. St. Ubaldo is seen forgiving a mason who, having run a wall across his private grounds, had knocked the saint down for remonstrating.

Another scene shows the death bed of the saint, and the conversion of a possessed man at the foot of the bed, a lady is throwing her arms above her head in astonishment while the evil spirit flies from its victim into the air. Later, the saint is seen going to the grave in a cart drawn by oxen.


The peacock was symbolical both of knightly vigilance and of Christian watchfulness. An old Anglo-Norman, Osmont, writes, "The eye-speckled feathers should warn a man that never too often can he have his eyes wide open, and gaze inwardly upon his own heart." These dear people were so introspective and self-conscious, always looking for trouble,in their own motives, even,that no
doubt many good impulses perished unnoticed, while the originator was chasing mental phantoms of heresy and impurity.


Painting and jewelry were sometimes introduced in connection with embroideries. In the celebrated Cope of St. John Lateran, the faces and hands of the personages are rendered in painting, but this method was more generally adopted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when sincerity counted for less than effect, and when genuine religious fervour for giving one's time and best labour to the Lord's service no longer dominated the workers.

Gold thread was used extensively in English work, and spangles were added at quite an early period, as well as actual jewels set in floral designs. The finest work was accomplished in the Gothic period, before the Renaissance came with its aimless scrolls to detract from the dignity of churchly ornament.


In the sixteenth century the winged angels have often a degenerate similitude to tightly laced coryphees, who balance themselves upon their wheels as if they were performing a vaudeville turn. They are not as dignified as their archaic predecessors.


Very rich funeral palls were in vogue in the sixteenth century. A description of Prince Arthur's burial in 1502 relates how numerous palls were bestowed, apparently much as friends would send wreaths or important floral tributes to-day. "The Lord Powys went to the Queere Doore," writes Leland, "where two gentlemen ushers delivered him a riche pall of cloth of gould of tissue, which he offered to the corpse, where two Officers of the Armes received it, and laid it along the corpse.

The Lord Dudley in like manner offered a pall... the Lord Grey Ruthen offered another, and every each of the three Earls offered to the corpse three palls of the same cloth of gould... all the palls were layd crosse over the corpse."


The account of the obsequies of Henry VII. also contains mention of these funeral palls, the Earls and Dukes came in procession, from the Vestry, with "certain palls, which everie of them did bring solemnly between their hands and coming in order one before another as they were in degree, unto the said herse, they kissed their said palls... and laid them upon the King's corpse. At Ann of Cleves' burial the same thing was repeated, in 1557. Finally these rich shimmering hangings came to be known in England as "cloth of pall," whether they were used for funerals or coronations, for bridals or pageants.


The London City Guilds possessed magnificent palls, especially well known is that of the Fishmongers, with its kneeling angels swinging censers, this pall is frequently reproduced in works on embroidery. It is embroidered magnificently with angels, saints, and strange to say, mermaids. The peacock's wings of the angels make a most decorative feature in this famous piece of old embroidery. The Arms of the Company are also emblazoned.


French embroiderers are known by name in many instances, in 1299 allusion was made to "Clement le Brodeur," who furnished a cope for the Count of Artois, and in 1316 a magnificent set of hangings was made for the Queen, by one Gautier de Poulleigny. Nicolas Waquier was armourer and embroiderer to King John in 1352. Among Court workers in 1384 were Perrin Gale, and Henriet Gautier.

In the "Book of Rules" by Etienne Boileau, governing the "Embroiderers and embroideresses of the City of Paris," one of the chief laws was that no work should be permitted in the evening, "because the work of the night cannot be so good or so satisfactory as that accomplished in the day." When one remembers the facilities for evening lighting in the middle ages, one fully appreciates the truth of this statement.


Matthew Paris, in his Life of St. Alban, tells of an excellent embroideress, Christine, Prioress of Margate, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century. In the thirteenth century several names occur. Adam de Bazinge made, in 1241, by order of Henry III. of England, a cope for the Bishop of Hereford. Cunegonde, Abbess of Goss, in Styria, accomplished numerous important works in that period. Also, Henry III. employed Jean de Sumercote to make jewelled robes of state.


On a certain thirteenth century chasuble are the words Page 208 "Penne fit me" (Penne made me), pointing to the existence of a needleworker of that name. Among the names of the fourteenth century are those of Gautier de Bruceles, Renier de Treit, Gautier de Poulogne, and Jean de Laon, while Jean Harent of Calais is recorded as having worked, for Mme. d'Artois, in 1319, a robe decorated "a bestelettes et a testes." These names prove that the art had been taught in many cities and countries, Ogier de Gant, Jean de Savoie, Etienne le Hongre, and Roger de Varennes, all suggest a cosmopolitan and dispersed number of workers, who finally all appeared in Paris.


Rene d'Anjou had in his employ a worker in embroidery, named Pierre du Villant. This artist executed a set of needlework pieces for the Cathedral of Angers, of such important proportions that they were known collectively as "La Grande Broderie." In 1462, when they were put in place, a special mass was performed by way of a dedication.

The letter which accompanied this princely donation contained the following sentences, "We, Rene, by the Grace of God... give... to this church... the adornments for a chapell all composd of golden embroidery, comprising five pieces" (which are enumerated) "and an altar cloth illustrated with scenes from the Passion of Our Saviour.... Given in our castle in Angers, the fourth day of March, 1462. Rene."

EMBROIDERY, 15TH CENTURY, COLOGNE

In 1479 another altar frontal was presented. Two other rich chapels were endowed by Rene. One was known as La Chapelle Joyeuse, and the other as La Grande Chapelle des Trepasses. It is likely that the same embroiderer executed the pieces of all these.


A guild of embroiderers was in standing in Seville in 1433, where Ordinances were enforced to protect from fraud and otherwise to regulate this industry. The same laws were in existence in Toledo. One of the finest and largest pieces of embroidery in Spain is known as the Tent of Ferdinand and Isabella.

This was used in 1488, when certain English Ambassadors were entertained. The following is their description of its use. "After the tilting was over, the majesties returned to the palace, and took the Ambassadors with them, and entered a large room... and there they sat under a rich cloth of state of crimson velvet, richly embroidered, with the arms of Castile and Aragon."


A curious effect must have been produced by a piece of embroidery described in the inventory of Charles V., as "two little pillows with savage beasts having the heads of armed men, and garnished with pearls."


After the Reformation it became customary to use ecclesiastical ornaments for domestic purposes. Heylin, in his "History of the Reformation," makes mention of many "private men's parlours" which "were hung with altar cloths, and their tables and beds covered with copes instead of carpetts and coverlids."


Katherine of Aragon, while the wife of Henry VIII., consoled herself in her unsatisfactory life by needlework, it is related that she and her ladies "occupied themselves working with their own hands something wrought in needlework, costly and artificially, which she intended to the honour of God to bestow upon some churches."

Katherine of Aragon was such a devoted needlewoman, in fact, that on one occasion Burnet records that she stepped out to speak to two ambassadors, with a skein of silk about her neck, and explained that she had been embroidering with her ladies when they were announced. In an old sonnet she is thus commemorated,


"She to the eighth king Henry married was
And afterwards divorced, when virtuously,
Although a queen, yet she her days did pass
In working with the needle curiously."

Queen Elizabeth was also a clever embroiderer, she worked a book-cover for Katherine Parr, bearing the initials K. P., and it is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

Mary Queen of Scots was also said to be skilful with her needle, in fact it seems to have been the consolation of most queens in their restricted existence in those centuries. Dr. Rock considers that the "corporal" which Mary Queen of Scots had bound about her eyes at the time of her execution, was in reality a piece of her own needle-work, probably wrought upon fine linen.

Knight, in describing the scene in his "Picturesque History of England," says, "Then the maid Kennedy took a handkerchief edged with gold, in which the Eucharist had formerly been enclosed, and fastened it over her eyes," so accounts differ and traditions allow considerable scope for varied preferred interpretation.


It is stated that Catherine de Medicis was fond of needlework, passing her evenings embroidering in silk "which was as perfect as was possible," says Brantôme.


Anne of Brittany instructed three hundred of the children of the nobles at her court, in the use of the needle. These children produced several tapestries, which were presented by the queen to various churches.


The volatile Countess of Shrewsbury, the much married "Bess of Hardwick," was a good embroideress, who worked, probably, in company with the Queen of Scots when that unfortunate woman was under the guardianship of the Earl of Shrewsbury. One of these pieces is signed E. S., and dated 1590.


A form of intricate pattern embroidery in black silk on fine linen was executed in Spain in the sixteenth century, and was known as "black work." Viscount Falkland owns some important specimens of this curious work. It was introduced into England by Katherine of Aragon, and became very popular, being exceedingly suitable and serviceable for personal adornment. The black was often relieved by gold or silver thread.


The Petit Point, or single square stitch on canvas, became popular in England during the reign Elizabeth. It suggested Gobelins tapestry, on a small scale, when finished, although the method of execution is quite different, being needlework pure and simple.


In Elizabeth's time was incorporated the London Company of Broderers, which flourished until about the reign of Charles I., when there is a complaint registered that "trade was so much decayed and grown out of use, that a great part of the company, for want of employment, were much impoverished."


Raised embroidery, when it was padded with cotton, was called Stump Work. This was made extensively by the nuns of Little Gidding in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Decided changes and developments took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in all forms of embroidery, but these are not for us to consider at present. A study of historic samples alone is most tempting, but there is no space for the intrusion of any subject much later than the Renaissance.

Embroidery Interlacings Surface Stitches And Diapers

... E with darning or running, F, G, and H with varieties of herring-bone-stitch, J with Oriental-stitch, and K with feather-stitch. The interlacing on the surface of these is shown in darker silk. C and G undergo a second course of interlacing. The danger of splitting the first stitches in working the interlacing ... 

Embroidery Tools A Word To The Worker

... lay a piece of clean calico, and on that, face downwards, the embroidery, and, slightly stretching it, nail it down by the tape with tin-tacks rather close together. If now you lay upon it a damp cloth, the embroidery will absorb the moisture from it, and when that is removed, should dry as flat as it ... 

Embroidery Art In Needlework

... stitches are described in the text, and a marginal note shows at a glance where the description is given. This should be read needle and thread in hand or skipped. Samplers and other examples of needlework are uniformly on a scale large enough to show the stitch quite plainly. The examples of old work ... 

Embroidery Bed Hangings

... are almost as hall-marks to English work, the Cherubim over the wheel is especially characteristic, as is also the vase of lilies, and various heraldic devices which are less frequently found in the embroidered work of European peoples. The Syon Cope is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the mediaeval ... 

Embroidery Buttonhole Stitches

... need hardly describe Buttonhole Stitch. The simple form of it (A) is worked by (when you have brought your needle out) keeping the thread under your thumb to the right, whilst you put the needle in again at a higher point slightly to the right, and bring it out immediately below, close to where it came ... 

Embroidery Canvas Stitches

Embroidery Chain Stitches

... starting point of your work, hold the thread under your thumb, put the needle in again at the starting point slightly to the left, bring your needle out about one eighth of an inch below where it first went in but precisely on the same line, and you have the first link of your chain. To work what is known ... 

Embroidery Couching Stitches

...

Embroidery Crewel Stitches

... which goes to make art. Theirs is art of the rather artless sort which is just now so popular. Happily it was kept in the way it should go by a strict adherence to traditional pattern, which for the time being seems to have gone completely out of fashion. Quite in the traditional manner is Illustration ... 

Embroidery Darning Stitches

... seen, of different degrees of strength lighter for the surface of the pattern, heavier for the outline. You may qualify the colour of a stuff by lightly darning it with silk of another shade, and very subtle tints may be got by thus, as it were, veiling a coloured ground with silks of various hues. .. 

Embroidery Direction Of The Stitch Stitches

... appearance of satin, and it makes all the difference whether the stitches are long or short, close together or wide apart. More important than all is the direction of the stitch. By that alone you can recognise the artist in needlework. The DIRECTION of the stitch deserves consideration from two points ... 

Embroidery Embroidery Design

... seek is beauty, not novelty. Whoever planned the lines of the border in Illustration 91, or treated the leafage in Illustration 92, was not trying to be original, but determined to do his best. Artists and workers of individuality and character are themselves, without being so much as aware that originality ... 

Embroidery Embroidery In Relief Stitching Stitch

... over loose padding such as cotton wool.

Embroidery Embroidery Materials

... gold wire is known by the name of "plate," and various twisted threads by the name of "purl." CHENILLE. A not very promising substance to embroider with is chenille. It came into use in the latter half of the 17th century, and was still in fashion in the time of Marie Antoinette. The use of it is shown, ... 

Embroidery Feather And Oriental Stitches

... suppose four guiding lines to have been drawn as above numbered, 1, 2, 3, 4, from left to right. Bring your needle out at the top of line 1. Make a chain-stitch slanting downwards from line 1 to line 2. Put your needle into line 3 about .th of an inch lower down, and, slanting it upwards, bring it out ... 

Embroidery Figure Embroidery Stitches

... the needle. The flesh, of course, is the main difficulty. A Gothic practice, and not the least happy one, was to show the flesh in the naked linen of the ground, only just working the outlines of the features in black or brown. Another way was to work the face in split stitch, as already explained, and ... 

Embroidery Herring Bone Stitches

... this edge and put it in at the lower edge quarter of an inch from the beginning, bringing it out on the same edge one eighth of an inch from the beginning. Put the needle in again on the upper edge one eighth of an inch in front of the last stitch on that edge, and bring it out again, without splitting ... 

Embroidery Information

... given by Louis Farcy has almost an equal proportion of workers of both sexes. But the finest work was certainly accomplished by the conscientious dwellers in cloisters, and the nuns devoted their vast leisure in those days to this art. Fuller observes, "Nunneries were also good shee-schools, wherein the ... 

Embroidery Inlay Mosaic Cut Work Pattern Patternwork

... from the mere fact of the counterchanging you gather that it is inlaid, and not onlaid. Prior to inlaying in materials which are at all likely to fray, you first back them with paper, thin but tough, firmly pasted, then, having tacked the two together, and pinned them with drawing-pins on to a board, ... 

Embroidery Laid Work Stitches

... drawing, as in the case of the bird's wings in Illustration 48, the underlying floss must be laid in lines which they will cross. In the case of the leaves in the same piece of work, the floss is laid in the direction in which the leaf grows, and the stitching across, which sews it down, is slightly curved ... 

Embroidery One Stitch Or Many Stitches

... then, next the green, with a paler and brighter green. Another is a pattern chiefly in yellow upon purple, outlined first with yellow couched with gold, and next the ground with silver. In the case of couched cord or gold, the colour of the stitching counts also. Stitches from the edge of a leaf or what ... 

Embroidery Plea For Simplicity

... power-loom which they would do if they had the artistic instincts with which we credit them.

Embroidery Quilting Stitches Stitching

... corruption of the French word for back-stitch, or "quilting" stitch, as it was called. If you merely stitch two thicknesses of stuff together in a pattern, such as that on Illustration 69, the stuff between the stitches has a tendency to rise, the two layers of stuff do not lie close except where they ... 

Embroidery Rope And Knot Stitches

... the same stitch, worked wider apart.

Embroidery Satin Stitch And Its Offshoots

... very carefully done, the work is the same on both sides. Satin-stitch, however, need not be, and never was, confined to work upon silk or satin. In fact, it was not only worked upon fine linen, but often followed the lines of its mesh, stepping, to the tune of the stuff. This may be described as satin-stitch ... 

Embroidery Shading Stitches

... a skilled draughtsman to do it.

Embroidery Silver Gold

... making and spinning of gold and silver thread and stuffe." It seems as though there were some kind of work that corresponded to wire-drawing, earlier than its supposed introduction, for a petition was sent to King Henry VI. in 1423, by the "wise and worthy Communes of London, and the Wardens of Broderie ... 

Embroidery Stitch Groups Stitches

... many, more than are logically required. Some of them, too, describe not stitches, but ways of using a stitch. The term long-and-short, it has already been explained, has less to do with a particular stitch than its proportion, and the term plumage-stitch refers more to the direction of the stitch than ... 

Embroidery Textiles

... through Byzantine influence, in Italy, and Saracenic in Spain, they were adopted and modified by Europeans. In 1295 St. Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed birds." Sicilian silks, and many others of the contemporary textiles, display variations of the "tree of life" ... 

Mediaeval Embroideries

... material. At Constantinople, also, as early as 1204, Baldwin II. wore satin at his coronation. It was nearly always made in a fiery red in the early days. It is mentioned in a Welsh poem of the thirteenth century. Benjamin of Tudela, a traveller who wrote in 1161, mentions that the Jews were living in ...