Winner of the 2008 R.L. Shep Ethnic Textiles Book Award given by the Textile Society of America.

This book centers around the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s preeminent collection of embroidered objects from England’s late Tudor and Stuart eras. These seventeenth-century embroideries, some eighty works in all, include samplers, gloves, headgear, purses, raised work panels, boxes and mirrors, portrait miniatures, lavishly embroidered Bibles, and a spectacular burse made to hold the Great Seal of England. In a series of essays the book explores the important role of embroidery in the history of textiles and decorative arts and also offers new insight into the role of women in the production of decorative arts. Expert scholars discuss embroidered furnishings, fashion accessories, biblical narratives, and pastoral imagery, to create a superb and comprehensive overview of embroidery during this tumultuous period in English history.

Melinda Watt is assistant curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Andrew Morrall is professor, Bard Graduate Center. He specializes in Early Modern Northern European fine and applied arts.

Table of Contents
Foreword
Susan Weber

Preface
Philippe de Montebello

Introduction
Andrew Morrall and Melinda Watt, Editors

Chronology of English Constitutional History, 1558-1702

Chapter 1
Collecting English Domestic Embroidery
Melinda Watt

Chapter 2
Embroidered Furnishings: Questions of Production and Usage
Kathlee Staples

Chapter 3
“An Instrument of profit, pleasure and of ornament”: Embroidered Tudor and Jacobean Dress Accessories
Susan North

Chapter 4
Embroidered Biblical Narratives and Their Social Context
Ruth Geuter

Chapter 5
Regaining Eden: Representation of Nature in Seventeenth-Century English Embroidery
Andrew Morrall

Chapter 6
Materials and Techniques of Secular Embroideries
Cristina Balloffet Carr

Catalogue of the Exhibition
The Royal Image
Embroidery and Education
Accessories of Dress
Interior Furnishings
Biblical Subjects
Nature and Pastoral Imagery

Stitch Glossary
Bibliography
Other Details
ISBN
9780300129670

Page count
308 pages, 280 illustrations

Publication date
2008

Format
Digital PDF