English Embroideries

English Embroideries by Mary M. Brooks

This handbook explores the Ashmolean Museum's collection of English seventeenth-century embroideries. These intriguing pieces, often made by affluent school girls, include pictorial panels and am elaborate box showing bible stories as well as costume accessories and fanciful items such as a frog shaped purse. The introductory essay explores how the miniature world of kings and queens, biblical and classical heroes, courtiers and shepherdesses, set in landscapes with lovingly depicted animals and flowers, connects with the turbulent events of the seventeenth century. Detailed photographs reveal the fine stitches and imaginative raised work embroidery techniques as well as the lavish use of metal threads and semi-precious stones. This book will appeal to all of those interested in the life of seventeenth-century women as well as to textile and embroidery specialists.

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