A French box chair dated to 1515, combining comfort and utility! Walnut with oak.
The coat of arms is suspected to have been added long after the manufacture of the chair (maybe to help make it look even more antiquey).
Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum
"this accounts for the extraordinary importance of cushions in Elizabethan houses. Cushions made the hard un-upholstered furniture more comfortable; the rich materials and embroideries used as cushion covers were in keeping with the splendid costumes worn by Elizabethans and they also added a generous note to the interior of the rooms." (Diby 1963:108)
An oak stool of British origin dating between 1600-1625. It's only 57 cm tall -- look how cute it is!
Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
In his travels to Windsor Castle in 1598, Paul Hentzner commented on "'a cushion most curiously wrought by Queen Elizabeth's own hands'", and cushions were another item commonly among the New Years gifts the Queen was customarily granted (Digby 1963:108). They were typically produced in two varieties, long and square, with long being the more common owing to the typical loom width of 20" or 22" (Digby 1963).
Despite the fact that the Royal Arms have been worked on this British cushion, little is known about it. It is dated between 1603-1625, but the identity of Mary Hulton remains a mystery.
Linen canvas embroidered in silk, wool, and gilt thread, primarily in tent stitch and long-armed cross stitch, with some plaited work.
Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Cushions, which were often produced both domestically and professionally, have been preserved in large numbers at Hardwick Hall (Digby 1963). Household inventories drawn up in the year of 1601 even allow for the historical reconstruction of the placement of these pillows in the household (Digby 1963). They appear to come in a seemingly endless variety including the narrative and mythological scenes, such as the cushion (one of a complementary pair described in the inventory) featuring the kidnap of Europa by the bull Zeus which was kept in what was officially known as the Best Bed-chamber (Diby 1963). But they also appear to be a popular site for armorial ornamentation.
British cushion dating to 1540 showing the arms of John Warneford impaling those of his wife Susanna, daughter of John Yates. Digby identifies this as a professionally made cushion based on its skillful execution and replication of "the type of verdure tapestry with enormous fronds and leaves,with frogs and insects peering from amongst them, which was so popular on the walls of the mid-sixteenth century houses of England" (1963:109).
Linen canvas embroidered with silk in tent stitch.
Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
These scenes of Europa are almost certain to have been executed by Elizabeth Shewsbury (aka Bess of Hardwick), given that they bear her initials. Mary Queen of Scots also produced cushions retained at Hardwick, two square cushions to be precise, but they are not accounted for in the Hardwick inventory (Digby 1963), likely indicating that these were understood to be the personal belongings of she who worked them. One of the cushions prominently reflects Mary's mixed allegiances and her claim to many thrones, showing a rose, a lily, and a thistle, the emblems of England, France, and Scotland respectively (Digby 1963).These flowers are fitted within a framing device consisting of interlocking lozenges, while the four corners of the cushion and its centre feature emblems enclosed in roundels (Digby 1963). Chief among these, at the cushion's heart, is Mary's cipher, while the peripheral emblems were taken from Gabriel Faerno's emblem book Fables (1563) (Digby 1963, Swain 1986).
Cushion worked by Mary Queen of Scots.
Yellow silk ground with silk and gilt thread worked in tent stitch and plaited braid stitch.
Image courtesy of Digby 1963:114-115.
Image courtesy of Digby 1963:114-115.
Digby points out the social and intellectual function of these compositional choices, given that the devices seen on these cushions "would have served as an intellectual puzzle on which courtiers could have exercised their wit and learning" (Digby 1963:115). While the busyness of this work may detract from its overall aesthetic refinement, according to Digby, "Mary's cushions are expertly done with the finest materials, but her wish to exercise her wit and her learning and her personal use of her royal badges triumph over the purity of the design, although they give an element of interest and individuality that is entirely right for a noble-born needlewoman, who is a queen" (Digby 1963:116).This cushion is also an encouraging find because it demonstrates an instance in which silks were embroidered directly for the production of cushions; although the majority of the surviving cushions from this era appear to be made of canvas or canvas applique on a different ground, this was not universally the case. Perhaps canvas and canvas applique is simply overrepresented in the historical record because of its durability.
My arm chair, replete with long cushion ripe for refurbishment
(I am not overmuch fond of the purple).
The object that I intend to make differs from these cushions substantially, in that it is something of an ornamental -- rather than functional -- pillow. However, I have three cushions to recover according to my own furnishing schemes -- two long and one square, and I have not as yet decided which shall furnish the arm chair of my boudoir, and which shall bedeck the bed -- whichever I decide, I shall be sure to make note of it in the inventory.
Sources Cited
Digby, George Wingfield
1963 Elizabethan Embroidery. London, England: Faber and Faber.
Swain, Margaret
1986 Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots. Ramsbury, Great Britain: Ruth Bean Publishers.
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