The 15th century needleworker had access to a fine array of materials, all varying in cost. Venice has been cited as a principal trading post for all silks exported from the Levant, although silks became more widely available following the development of Italian sericulture initiatives (Lefeure 1888), mostly owing to the simple fact that silken wares did not have to travel such great distances from Asia in order to be imported to a given European country. This observation stands more than a century later, since more recent commentators on historical embroidery have noted that “From the fifteenth century Italy was the centre of the silk-weaving industry; from there the silks and velvets used for vestments, dress and hangings to countries that enriched them with embroidery, particularly England and Germany” (Clabburn 1981:9). Silk fabrics, however, came in a varied array of weaves and qualities, as we will soon come to learn.
Satin cushion cover with applied canvas work motifs rendered in silk and gilt thread in tent stitch and laid and couched work, dating to around 1600 and made in England.
Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
For example, many people may not know that “satin is a weave rather than a type of fabric. Its defining feature is that every weft thread passes over four warp threads and then underneath the fifth, in a staggered pattern as well. The effect of this weave is that the fabric surface obtains an almost liquid smoothness and a very strong sheen” (Duits 2008:25). Silks were also available in a twill weave, a pattern in which “every weft thread passes over two warp threads and then under the third in a staggered position which requires a basic unit of six threads. The twill weave could also be used to form figurative designs by introducing variations in the regular staggered pattern of the basic weave” (Duits 2008:23). Damask, so called because it was initially manufactured in the Syrian town of Damascus, “referred to silk fabrics, usually with a satin weave, in which variations in the regularity of the weave have been used to form a pattern, in the same way as in silk twills” (Duits 2008:30). Similar to satin, velvet is also a fabric derived from silk, but it is a silk “woven with a supplementary warp. While the regular warp threads served, in the usual fashion, for binding weft threads to create a fabric, this supplementary warp was used for binding a number of thin iron rods. A knife was then passed over these rods, severing the threads of the supplementary warp and leaving their ends standing as little tufts on the textile surface. Only silk threads were fine enough for this procedure to work at the time" (Duits 2008:20-21). Additionally, there was diasper, a fabric for which the pattern and groundwork were both executed in undyed silk, with small amounts of added gilt thread (Duits 2008). Brocades, it may surprise you to know -- since the word is so often today misused -- are silks woven with a gold thread and were graded according to the amount of gold they contained (Duits 2008).
An English altar frontal showing Lady Catherine Stafford and her thirteen daughters with the arms of Ralph Neville, Fourth Earl of Westmoreland, whom she married in 1523.
Applique on linen using split, brick, and satin stitches applied to a velvet ground (1535-1555).
Now held by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Image courtesy of Clabburn 1981:35.
However, silks were not the only materials used. Wools could be domestically produced from within the United Kingdom (Swain 1970), or were “brought in from the sheep countries of the north, while the art of dyeing, particularly with reds and purples, was one of the oldest trades of the Near East” (Clabburn 1981:9). Linen was described as being a luxury commodity, but a usual ground for embroideries, and improvements in the linen production process during the 16th century helped to increase the accessibility of this material (Lefebure 1888). Linen could also be sourced from medieval German town of Regensburg, “which was a centre of the linen trade” in that country (Swain 1970:33), and England apparently bought up “much of the linen used for vestments from the Low Countries” (Clabburn 1981:9) to produce a variety of functional and ornamental objects. Linen was the preferred ground for the blackwork embroidery popularized during the Elizabethan era, so called for its use of black thread on a white ground (Black and Kaye 1986). Canvas, a heavy flax weave, was used for the applique panels of the Oxburgh hangings, and panels were subsequently applied to a ground of green velvet (Black and Kaye 1986). During the 16th century, canvas work emerged as the preferred medium for the amateur embroiderer (Black and Kaye 1986). Bruges was another important textile centre in northern Europe, and is considered another likely source for linen exported to the United Kingdom (Swain 1970). This city was home to the Dutch East India Company (founded 1602), the only available source of cotton -- produced primarily in India -- in northern Europe (Swain 1970). However, other sources have indicated that cotton and flax bound for Europe could have been sourced from Egypt (Clabburn 1981). It is not known what exactly Elizabethans called this foreign fabric, but was likely the unknown fabric types referred to as dimity or fustian, “both of which are recorded in association with crewel embroidery” (Swain 1970:34). By the late 17th century, bed valances were often worked on cotton or linen grounds with a twill weave and “decorated in a variety of stitches with bold leafy designs on coloured worsted” (Swain 1970:33), so it appears as though cotton was naturally integrated alongside other imported fabrics and materials.
English crewel work horse from the 17th century, part of a series of conjoined borderless panels forming a wall hanging that depicts the flora and fauna of the natural world.
Short and long stitch and satin stitch worked in wool thread on a dark blue twill (wool) ground.
Today held in Bergg by the Abegg Foundation.
Image courtesy of Clabburn 1981:42.
In terms of thread, of course coloured silks were available -- as the many surviving embroideries executed in dyed silk thread can readily attest. It surprised me to learn that gold or silver thread of the period largely consisted of “a thin strip of metal wound round a silk or linen core” (Digby 1963:9), and commonly, the gold thread used in England was sourced from Venice or Cyprus (Clabburn 1981). Prior to the import of silken thread, which originated in China (Clabburn 1986), woolen thread was preferred over linen thread, since “wool accepts dyestuffs more readily than flax, and will dye to more brilliant shades” (Swain 1970:33). Digby points out that the needles in use at the time “were either the old drawn-wire needles, for which a company existed in the reign of Henry VIII or steel needles imported from Germany or Spain; the latter were manufactured in England before the end of Elizabeth’s reign” (Digby 1963:9). Along with materials, so circulated patterns, stitch techniques, and popular trends throughout the European countries (Clabburn 1981), making it difficult to determine precisely where or when particular styles were established before they were taken up across international borders.
Embroidered cushion cover from England dating to about 1600.
Canvas applique applied to a velvet ground with tent stitch and laid and couched work using silk and gilt thread.
Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Additionally, the Elizabethans were no strangers to decorative embellishment, applying a variety of ornamental accoutrements to their embroideries. French needlework historian Ernest Lefebure described the way in which “Venetians, noted for skill in glass-work of all sorts, embroidered with coloured glass beads” which the author likened to other art forms such as those “mosaics made with little tesserae” (Lefebure 1888:109). The author did not appear to place embroidered beadwork in very high esteem, however, going on as he did to describe the surviving beaded embroideries at South Kensington Museum, London as being:
scarcely commendable from the artistic point of view, notwithstanding a certain gayness of effect in them. A few little beads and pearls can no doubt be happily introduced into certain portions of embroideries, whereas work exclusively done with them is usually unworthy of consideration from any high standpoint of criticism. Their weight loads the stuff on to which they are worked, and necessarily gives it a disagreeable rigidity. The least accident almost may break the thread holding them, with the result that they fall off and leave bare spaces in the embroidery. Any analogy this beadwork may have with mosaic inlaying enforces the reservation of anything in the nature of mosaic work to its special purpose in connection with architecture, and demonstrates also that the flexible nature of a textile is incompatible with any modification of a decorative process thoroughly suited to flat, rigid wall surfaces. (Lefebure 1888:109-110)
17th century English beadwork by unknown artist.
Image courtesy of Black and Kaye 1986:42.
Ok, so the moral of the story is: the only appropriate place for beads is glued to the walls. No, I jest! But you're welcome to try... What is interesting in this analysis, so different from contemporary frames of thought, is a willingness to compare different mediums and liken embroidery to other forms of fine art. Additionally, this passage indicates that one of the things that holds embroidery apart from other art forms, giving needlework a distinctive modality of its very own, is the flexibility and the tactile nature of textile arts. Lefebure complains of the rigidity imposed upon a beaded textile, relishing the lightness and responsiveness of the embroidery. In this way, the haptic senses are engaged by embroidery in a way that other more purely visual art forms are not.
Mid-17th century embroidered picture from England. Coloured silks on white satin with silver purl and lamella, silver file over a white silk core, silver wire, and spangles worked in virtually all stitch forms known to humankind -- split stitch, detached buttonhole stitch, back stitch, wave stitch, short and long stitch, satin stitch, laid and couched work, and raised work.
Image courtesy of Brett 1972:28.
Glass beads, which were produced in Venice from the Middle Ages to the 18th century (Sciama et al.) provided a form of enrichment for embroideries, and it is likely that these are the beads to which Elizabethan women made use of. We know that, however directly or indirectly, the Elizabethans had access to Italian trade goods, and some trade goods originating specifically in Venice, since among Queen Elizabeth’s rigorously inventoried New Years gifts we find presentments from Lord Walsingham and his lady featuring embroideries wrough with t “‘Venis gold’” (Klein 1997:459). There were other eye-catching bedazzlements available to the Elizabethan needleworker, as well; purl consisted of finely coiled wire, and is commonly found in household inventories of the 16th century (Digby 1963). Alongside beads and purl, there were pearls proper, seed pearls, spangles and sequins (Digby 1963) to provide a rich array of texture and a glittering surface that would tease out and play with the light.
I, on the other hand, am using this lightweight synthetic fabric to imitate the soft sheen of satin. Let it be my cloth of gold, as I am but a humble student. For thread, I am using fine embroidery thread made out of cotton to reduce snagging and friction, but to create the foamy French knots seen in the waves I used a slightly thicker and more durable polyester thread coated in silk. One of the things I have learned from past experience is that when synthetic materials and natural materials meet, tempers flare and snarls occur. However, this pales in comparison to the frequent entanglement of divergent artificial fabric types -- can you imagine if I had tried to use a nylon thread on a polyester ground?? Unless you sew, you probably can't, so suffice it to say that it's awful. Using these thread types will absolutely cut down on snagging, since cotton and silk tend to be fairly smooth pulling thread types anyways. I am also using needles of unknown provenance -- I will readily admit that I found this quaintly stereotyped book of needles in the drawer of my 1891 Singer sewing machine. Why am I using an assortment of found objects in order to complete this project? Because, again, I am a piteous scholar of meagre means, and these items are already in my possession (this doesn't mean I'm a hoarder... I might be a hoarder).
Look at those nice, upper-middle class women enjoying a nice afternoon cup of tea while embroidering! Based on the haircuts and gowns, I'm guessing this is suggestive of the 1920s?
Meanwhile, the work progresses. I have abandoned the waves temporarily in favour of gilding the hippocamp with split stitch for the outline and short and long stitch for the infill. This kind of stitch is perfect for evoking the textured fur of animals, but it also covers sections of fabric more rapidly than does couching. Being relatively new to this stitch, before I apply each row, I trace the line to which the furthest stitches will reach using a fine tipped pen to help encourage evenness and regularity in my stitches. Perhaps more experienced stitchers are better at eye-balling things, but I need the guiding lines of my tracery; otherwise I'm stabbing blindly into the fabric, and let me say that blind stabbing is never good.
Let it be my cloth of gold.
Sources Cited
Black, David, and Raymond Kaye, eds.
1986 The Royal School of Needlework Book of Needlework and Embroidery. London, England: The Oregon Press.
Brett, Katherine
English Embroidery: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Collections of the Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto, Ontario: 1972.
Clabburn, Pamela
1981 Masterpieces of Embroidery. Oxford, England: Phaidon Press.
Duits, Rembrandt
2008 Gold and Brocade in Renaissance Painting: A Study in Material Culture. London: The Pindar Press.
Klein, Lisa
1997 Your Humble Handmaid: Elizabethan Gifts of Needlework. Renaissance Quartly 50 (2):459-493.
Lefebure, Ernest
1888 Embroidery and Lace: Their Manufacture and History from the Remotest Antiquity to the Present Day: A Handbook for Amateurs, Collectors, and General Readers. Alan Cole, trans. London, England: H. Grebel and Co.
Sciama, Lidia D., with Joanne B. Eicher and Francesca Trivellato. "Out of Women's Hands: Notes on Venetian Glass Beads, Female Labour and International Trades." The Berg Fashion Library. Accessed January 29, 2016.
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