‘[A]ll Sorts of Stiches’: Looking at Detail in a Proclamation of Solomon Embroidery

Abstract

This object lesson considers a mid- to late seventeenth-century embroidery, now held by the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, which portrays the proclamation of Solomon. It assesses how viewers’ attention was directed by the application of materials, textures and stitches, examining tensions between modes of viewing concerned with narrative, individual motifs, material content, skill and realism. It considers how these various forms of attention would have complemented or competed with one another, and how they may have appealed to different viewers in different contexts.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Helen Smith for her comments on an earlier draft of this object lesson and the Wolfson Foundation for funding which has supported my research.

Notes

¹ The material description of the two Solomon embroideries is heavily indebted to M. M. Brooks, English Embroideries of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries in the Collection of the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum in association with Jonathan Horne Publications London, 2004), cat. nos 9 and 10.

² S. Frye, Pens and Needles: Women’s Textualities in Early Modern England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), pp. 135–59; A. R. Jones, ‘Needle, scepter, sovereignty: the Queen of Sheba in Englishwomen’s amateur needlework’, Early Modern Culture, iii (Online, 2003). Available from: http://emc.eserver.org/1-3/jones.html [Accessed: 1 March 2014]; Brooks, English Embroideries, pp. 17–18.

³ W. Pearse, A Present for Youth, and Example for the Aged (London: Printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1683), sig. E5r–v. For this and all subsequent citations of early modern printed texts I use the convention of referencing page signatures (henceforth abbreviated to sigs) rather than page numbers.

⁴ J. Batchiler, The Virgins Pattern (London: Printed by Simon Dover, 1661), sig. E1v.

⁵ Ibid., sigs E1v–E2r.

⁶ Brooks, English Embroideries, p. 48.

⁷ See J. Carey, Elizabethan Stitches: A Guide to Historic English Needlework (Ottery St Mary: Carey Company, 2012), pp. 26–27.

⁸ T. Hughes, English Domestic Needlework 1660–1880 (London: Abbey Fine Arts, 1961), pp. 167–68.

⁹ See, for example, L. Cowen Orlin, ‘Three ways to be invisible in the Renaissance: sex, reputation, and stitchery’, in P. Fumerton and S. Hunt eds, Renaissance Culture and the Everyday (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 183–203.

¹⁰ H. Woolley, A Supplement to the Queen-Like Closet (London: Printed by T. R. for Richard Lownds …, 1674), sig. E4v.

¹¹ A. Burgess, The Scripture Directory (London: Printed by Abraham Miller for T. U. and Sold by Thomas Underhill, George Calvert, and Henry Fletcher, 1659), sig. Nn2r.

¹² T. Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity (London: printed by Thomas Parkhurst …, 1692), sig. Aaa4r.

¹³ N. Hookes, Amanda (London: Printed by T. R. and E. M. for Humphrey Tuckey …, 1653), sig. I3r. See also Frye, Pens and Needles, p. 120. For a discussion of the spirituality of natural imagery in embroideries of the Creation, see A. Morrall, ‘Representations of Adam and Eve in late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English embroidery’, in C. Brusati, K. Enenkel and W. Melion eds, The Authority of the Word: Reflecting on Image and Text in Northern Europe, 1400–1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 313–34.

¹⁴ Pearse, A Present for Youth, sig. E5v.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire Canavan

Claire Canavan is a doctoral student at the University of York, UK, funded by a Wolfson Foundation Scholarship. Her thesis is entitled ‘“Various Pleasant Fiction”: Textiles and Texts in Early Modern England’.