The front cover of this issue of Textile History shows the reverse of a seventeenth-century embroidery in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. This ‘back’ view does two things: its bright, cheerful colours challenge our notion of what an early modern decorative textile should look like, while the visible threads and stitches force us to re-evaluate our usual way of looking at textiles and question exactly what we are seeing. This is also what this special issue on ‘Ways of Seeing Early Modern Decorative Textiles’, edited by Catherine Richardson and Tara Hamling, aims to do as a whole, asking questions that are relevant also to textiles from times and places other than early modern England. The articles that Richardson and Hamling have brought together thus explore early modern perceptions of domestic textiles, while at the same time shedding new light on present-day ways of looking at and interpreting historic textiles. As the editors argue in their introduction, the act of ‘looking’ is not as straightforward as it might appear. Indeed, early modern commentators themselves noted that the perception of textiles was — and is — influenced not only by the specifics of sight and vision, but also by location and the cultural baggage that the viewer brings with him or her.
Historically specific, early modern ways of seeing are explored further in Maria Hayward’s article, ‘In the Eye of the Beholder: “Seeing” Textiles in the Early Modern Interior’. Here she pays attention both to the physical act of looking — affected, for example, by weak eyesight or poor illumination — and to the cultural context in which individuals viewed domestic textiles, particularly religious and Humanist ideas about the sense of sight. Neither the cultural context nor the physical act of looking, Hayward stresses, were unchanging: the meanings attached to particular textiles, for example, could shift as they changed ownership or their symbolism became unintelligible to a later generation.
The two object lessons in this issue then use specific examples of decorative domestic textiles to delve further into early modern perception. In ‘“[A]ll Sorts of Stiches”: Looking at Detail in a Proclamation of Solomon Embroidery’, Claire Canavan examines a seventeenth-century embroidered representation of the proclamation of Solomon, and suggests that contemporary viewers may have been just as impressed by the ingenuity and skill involved in the needlework and choice of materials, as in the story depicted: virtuosity may well have been as important as storytelling. In ‘“Informed Seeing”: Reading the Seventeenth-Century Embroidered Cabinet at Milton Manor House through its Historical and Social Contexts’, Amanda Pullan focuses on a seventeenth-century cabinet embroidered with biblical scenes, using the insights provided by the iconography to come to some conclusions about the maker’s knowledge and ideas, particularly her seemingly ambivalent views on female submissiveness.
Mary Brooks’ article, ‘“Mouldering Chairs and Faded Tapestry ... Unworthy of the Observation of a Common Person”: Considering Textiles in Historic Interiors’, invites us to consider further the ‘value’, both aesthetic and economic, attached to early modern domestic textiles both by the contemporaries who observed and lived among them and by present-day visitors to historic houses. Focusing especially on textile degradation, she reveals the often incompatible expectations we have of historic textiles: the requirement that they show the passage of time, thus demonstrating their authenticity, while remaining immune from the damage that this inflicts.
The final two articles conclude this special issue with studies of present-day ‘ways of looking’ at historic textiles. In her research note, ‘New Ways of Engaging with Historic Textiles: Interactive Images Online’, Dinah Eastop focuses on the growing use of digital technologies to provide novel ways of accessing historic textiles. While the benefits of these developments are clear, the practice of viewing textiles through an electronic medium is not without its problems: following a successful trial using items from The Board of Trade Representations and Registers of Designs, 1839–1991, held in The National Archives, Eastop suggests that Polynomial Texture Mapping technology, with its re-lighting facility, provides a useful way of capturing not only colour or pattern, but also the textured surfaces of textiles. In ‘Looking at Domestic Textiles: An Eye-Tracking Experiment Analysing Influences on Viewing Behaviour at Owlpen Manor’, Benjamin Tatler, Ross Macdonald, Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson return us to a direct, personal viewing of domestic textiles. Reporting on the findings of an eye-tracking experiment conducted in the historic interior of Queen Margaret’s Chamber at Owlpen Manor in Gloucestershire, they show that viewing behaviour is influenced by prior knowledge and information. Or, to put it another way, that in the absence of these, the eye of visitors to a historic interior is not necessarily more drawn to the rare examples of painted cloth that adorn the walls than to other items of furnishings or furniture — a sobering thought, perhaps, for textile historians.
This issue also includes a variety of Exhibition and Book Reviews. We are delighted to welcome Alexis Romano as the new Exhibition Reviews Editor. According to Alexis:
the exhibitions reviewed in this issue span a variety of locations, institutions and collections, including design, history and textile museums in Finland, Australia and South Africa. Their subjects, a Finnish contemporary designer and national brand, the Hollywood Studio and the South African IsiShweshwe textile, represent diverse production and commercial models, makers and wearers. The reviews as a whole express the many manifestations and meanings of textiles, considered variously as costume, dress, fashion, art and markers of cultural heritage, as well as ask how these meanings and wider narratives are shaped by different curatorial approaches.
Suggestions for new reviews should be sent to Alexis on [email protected]. Turning to the Book Reviews, our Book Reviews Editor, Chris Boydell, explains: ‘The focus of the majority of the book review contributions in this issue is the medieval and early modern periods, with the subjects of selling, propaganda, writing and language dominating’. Please contact Chris on [email protected] to suggest possible books for review and send books to her at School of Design, Faculty of Art, Design & Humanities, Clephan Building, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester le1 9bh.
Textile History is the journal of the Pasold Research Fund, which supports innovative research in textile and dress history. The Fund offers a variety research grants, including awards to support object-based research in museums and other heritage institutions, as well as grants for publications and postgraduate study. For information about these grants and for further details of the Fund’s other work and publications, see its website at: www.pasold.co.uk. The end of 2015 marked the end of Giorgio Riello’s term as Director: we would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation of his generous support of Textile History during his period of office, as well as to welcome the new Director, Stana Nenadic. Kaori O’Connor is stepping down from the co-editorship of Textile History. We are pleased that Kaori will be joining Textile History’s Editorial Board, where she will continue to contribute her knowledge and expertise to the journal and the Pasold.
As usual, we invite submissions of original research articles in any field of textile history and of shorter Object Lessons or Research Notes. All submissions are peer-reviewed. Articles, Object Lessons and Research Notes should be submitted online at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/tex. Please see the Instructions for Authors page at http://www.tandfonline.com/ytex for more details. The Editors are always happy to discuss ideas for papers; please contact in the first instance Laura Ugolini on [email protected]. Last, but not least, each year the Pasold Research Fund awards a prize of £400 for the best article published in the journal, as judged by the Fund’s Governors and members of the Editorial Board, and we are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2015 prize is Elisabeth Gernerd, for her article on ‘Pulled Tight and Gleaming: The Stocking’s Position within Eighteenth-Century Masculinity’, which we published in May 2015. As the abstract explains: ‘This article examines the cultural significance of the stocking as an essential accessory of an eighteenth-century man’s attire. Rooted in a material understanding of the stocking through extant garments and archival accounts, this discussion broadens to consider the stocking as a form of cultural currency that spanned visual and popular culture in the eighteenth century. An analysis of the stocking’s visual representation in painted portraiture and graphic satire reveals how it acted as a barometer for British masculinity and subsequently as a visual indicator for the health of the nation, which directly correlated with the stocking’s position and pattern of wear on the leg’.