Jacket
- Place of origin:
England, Great Britain (made)
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
- Materials and Techniques:
Linen embroidered with silk
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
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The black silk embroidery on this on this linen jacket from the 1620s creates an extraordinary tonal effect. In the 16th century, blackwork embroidery typically used a variety of geometric patterns within the space defined by the outline of a flower, leaf, insect or bird. A new style of design developed at the turn of the century with the use of speckling stitch. This was a series of tiny seed stitches, longer and worked more densely at the edge of an outline, decreasing in frequency and length towards the centre of the motif, giving a subtle shaded effect. It is thought that the embroiderers were copying the linear visual qualities of the woodblock-printed emblem books, from which they drew so much inspiration for their motifs and figures.Other stitches used are stem, braid and back stitches.
Physical description
A woman's jacket of linen embroidered in silk thread in speckling, stem, braid and back stitches, and trimmed with bobbin lace.
The neck is plain and round, the front slightly shaped and edged with a narrow bobbin lace; the skirts are full, undivided, with four inverted V gores on either side. The back is extremely narrow. There are shoulder wings in one piece; the sleeves are full, shape and with an open-work seam down the front and back; small turned -back cuffs. No lining. The embroidery consists of an all-over tendril pattern, enclosing flowers, mainly roses, pomegranates and pea-pods, and also birds, insects and butterflies. To judge by the high waist-line, wings etc, the date should be about 1610-1630.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (made)
Date
1620s (made)
Artist/maker
unknown (production)
Materials and Techniques
Linen embroidered with silk
Dimensions
Length: 45 cm back
Object history note
Formerly in the Isham Collection, Lamport Hall, Northants. A rather similar jacket (‘waistcoat’ or ‘bodice’ would be the 17th c term) was in the Filmer Collection.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Santina M. Levey, 'Lace - A History' (V&A: W.S. Maney & Sons, 1983)
Detail of lace
Hart & North, 'Historical Fashion in Detail' (V&A: V&A Publications, 1998)
John Lea Nevinson, Catalogue of English Domestic Embroidery of the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries, Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Textiles, London: HMSO, 1938, p.79, plate LVI
Production Note
To judge by the high waist-line, wings etc, the date should be about 1610-1630.
Materials
Silk; Linen
Techniques
Weaving; Embroidering; Lace
Subjects depicted
Flowers; Birds; Insects; Butterflies; Pea-pods
Categories
Clothing; Fashion; Lace
Collection code
T&D
