Watercolour and ink design featuring Berlin wool work elements, ca. 1836-1854, by Sarah Bland (1810-1905).

Watercolour and ink design featuring Berlin woolwork elements. There are geometric, diamond shaped borders surrounding a floral motif on graph paper. Colours used include black, pink, red, green, yellow and orange.

Given by Mrs D. McGregor

Historical significance: Within the study of embroidery, men tend to be recorded as professional embroiderers or pattern drawers, whereas women worked more ambigiously with designs for embroidery. Women's amateur as opposed to professional designs for embroidery raise problems because amateur work has tended to be regarded as less significant. Embroidery was a pastime but was also an economic activity. Upper middle class women's property was closely linked to their status within the family as daughters, wives and widows and only allowed semi-independence. This semi-independence was underpinned by legal, politial, and social practices which subordinated them. Nevertheless, it was combined with recognition of their economic worth within the family enterprise. However, women were restricted as they often could not be openly involved in working for money. See L. Davidoff and C. Hall (Reference Tab). Bland could not be seen to be working but it is likely that she embroidered accessories for dress, penwipers, tablecloths, book covers, and cushions as gifts which were her contribution to the household, wider family, and friendship. The quality of her samplers and designs shows the value of such gifts in terms of relationships with family and friends.

Material about the perceptions of a woman's role is pertinent to the discourse on women and therefore gender history. In Bland's case, the gift of designs demonstrates connections between relatives of merchant and banking families and is of historical significance in bonding between such families.

Sarah Bland (1810-1905) was listed as a 'gentlewoman' in the 1851 census return and is not recorded as having any occupation in the census returns for 1871 and 1901 which is consistent with her social status.

This design features geometric, diamond-shaped borders surrounding a floral motif and was painted on graph paper in the style of a Berlin woolwork pattern by Sarah Bland (1810-1905), about 1836-1854. It is intended for Berlin woolwork which was a type of embroidery practised in the nineteenth century. It was usually worked in worsted (woollen) yarns following a coloured pattern drawn on a graphed chart, named as such because early major supplies of these patterns, yarns, and canvas came from Berlin.

This design is in an album which includes Bland's collection of her own botanically accurate designs, simplified patterns from accurate botanical observation, patterns traced from magazines, commercial, printed Berlin wool work patterns, gifts of patterns, including commercial ones from friends and relatives. The designs include those for petit-point, bead-work, decoration for dresses, collars and cuffs, aprons, slippers, tablecloths and covers, cushions, bags, penwipers, initial letters, alphabets etc. In Bland's case, the gift of designs demonstrates connections between relatives of merchant and banking families and is of historical significance in bonding such families.

E.372:23-1967