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The Oxburgh Hangings thumbnail 2
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The Oxburgh Hangings

Panel
ca. 1585 (made)
Artist/Maker
Elizabeth Talbot (maker)
Mary Queen of Scots (maker)
Place of origin
Tutbury (made)

Object Type
Making up large decorative hangings from a number of smaller panels which were then applied to a sympathetic background material, was a popular pastime of well-to-do ladies in the 16th century. This allowed a group of women to embroider individual panels at the same time. If required, the hanging could be dismantled at a later stage and the panels re-used.

Historical Associations
Surviving embroideries can rarely be identified as having been owned or worked by royalty. Unfortunately for the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots, she had plenty of time while imprisoned to work on numerous embroideries, some of which include her initials or cipher. This activity must have both filled her time and occupied her mind as many of the emblems or mottoes used have more significance than is immediately apparent.

Subjects Depicted
Mary's personal cipher is not included but her identity would have been clear to the recipient. Her emblem of the marigold turning towards the sun and a dog, symbolising a faithful friend are seen with the royal arms of Scotland surrounded by the Order of the Thistle.

A 1586 Inventory of Mary's belongings lists: ' a square of petit point, with a single emblem in the middle and others around (it) with the arms of France, Scotland, Spain and England ', which may well be this panel.

Object details

Categories
Wall Coverings
Textiles
Embroidery
Royalty
British Galleries
Scotland
Object type
Panel
TitleThe Oxburgh Hangings (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Embroidered linen canvas with gold, silver and silk threads, lined
Brief description
Textile panel 'The Oxburgh Hangings' of embroidered linen canvas with gold, silver and silk threads, possibly made by Elizabeth Talbot and Mary Queen of Scots, probably made in Tutbury, ca. 1585
Physical description
Textile panel of embroidered linen canvas with gold, silver and silk threads in tent stitch. With a design of feathers falling about an armillory sphere which stands on a rock in the midst of the sea. The sea is peopled by sea monsters and ships. Motto 'LAS PENNAS PASSAN Y QVEDA LA SPERANZA' (Sorrow pass and hope abides), Embroidered border containing the Royal Arms of England, France, Scotland and Spain with the devices of various orders and emblematic designs. Lined.
Dimensions
  • Old frame height: 168.6cm
  • Old frame width: 192.5cm
Dimensions checked: frame measured; 15/12/1998 by dw. 154.7 x 180 cm internal measurements of old frame.
Marks and inscriptions
'LAS PENNAS PASSAN Y QVEDA LA SPERANZA' (Inscribed on the large central panel)
Translation
Sorrows Pass but hope survives
Gallery label
(27/03/2003)
British Galleries:
Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587)

Mary Queen of Scots' troubled reign in Scotland ended in 1568 when the Scottish Lords forced her to flee across the border into England. As Elizabeth's cousin Mary had long claimed the English throne, leading Elizabeth to see Mary as a threat and place her in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Mary was held captive in various English country houses for 19 years. She was finally executed in 1587.



Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) embroidered these panels with Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick) and ladies of the household, during her imprisonment. Mary may have intended the large central panel as a cushion for Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel (1557-1595), an English Catholic courtier imprisoned in London by Elizabeth I. Mary's emblem of the marigold turning towards the sun (lower right) has been combined with various coats of arms and emblems representing courage in adversity. Many other panels from the same group are now at Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk.
Credit line
Presented by Art Fund
Object history
Three panels signed ES for Elisabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (1527-1608)
The large central panel probably made in Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire; the smaller panels probably made at Sheffield Castle, South Yorkshire
Summary
Object Type
Making up large decorative hangings from a number of smaller panels which were then applied to a sympathetic background material, was a popular pastime of well-to-do ladies in the 16th century. This allowed a group of women to embroider individual panels at the same time. If required, the hanging could be dismantled at a later stage and the panels re-used.

Historical Associations
Surviving embroideries can rarely be identified as having been owned or worked by royalty. Unfortunately for the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots, she had plenty of time while imprisoned to work on numerous embroideries, some of which include her initials or cipher. This activity must have both filled her time and occupied her mind as many of the emblems or mottoes used have more significance than is immediately apparent.

Subjects Depicted
Mary's personal cipher is not included but her identity would have been clear to the recipient. Her emblem of the marigold turning towards the sun and a dog, symbolising a faithful friend are seen with the royal arms of Scotland surrounded by the Order of the Thistle.

A 1586 Inventory of Mary's belongings lists: ' a square of petit point, with a single emblem in the middle and others around (it) with the arms of France, Scotland, Spain and England ', which may well be this panel.
Bibliographic references
  • Francis de Zuleuta, Embroideries by Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Talbot at Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, Oxford, 1923.
  • Margaret Swain, The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots, Carlton, Bedford: Ruth Bean, 1973
  • This embroidered panel was one of 13 objects investigated in 2019 as part of ‘Gendering Interpretations’: a collaborative project between the V&A, University of Plymouth, Vasa Museum (Stockholm), Lund University, Leiden University and the University of Western Australia. While early modern professional embroiderers were usually male, amateur embroidery was encouraged as an activity for women. Despite its association with a gender ideology that fixed women in domestic roles, embroidery offered opportunities for self-expression and engagement with the political and intellectual world. Women were able to exercise creativity, autonomy and preference in selecting subjects for embroidery, and to express their identity by signing their work, as Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick did with personal ciphers. They and often chose images that engaged with current affairs or themes of female resistance, such as classical or Biblical stories in which women overcome male violence. This specific panel is an original emblem designed by Mary, expressing resilience and hope as well as reaffirming Mary’s royal status. Male trivialisation of women’s embroidery also liberated it from close scrutiny. Working on embroidery together allowed women to withdraw behind closed doors, creating meaningful, intimate relationships with each other and offering opportunities for both friendship and sexual contact. Dismissive attitudes towards women’s ‘work’ (as it was known) paradoxically facilitated their freedom of expression. George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury’s description of Mary’s conversations while embroidering – ‘her talk [is] altogether of indifferent and trifling matters’ – is a case in point. In fact, many of Mary’s embroideries were politically subversive. Her gift of a cushion cover to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, featuring a hand descending from heaven to cut down a vine with the motto “Virescit Vulnere Virtus” (“virtue grows strong by wounding”), was used as evidence against him in court and contributed to his execution. The panels now known as the Oxburgh Hangings do not appear to have been originally envisaged as parts of larger hangings; instead, they were mounted in the seventeenth century by Alathea Talbot, Bess’s granddaughter. They feature pictures taken from printed sources, mainly emblem books and natural history books. As Nicole LaBouff’s research has demonstrated, some of their embroidered images are based on research, rather than simply copied: the ‘shofler’ (spoonbill) panel, for example, combines the pose of the bird from the image in Conrad Gessner’s Historia Animalium (1551-8) with the shallow water and small fish discussed in Gessner’s text; it also corrects the bird’s name from Gessner, who calls it a pelican. Similarly, Bess of Hardwick used the panels she embroidered with Mary Queen of Scots to collate her knowledge of medicinal plants and as a memory aid for learning Latin. This demonstrates that embroidery was not merely a process of reproduction, but a process of creativity and intellectual work. Mary also used embroidery to communicate with other women. In the early 1570s she sent Ann Dacre (stepdaughter of the recently executed Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk) an embroidered panel with an emblem of hope in love to console her after she had experienced rejection from her husband. In 1574, she sent Elizabeth I an embroidered skirt, probably hoping to soften relations between them. Elizabeth later expressed regret that politics and royal status had prevented her from developing a friendship with Mary: she told her parliament in 1586, as they advocated for Mary’s execution, that she wished that she and Mary ‘were but as two milk-maids, with pails upon our arms’. It is important to acknowledge that Mary and Bess’s freedom in embroidery resulted partly from their social and economic status. The linen cloth on which they embroidered was created from flax spun by poor women, who could not earn a living from flax-spinning alone. This perspective can be applied to every early modern embroidered object. In the late 1580s and early 1590s, having separated from her husband, Bess of Hardwick carried out two building projects that advertised her wealth, status and virtue: the refurbishment of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, including a series of tapestries showing ‘Noble Women of the Ancient World’; and the building of nearby Hardwick New Hall, adorned with her initials E.S. Coupled with the ciphers found in Bess and Mary’s embroidery, this demonstrates a commitment to visibility and statements of identity on the part of both women. Indeed, needlework represented an opportunity for women more broadly to make themselves visible and to pass down objects marked with their names within their family, challenging a genealogical system that habitually erased them. (Dr Kit Heyam, August 2019) References: · Michael Bath, Emblems for a Queen: The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots (London: Archetype Publications, 2008), esp. pp. 30-31 · Susan Frye, Pens and Needles: Women's Textualities in Early Modern England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) J. Goodare, Mary [Mary Stewart] (1542–1587), queen of Scots (2007), http://web.archive.org/web/20230112103844/https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-%209780198614128-e-18248 · Margaret Swain, The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973) Further reading · Susan Frye, ‘Sewing Connections: Elizabeth Tudor, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth Talbot, and C17th Anonymous Needleworkers’, pp. 165-82, in Susan Frye and Karen Robertson (eds.), Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women's Alliances in Early Modern England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) · Theodora A. Jankowski, ‘… in the Lesbian Void: Woman–Woman Eroticism in Shakespeare's Plays’, in A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare (Malden; Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), pp. 318-338 · Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) · Nicole LaBouff, ‘Embroidery and Information Management: The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick Reconsidered’, Huntington Library Quarterly, Volume 81, Number 3, Autumn 2018, pp. 315-358 · Elizabeth Mazzola (2003) Who's She When She's at Home?: “Manifest Housekeepers”, Jealous Queens, and the Artistry of Mary Stuart, Exemplaria, 15:2, 385-417
Collection
Textiles and Fashion Collection
Accession number
T.33-1955

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Record createdApril 8, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O79627/the-oxburgh-hangings-panel-elizabeth-talbot/
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