Seventeenth Century Embroidered Caskets

This is an illustration of a casket similar to Jenna's (though hers has the 3D 'garden' at the top).  They were beautifully made, often by young girls - there is one in the Victoria and Albert Museum made by an eleven-year-old.  There are many examples around, all slightly different but all conforming to a basic pattern.  Given that they're mostly around 350 years old, their generally good condition shows how highly they were valued and how carefully they were looked after down the generations.

This one has a larger version of the 'garden' within.  Not much room for trinkets in there, which is why I decided Jenna's garden had to be smaller.  It was sold at Christie's a few years ago, for £35,000.  I've no idea where it is now, but I'd love to have a close-up look at the trees and flowers, and see how they were worked.  The lot description says, 'A garden of pressed silk and featherwork magnolia, gillyflowers, pears and strawberries growing from a green featherwork lawn set with a woollen path.'  It sounds fabulous.

Just to show you the quality of the needlework on these caskets, this is a close-up of a figure, one of the Five Senses (no prizes for guessing which one), on a cabinet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  English, third quarter of the seventeenth century.  This style of raised embroidery is now called 'Stumpwork', which is a rather ugly name for something so beautiful.  The description says, 'Satin worked with silk and metal thread, purl, chenille, seed pearls, coral beads, and mica; tent, knots, rococo, satin, couching, and detached buttonhole stitches.'  It must have, literally, taken years to make.

And the same figure in its setting on the casket lid.  Note the towers and animals, and the erratic sense of scale.  I love the gormless lion!

Even closer to the fine detail, and the silver braid which binds the joins at the edge of the lid.  The embroiderer would have had pattern books full of designs for her to copy, not only animals, birds and flowers, but buildings, figures, and scenes from Greek or Roman mythology, or Biblical stories.

If you want to see more caskets and boxes, have a look at my Pinterest page:
http://uk.pinterest.com/elfwyn/stuart-embroidered-caskets/