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<\/a><\/p>\nThe English have a history of being passionate gardeners.\u00a0 Gardening was considered mankind’s expression of the Garden of Eden, worked on a personal scale in his or her garden plot.\u00a0 In early seventeenth-century England, when this picture of a garden was embroidered, there was a fashion for embroidering flowers on clothing, especially women’s jackets, men’s and women’s caps.\u00a0 Home furnishings, such as cushions, curtains, bed valences, wall hangings also received this allover floral decoration.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This spectacular example of these embroidered jackets belongs to the Costume Institute atthe Metropolitan Museum of Art.\u00a0 The embroidery stitch-work on this is especially fine and it must have been made to fit a tiny body.\u00a0 Not only were the English interested in all kinds of flowers (note how carefully this lily is colored), but often the embroideries included birds, bugs, and caterpillars too.<\/p>\n The depiction of naturalistic flowers and bugs were an expansion of the tendency toward scientific observation which developed during this time.\u00a0 The earliest microscopes were invented in the Netherlands, in the 1590s.\u00a0 This passion for the close observation of nature began much earlier, though.\u00a0 Books depicting plants and animals were popular throughout the sixteenth century.<\/p>\n Engravings of flowers and bugs were published in pattern books called “Miscellanies”, which included images for lace and embroidery, painting, decorative plaster, or wallpaper.\u00a0 This is a page from an edition of Richard Shorleyker’s “Schole-house for the Needle<\/a>“, which was published in 1632.<\/p>\n Here is a man’s nightcap, also from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, embroidered with birds, butterflies, and other flowers of the sort printed in these miscellanies.<\/p>\n \u00a0Here is another example, from a different cap, of the Early Bird catching his breakfast.<\/p>\n Sometimes the plants were embroidered on plain-weave linen, then cut out and applied onto richer ground fabrics, often as decorative hangings or cushion covers.\u00a0 These were called “slips”.\u00a0 This branch of pear tree is one of these that hasn’t been applied to any other cloth yet.\u00a0 This slip is on a larger sampler of needlework in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.<\/p>\n For other applications,\u00a0 the fine silks could be embroidered directly on a plain linen ground fabric even for bedcovers or hangings, as are this lovely primrose and iris.\u00a0 These flowers are details from a cushion cover in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes flowers like this were embroidered onto sheets and towels as decorative borders.\u00a0 Trailing vine patterns like these were often included in girl’s educational samplers as well.<\/p>\n Finally, this desire for intricately worked flowery objects led to some very interesting beaded objects, like this one, also from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/p>\n These images were all taken from the exhibition catalog<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n