Description:
English looking glass or mirror featuring an embroidered surround. The looking glass, with its sculptural and textural needlework illustrates the artistry and iconography of seventeenth-century English embroidery, and whose traditions shaped those practiced in the American colonies into the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A fashion for mirrors set into raised work embroidered frames was popular in England during the Restoration period, from about 1660 to 1688. This example is one of an extant handful whose compositions are laid out like the title page to a contemporary book (which may have also been the source for some of the motifs represented). The looking glass was either made professionally, or produced and sold as a kit for a girl or woman to execute. Once completed, the embroiderer would work with a frame maker to mount the piece either for hanging on a wall or within a standing frame to sit on a furniture surface. This example's frame, which is not original to the piece, was made to be hung on a wall. Embroidery stitches used include buttonhole filling/ detached buttonhole filling, brick stitch, long and short satin, ceylon, knots (French or buillion), and couching. Motifs depicted are most likely allegorical and decorative, rather than any specific reference to contemporary, living people. The central male (top) and female (bottom) figures are most likely not Charles II and Catherine of Braganza; no royal symbols are included in the depictions. Rather, they may be companionate couples, generic figures representing courting or fidelity. The other two prominent male and female figures flanking the mirror sides, may represent the Biblical figures of Jael and Barak. Barak was the leader of the Israelites and was often depicted carrying a spear. Jael, while usually depicted holding a spike and mallet, may instead be depicted here with wine jugs at her feet, a reference to her act of offering wine to Sisera before she killed him. This female figure's background and facial features have been crudely overpainted. Four prominent, raised work animals are included. Often employed in seventeenth-century needlework to represent the four continents, they include a camel (Asia), lion (Africa), stag (Europe/Great Britain), and a leopard (possibly for America). Each of these animals features one painted glass eye except for the lion, which has two. Other motifs (both two and three dimensional) embroidered around the central mirror include basketed and vased floral arrangements, animals, and insects.
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Embroidery; Glass; polychrome; Silk Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+57.138 |
