- broidering, and which was to be sent to Rome for the Pope as an
offering from the queen.[1]
Though English embroidery fell on a sudden from its high estate, it never died. All along through those years, wasted with the wars of the Roses, the work of the English needle was very poor, very coarse, and, so to say, ragged; as, for instance, the chasuble here, No. 4045, p. 88. Nothing whatsoever of the celebrated chain-stitch with dimpled faces in the figures can be found about it. Every part was done in the feather-stitch, slovenly put down, with some few exceptions, among which may be enumerated the three rich English copes with pointed hoods running, like one here, p. 207, through the orphreys, still to be seen in the Chapter Library at Durham, and other vestments of the period in private hands. During the early part of the seventeenth century our embroiderers again struck out for themselves a new style, which consisted in throwing up their figures a good height above the grounding. Of this raised work there is a fine specimen in the fourth of those Durham copes. It is said to have been wrought for and given by Charles I. to that cathedral. This red silk vestment is well sprinkled with bodiless cherubic heads crowned with rays and borne up by wings; while upon the hood is shown David, who is holding in one hand Goliah's severed head; and the whole is done in highly raised embroidery. Belonging to a few of our aristocracy are bibles of the large folio size, covered in rich white silk or satin, and embroidered with the royal arms done in bold raised-*work. Each of such volumes is said to have been a gift from that prince to a forefather of the man who now owns it; and a very fine one we lately saw at Ham House.
This style of raised embroidery remained in use for many years; and even yet to be found are certain quaint old looking-glasses, the broad frames of which are overlaid with this kind of raised embroidery, sometimes setting forth, as in the specimen No. 892, p. 319, of the Brooke collection here, the story of Ahasuerus and Esther, or a passage in some courtship carried on after the manners of Arcadia.[2]
Occasionally on work of an earlier period, some element or another of this raised style may be found; for instance, in that fine Rhenish embroidery, Nos. 1194-5, p. 21, the bushiness of hair on all the angels' heads, is striking, but this is done with little locks of auburn coloured silk.
