E Embroidery

Embroidery

Some objects in the College Rare Books collection are truly unique, such as a Dutch translation of the Bible from 1628.

What makes this iteration of Holy Writ so exceptional is its embroidered cover, a beautiful and fragile example of petit point stitching on a canvas ground. Decorative needlework of this kind was typical of English and Scottish styles in the 17th century, so the presence of such a binding on a Dutch book is unusual. What is not in doubt is the artistry and skill of the work, and the colours of the threads retain their vibrancy after almost four centuries.

It was considered a virtue for women in the 17th century to ply their needle in ways useful to the household, and as a defence against idleness and the vices attendant upon it. Higher-ranking women eschewed the menial tasks of mending and darning, preferring instead to work on decorative objects such as chair seats and cushions, bed hangings, frames for mirrors and, as here, covers for special books. Often the images they worked upon were laid out on canvas in black outline by professional pattern drawers who copied woodblock motifs from printed books. Women could therefore order designs to certain specifications, and then use their judgement and taste to determine which colours and materials to deploy. The subject matter of embroidered bindings often featured women from biblical lore, such as Judith, Ruth, Susannah or Bathsheba. In this case, however, the cover shows a family group, with the husband and a son hand in hand on the upper board, and the wife and another son hand in hand on the lower board. The clothing they wear, notably the woman’s dress, dates the cover securely to the 1630s, and would have been familiar to Anthony van Dyck, then newly arrived in England. He was to be instrumental in popularising family group portraits.

What is remarkable about the College’s embroidered Bible is that the image of the wife on the reverse almost certainly depicts the needlewoman herself. Social convention obliged her to give her husband prominence on the book’s front, while she followed discreetly on the back. But in other ways she takes pride in her appearance, not just in the lovely shimmering folds of her gown, but in the way she picks out the features of her face in fragile silk, and how she adds a strand or two of gold-spun thread to catch the highlights of her hair. She walks with her husband and children in a flowery, verdant meadow, surrounded by animals – a moth, butterfly, caterpillar, stag, frog and snail – joyously stitched with scant regard for scale. On the spine, set into compartments, are a talbot dog, a squirrel, a kind of finch, a primrose and an English rose. The Dutch Bible’s embroidered cover stands as a personal and poignant family artefact from the years before the Civil War.