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Abstract
of the article (as printed on page 1):
The Worshipful Company of Pewterers of London owns a
barge cloth embroidered with the Company's arms and dated
1662. The bill for it from the embroiderer John Best also
survives as part of that for a new barge ordered around
the time of the entry into London by river of Charles
II's bride Catherine of Braganza. The embroidery, which
is a rare surviving example of applied work in wollen
cloth on a wool ground, was the most expensive item in
the order apart from the barge itself. The technique is
compared with that of some other extant embroideries,
while John Best's work for the Great Wardrobe Accounts is
also discussed.
Conclusion (as written in the article on
page 11):
John Best is not among the most celebrated of the
embroiderers whose names have come down to us, but he
does have the rare distinction of a documented
association with a surviving piece of embroidery. Very
little indeed remains of all the magnificent embroidery
in metal threads and silks on rich grounds done for
royalty in the seventeenth century. Even where objects,
such as bibles with embroidered covers incorporating the
royal arms, do survive, it is generally impossible to
discover who embroidered them. Surviving wool embroidery
is even less common. It did not have any intrinsic value
and was probably generally discarded when worn out. While
the Great Wardrobe and Master of the Robes accounts
provide much valuable information on royal commissions,
it remains very difficult to discover what commissions an
embroiderer who worked for the court may have received
from other secular sources. These considerations make the
Pewterers' barge cloth and its documentation all the more
precious. Not only is the barge cloth fully documented,
but it is also professional embroidery in a material and
technique of which little survives. Hence it helps to
fill out the picture of professional embroidery in the
seventeenth century to explain terms found in the royal
accounts and illuminate the methods of a professional
workshop. We may indeed be grateful that it survived so
many vicissitudes and is still extant today in the
possession of the Company that commissioned it.
With bibliography and 4 appendices (Itemization
of the cost of the Pewterers' Company's barge; bills in
the Great Wardrobe Accounts; bill for embroidering a
stand cloth for the Broiderers' Company; bills of John
Best in the Great Wardrobe Accounts)
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