Wardle 1970

Wardle, Patricia. Guide to English Embroidery. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1970.

"A technique that seems to have developed in a specificaly English way was blackwork. This had its origin in the linear monochrome embroidery worked in double-running or Holbein stitch which was popular all over Europe in the earlier part of the 16th century. In Elizabethan blackwork a greater variety of stitch is usually to be found, with much emphasis on the use of geometric or floral filling patterns to give richness to a design. Perhaps part of the popularity of blackwork may be attributed to the ease with which it lent itself to the copying of printed illustrations in books. The cover known as 'The Shepheard Buss', for example, includes precise renderings of devices from Paradin, while on the hood with the coiling stem design can be seen shading in minute stitches which is reminiscent of printing effects. Monochrome embroideries were worked in other colours, too, but black seems to have been the most popular." (12) -- see cat. 29, 30 and 34; 29 especially looks like a title page

Bible cover, dated 1613, worked with Jonah and the Whale on one side and the Sacrifice of Isaac on the other (cat. 41); Geneva Bible of 1610 with the inscriptions ELIZABETH ILLINGWORTHE IS THE TRUE OWNER OF THIS BIBLE.

17c, "short-lived revival of ecclesiastical embroidery, under the aegis of Archbishop Laud, who tried to reintroduce richness and splendour into church decoration and ritual in reaction against the austerity of Elizabethan days." (13)

set of pictures by Edmund Harrison, royal embroiderer, from 1637, featuring the life of the Virgin and the infancy of Christ

boxes worked in stump work or embroidery, bore scenes from Ovid, Five Senses, or Old Testament; were often lined with silk, a mirror or print (15)