Embroidered Casket, 1650 - 1680 (Accession Number - 1972.54) The
embroidered casket dates from between 1650 to 1680. It display
an immensely rich collection of colours, materials, stitches and
imagery. Unfortunately we do not know the origins of this
casket. The fact that it has survived is no doubt due to a high
regard for the work of an ancestor. The fashion for small
needlework pictures flowered in the Reign of Charles I,
flourished during the Commonwealth and the Restoration of
Charles II and withered by the end of the seventeenth century.
Yet raised or embossed work, as it is called, was not a new
technique; it had been practised by professional embroiderers on
the continent of Europe for more than a century. The female
characters in the seventeenth century costume depict the five
senses, a popular subject in embroidery of this period and type.
A mass of minute detail surround the figures in the form of
flowers, trees, insects and animals, all closely set with the
horror of empty space. A lion and leopar