An ink drawing of the monochrome embroidered jacket (1600-1620; exact date unknown) at the Museum of London (I think it is in the V&A’s costume archive now), showing the cascading flower motif repeated all over the jacket. Embroidery thread is silk, jacket is linen. The jacket is drawn as if worn, with the front pulled closed, an high neckline, and the arms out in front (figure is facing 2/3 left), to show the embroidery design. Digital text underneath reads: Museum of London embroidered jacket, 1600-1620, drawing by Laura Mellin.

A colour photograph of plate 8 from the Besler Florilegium, 1613, showing two kinds of laburnum flowers. Left is Alpine laburnum, with long bracts of small yellow flowers, seed pods, and green leaves. Right is Laburnum (false ebony), which has larger yellow flower bracts, and no seed pods. The false ebony laburnum has a resemblance to the embroidered bracts on the Museum of London jacket.

An ink drawing by me of the individual motifs repeated on the Museum of London embroidered jacket. They are somewhat abstract, but the top of the false ebony laburnum in the Besler Florilegium (plate 8) shows how the upper part of the branch matches both the leaf and the drooping bracts in the embroidery. So, instead of a vine, as I suggested on my very old (and in need of rebuilding) website, these could be construed as false ebony laburnum, since the Florilegium and the jacket are from roughly the same date. It’s just a theory.

A colour photograph closeup of plate 8 in The Besler Florilegium (1613), showing the top of the false ebony laburnum, which shows the crossing stems, leaves, and drooping flower bracts that may have inspired the Museum of London embroidered jacket.

#embroidery #myotherhobby #embroideredjackets #museumoflondon

Apropos of nothing, I was reading my copy of The Besler Florilegium (1613), & thought a painting of laburnum looks kind of like the motifs on the embroidered jacket from the Museum of London. *sigh* Need to completely rebuild my website.