From the textile collection at the V&A. The label on the piece reads:
Linen embroidered with colored silks, metal thread, seed pearls and black beads in back, satin, chain, ladder, buttonhole, detached buttonhole, cross, arrowhead, interlacing, pattern couching, coral and two sided Italian cross stitches with speckling and bullion and French knots. The sampler is inscribed Jane Bostocke 1598 and below;- Alice Lee was borne the 23 of November being Tuesday in the after noone 1596. This is the earliest dated English Sampler so far recorded.
Ummm, maybe I won’t tackle a sampler after all.
Don’t you love the plants and animals at the top, I can not believe the state that it is still in after more than 400 yrs. Amazing preservation.
It is in beautiful shape. It was difficult to get photos because they are very careful to keep the light level low to keep from damaging the pieces and they are enclosed in glass. Andy did an amazing job to get such great detail.
How did he do it? Did he use a tripod and leave the shutter open for a bit? And no glare or distortion from the glass Wow!
All of the above. It was about a 20 second exposure. On a tripod with the self timer, so it had a 2 second delay after he pressed the button. Lots of fiddling for the right angle too, so you wouldn’t see lightbulbs reflected off the glass.
Wow – very nice. I showed the kids, too. They loved it. Candace wondered where it is so we could go see it!