RARE NEEDLEWORK

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28013, 6 July 1956, Page 2

RARE NEEDLEWORK

PANELS SIGNED BY MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

Green velvet hangings containing 30 panels of needlework signed with the initials or monogram of Mary, Queen of Scots, were on view recently in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The Oxburgh hangings, as they are called, are well-preserved examples of a very rare type of sixteenth century furnishing, and a historic relic of the first importance, states a London message in “The Christian Science Monitor.

The draperies, originally wall hangings. are thought to date from 1570 They were converted to bed hangings a century later and contain in all 100 panels of gros point and petit point needlework. These include the only known signed examples of Mary Queen of Scots’ embroidery, apart from a single piece of petit point now at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. The work was probably “wrought with hir Nydill” by Mary Queen of Scots when she was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury at Tutbury Castle. He reported she daily resorted to his wifes chamber and busied herself with needlework.

This theory is supported by the fact that 15 of the other needlework panels are signed with the ES monogram of Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury <Bess of Hardwick). The Oxburgh hangings, therefore, -epresent the joint efforts of two of the most celebrated needlewomen of their day, during the early stages of Mary Stuart's long captivity in England.

The subjects of the panels, typical of sixteenth century embroidery, show plants, animals, birds or fish each species with its name on a scroll beside , it.

A few of the Oxburgh hangings are being retained for exhibition and study at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The rest have been returned to Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, a National Trust property, and their home since the eighteenth century.