PRICELESS NEEDLEWORK

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19833, 23 June 1934, Page 11

PRICELESS NEEDLEWORK

INSURED FOR £IO,OOO A collection of needlework insured for £IO,OOO was shown in a Royal residence in London. The exhibition, “English Needlework —Past and Present,” was by permission of Lord Carnegie and Lady Maud Carnegie, at 15 Portman Square, for many years the home of the late Princess Royal and her daughters—Princess Arthur of Connaught and Lady Maud Carnegie. It was in aid of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution. The high insurance which covered the entire exhibition scarcely indicated the historic and romantic value of even one or two pieces in the antique section. There was, for instance, an exquisitely embroidered chasuble of pre-Reforma-tion period, which for more than 200 years lay buried in the ground. The story is that in the middle of Queen Elizabeth’s reign a member of a Roman Catholic family, who had been collecting Church vestments and vessels to preserve them from the Reformers, buried the casuble, with other objects, in a lead-lined box in Gloucestershire. He left behind a document giving the site and directions for unearthing the treasure, which was dug up in the middle of last century. Another priceless piece was a Tudor embroidered coat which was worn by one John Carter, one of the group of men who signed the death warrant of Charles I.