The BAC Stitch Group hasn’t been posting, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been researching and presenting. In May 2021 we shared our paper ‘Dogs, Deer, Bears, and Ghosts: The Hunting Scene on the Bacton Altar Cloth’ at the Medieval Dress and Textile Society Annual Conference. In May 2022 we returned to the same conference to present ‘Digital Reconstruction of the Embroidered Fabric that became the Bacton Altar Cloth’ and followed this presentation with a longer and more casual
Upcoming Paper at the Annual Medieval Dress and Textile Society The members of BAC Stitch are all members of MEDATS, so naturally we presented our first real paper there last year, titled ‘Dogs, Deer, Bears, and Ghosts: The Hunting Scene on the Bacton Altar Cloth’. This year the conference theme is Changing Textiles: Upcycling, Recycling, Remaking, Reimagining and Reusing, which naturally lends itself to papers about objects like the Bacton Altar Cloth, which have obviously had multiple forms and uses
A closer look at the embroidery on the small motifs in the hunting scene on the Bacton Altar Cloth Across the middle of the Cloth, there appears to be a scene taking place which was the height of aristocratic pursuits during the medieval and Early modern period – the Hunt. The scene includes a number of different animals, including quarry and hounds, and a huntsman. The Bacton Altar Cloth was embroidered before the documentation of techniques or the definition of
Through previous research I knew about the embroidered treasure of St Faith’s, but I had not yet had an opportunity to travel to Bacton. As soon as I knew the altar cloth had been moved to Hampton Court Palace for conservation, I just had to have a close-up look. In October 2018, I was granted access to the cloth to take images for study. I was not prepared for what I saw. As one who has spent quite some
Techniques of the Ancient Masters Although we can’t be positive, we think the embroiderers who made the Bacton Altar Cloth method used to transfer the botanical designs was a time honoured prick and pounce technique. This method was employed by Italian masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo to transfer their large design drawings, known as cartoons. Pricking the Cartoon For our experiment, I drew a small motif based on the sprig of Marigold from the Bacton Altar Cloth. Placing it on
Flowers in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras could mean lots of things, some of them quite complex. Many portraits from these periods depicted sitters holding or wearing fresh flowers and plants, and/or wearing clothing that was decorated with floral designs. Some scholars have looked at their meanings and interpretations, and the way that the imagery of flowers generally, and even of specific species of plant, can relate to the sitter. If we apply these ideas to the embroidered plants that
My previous post (First Motif: A Daffodil) about motifs 1, 58, and 61 on my map of the Bacton Altar Cloth explained our thought that these were daffodils. As we studied the embroidery more we noticed two general rules that made us doubt the species identification: Although motifs repeated, sometimes with slight variance in colouring, no species seemed to be represented by different shaped motifs. While flowers might be exaggerated in size, both the flowers and the leaves seem
One of the great pleasures in studying the Bacton Altar Cloth, even from afar mostly via photographs, is that so many intriguing questions present themselves. What materials were used? Who stitched the designs? How was the fabric and embroidery used before it was an altar cloth? How would contemporary viewers have interpreted the work? To answer such conundrums clearly will take considerable time devoted by many people with diverse expertise. One question seemed easy enough, but has dominated our initial
The Bacton Altar Cloth is an extraordinary example of what appears to be very high quality English late 16th or early 17th-century embroidery, in polychrome silks and gold wrapped threads worked upon a cream-coloured silver chamblet silk (or cloth-of-silver). This textile, which may once have formed part of a garment of some kind, has been cut and reworked at some point in its long life into the form of an altar cloth, which for many years performed its service at
On Saturday 9 January our little study group held a public but relaxed and conversational online meeting about the Bacton Altar Cloth as part of a lockdown-inspired series of more smaller, more accessible events hosted by the Medieval Dress and Textile Society. We shared our photos – ok, mostly my photos – of the Bacton Altar Cloth taken last winter when it was on display at Hampton Court Palace, answered queries from some of the nearly 120 people who joined