Review of Stitched: Scotland’s Embroidered Art
From the archives of the National Trust for Scotland, Stitched: Scotland’s Embroidered Art, carefully selected textiles are taken out of the curio-filled historic estates for which they were intended and entered into the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. Within the airy rooms of the Old Town gallery, there is an opportunity to give breathing space to each unique piece, spanning the period 1720-1920. Here, we can appreciate the craftsmanship and complexity of the works and fully understand the fascinating lives of the women whose mastery of the needle has cast beauty upon the surface of the fabrics.
Image: A fire screen embroidered by Lady Augusta Gordon, usually displayed in the saloon at House of Dun. Image above: Recently conserved linen bedcover created for the Hill House, which will be on display at Dovecot Studios in October 2024 | Image: Phil Wilkinson / Dovecot Studios.
One would expect the opulent chambers of Scotland’s grandest estates to hold similarly spectacular adornments in thread, but the exhibition shows that the impulse to use embroidery to make a house a home occurred at all levels of society.
In Scotland’s tenements and crofts, women of modest means decorated their homes with needlework, applying precise skills to small, practical household items such as blankets, cloths, and covers. Amongst the women whose lives have been further uncovered by the National Trust for Scotland in curating the exhibition is Jane S. Pringle, a Dundonian mother of four. Ironically, for a busy watchmaker’s wife, time and money were not on Pringle’s side; such limitations did not hinder her prowess with a needle. A carpet fragment, dated between 1870 and 1900, is embroidered with repeated leaf-like motifs stitched in orange, umber, and gold across a base of handwoven wool from her grandfather’s farm in rural Perthshire.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, girls were encouraged to take up embroidery, perhaps having been instructed in needlework at school – for girls, dressmaking skills were always on the curriculum – while decorative stitch was perfected in the working of a sampler. In 1889, Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen established a school of needlework in the village of Methlick in Aberdeenshire, close to her home at Haddo House, for “the training and employment of girls in the district who do not desire to go out in the world, but who want to earn some money at or near home.”
Lady Aberdeen was one of a handful of aristocratic women in the 1880s and 1890s who used their position and influence to create needlework schools in rural Scottish communities. In the end, the school was short-lived, perhaps because it was not economically viable, but the school certainly nurtured some exceptional talent in its time. Commenting on the school’s exhibit at the 1894 Home Industries Exhibition, a snobbish reporter from the Banffshire Journal remarked that it was “a really marvellous display when one considers that the women who execute such dainty work are taken from the ranks of the peasantry.”
Image: A decorative embroidered armchair from the Library at Drum Castle.
The philanthropic urge that led wealthier women to support the creation of charitable schools also satisfied their desire to furnish their homes with fine textiles, which they could commission cheaply from local women of lower social classes. Artistic skill came naturally to Mary Sandison. Born in Banffshire to a crofting family, she was taught to sew from a young age, which gave her much pleasure. Mary married a coachman, and they set up their small holding up the road at Stoumanhill, where she found time to sketch and sew practical items for her small family, gradually developing her skill in more decorative work.
Lady Aberdeen commissioned Sandison to create several embroidered works for Haddo House, the most unusual being a copy of an Italian table cover. The sumptuously decorated piece certainly justifies Sandison’s nickname as “the crofter artist, featuring flowers, arches and stems embroidered in gold and a palette of magenta, dusky pink and green coloured silks, completed with dainty fringing around the edges.”
Girls born into wealthy families received lessons at home or at private schools to acquire artistic and practical abilities for use in the home. Lady Augusta Kennedy-Erskine (later Gordon) was one such woman, and discovering her work in the archive intrigued curator Emma Inglis enough to start plotting the Dovecot collaboration and bring this unique collection of textiles to a new audience.
Lady Augusta was a prolific needlewoman. At her residence at the House of Dun in Angus, she furnished her home with carefully crafted pieces of her own making and drawing on the skills of local needleworkers in and around nearby Montrose. However, she was also well-traveled and, as a result, extremely in tune with the fashions of Europe and the exoticisms of the East, which she found particularly alluring. There are many examples of Lady Augusta’s remarkable flair for fine stitchery and a keen eye for bold colour and design inspired by her love of European opulence. Her last and most ambitious scheme immediately impacts the viewer, an effect enhanced by the accompanying cartoon of the pelmet border, composed of a swag of lush flowers and an exotic parrot in silk shading. Unfortunately, the embroidered pelmet on display, one of a set of three, has succumbed to the effects of light. Where the original vibrant colour palette can be seen in the cartoon, the colour remaining in the pelmet itself is a fainter version of what once must have been.
Image: The Red Bedroom at House of Dun showcases some of the embroidered objects at Trust places.
For those of high social standing, the instinct to look to the East for inspiration and the means with which to travel and invest in textiles from China and India brought numerous examples of chinoiserie, kantha and other imported cloth to their households. In 1886-87, Lady Aberdeen undertook a tour of India with her husband, which she documented in her diary. There, she was inspired to purchase a Bukhara suzani, which was exported to northern India from Central Asia as a temptation to tourists and museum collectors. At Haddo House, the chain-stitch suzani is far removed from its original as a dowry gift that would bring prosperity, but Ishbel highly valued it for its rare skill and striking design on display.
Rather than jostle for space in stately homes and archives, the wide-ranging embroidered textiles on display at the Dovecot are given room to shine and space to be fully appreciated. From the opulent needlework originating from Scotland’s estates to the no less precious and unique embroideries crafted by crofters and tenement dwellers, together, they are a graceful testament to the accomplished women of all classes, whose impulse was to display and decorate their homes with embroidery.
Text by Rosie Gibson
Stitched: Scotland's Embroidered Art is on show at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, Scotland, until 18 January 2025.
One would expect the opulent chambers of Scotland’s grandest estates to hold similarly spectacular adornments in thread, but the exhibition shows that the impulse to use embroidery to make a house a home occurred at all levels of society.
In Scotland’s tenements and crofts, women of modest means decorated their homes with needlework, applying precise skills to small, practical household items such as blankets, cloths, and covers. Amongst the women whose lives have been further uncovered by the National Trust for Scotland in curating the exhibition is Jane S. Pringle, a Dundonian mother of four. Ironically, for a busy watchmaker’s wife, time and money were not on Pringle’s side; such limitations did not hinder her prowess with a needle. A carpet fragment, dated between 1870 and 1900, is embroidered with repeated leaf-like motifs stitched in orange, umber, and gold across a base of handwoven wool from her grandfather’s farm in rural Perthshire.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, girls were encouraged to take up embroidery, perhaps having been instructed in needlework at school – for girls, dressmaking skills were always on the curriculum – while decorative stitch was perfected in the working of a sampler. In 1889, Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen established a school of needlework in the village of Methlick in Aberdeenshire, close to her home at Haddo House, for “the training and employment of girls in the district who do not desire to go out in the world, but who want to earn some money at or near home.”
Lady Aberdeen was one of a handful of aristocratic women in the 1880s and 1890s who used their position and influence to create needlework schools in rural Scottish communities. In the end, the school was short-lived, perhaps because it was not economically viable, but the school certainly nurtured some exceptional talent in its time. Commenting on the school’s exhibit at the 1894 Home Industries Exhibition, a snobbish reporter from the Banffshire Journal remarked that it was “a really marvellous display when one considers that the women who execute such dainty work are taken from the ranks of the peasantry.”
The philanthropic urge that led wealthier women to support the creation of charitable schools also satisfied their desire to furnish their homes with fine textiles, which they could commission cheaply from local women of lower social classes. Artistic skill came naturally to Mary Sandison. Born in Banffshire to a crofting family, she was taught to sew from a young age, which gave her much pleasure. Mary married a coachman, and they set up their small holding up the road at Stoumanhill, where she found time to sketch and sew practical items for her small family, gradually developing her skill in more decorative work.
Lady Aberdeen commissioned Sandison to create several embroidered works for Haddo House, the most unusual being a copy of an Italian table cover. The sumptuously decorated piece certainly justifies Sandison’s nickname as “the crofter artist, featuring flowers, arches and stems embroidered in gold and a palette of magenta, dusky pink and green coloured silks, completed with dainty fringing around the edges.”
Girls born into wealthy families received lessons at home or at private schools to acquire artistic and practical abilities for use in the home. Lady Augusta Kennedy-Erskine (later Gordon) was one such woman, and discovering her work in the archive intrigued curator Emma Inglis enough to start plotting the Dovecot collaboration and bring this unique collection of textiles to a new audience.
Lady Augusta was a prolific needlewoman. At her residence at the House of Dun in Angus, she furnished her home with carefully crafted pieces of her own making and drawing on the skills of local needleworkers in and around nearby Montrose. However, she was also well-traveled and, as a result, extremely in tune with the fashions of Europe and the exoticisms of the East, which she found particularly alluring. There are many examples of Lady Augusta’s remarkable flair for fine stitchery and a keen eye for bold colour and design inspired by her love of European opulence. Her last and most ambitious scheme immediately impacts the viewer, an effect enhanced by the accompanying cartoon of the pelmet border, composed of a swag of lush flowers and an exotic parrot in silk shading. Unfortunately, the embroidered pelmet on display, one of a set of three, has succumbed to the effects of light. Where the original vibrant colour palette can be seen in the cartoon, the colour remaining in the pelmet itself is a fainter version of what once must have been.
For those of high social standing, the instinct to look to the East for inspiration and the means with which to travel and invest in textiles from China and India brought numerous examples of chinoiserie, kantha and other imported cloth to their households. In 1886-87, Lady Aberdeen undertook a tour of India with her husband, which she documented in her diary. There, she was inspired to purchase a Bukhara suzani, which was exported to northern India from Central Asia as a temptation to tourists and museum collectors. At Haddo House, the chain-stitch suzani is far removed from its original as a dowry gift that would bring prosperity, but Ishbel highly valued it for its rare skill and striking design on display.
Rather than jostle for space in stately homes and archives, the wide-ranging embroidered textiles on display at the Dovecot are given room to shine and space to be fully appreciated. From the opulent needlework originating from Scotland’s estates to the no less precious and unique embroideries crafted by crofters and tenement dwellers, together, they are a graceful testament to the accomplished women of all classes, whose impulse was to display and decorate their homes with embroidery.
Text by Rosie Gibson
Stitched: Scotland's Embroidered Art is on show at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, Scotland, until 18 January 2025.