Opening the Doors to 17th century embroidered caskets and cabinets.

We are delighted to welcome Dr Isabella Rosner curator of the Royal School of Needlework to Gawthorpe Hall to share her knowledge and enthusiasm of 17th century needlework, focusing on embroidered caskets. At the end of their needlework education, many well-off girls in England between 1650-1700 embroidered tabletop boxes called cabinets or caskets. These boxes, which held everything from sewing and writing supplies to gems and jewellery, are wonderful tools through which to understand girls’ embroidery education and spaces of ownership. This lecture will survey the history of these early modern caskets and cabinets, focusing on the variety of surviving boxes, how they were made, and how they served as instruments of ownership, privacy, and agency for their makers and owners.

Talk will include the Bourne Casket, made in the 1660s by Eunice Bourne of Pilling, Lancashire and currently on display in Gawthorpe Hall as part of the 'Account of Life: Gawthorpe in the 1600s' exhibition.

Admission to the Hall and exhibition is included in the ticket price.