Cleveland Museum of Art

Purse

Date

early 1600s

Medium

embroidery; silk and silver filé on linen ground

Culture

England, early 17th century

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

According to Elizabethan embroidery scholar Jacqui Carey, this purse and its trimmings are typical of a ‘sweet bag’, though it is missing its handle and its drawstring is damaged. The term ‘sweet bag’ was popularized in George Wingfield Digby’s 1963 publication on Elizabethan embroidery; Digby used the term to describe small English purses dating from the 1500s and 1600s. The body of the purse is not the usual embroidered linen. Instead, it is a form of tubular warp-wrapping, a larger version of the structure and design found on tassels typical of the period. The body of the purse is made from a spiraling weft wrapped with multiple warp threads. It is assumed that it was made over a cylindrical form that was removed when the work was complete. The motifs are created by shifting the colored threads. Black silk warp threads that have since disintegrated expose the spiraling weft.

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