In this week's blog post, textile historian Gillian Grute talks us through the process of writing her book, Heavenly Embroidery.
A chance visit to the Warwickshire convent of the of Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus, searching for a subject for thefinal year essay of a Textile Design degree course, led to a journey lasting almost 25 years. A study of convent vestments and, the interviews with the sisters, later steered me towards an MA dissertation. As I slowly discovered examples of the remarkable work it became clear that it needed to be given its rightful recognition in the history of ecclesiastical embroidery.It was a huge textile jigsaw waiting to be stitched togetherand, after several years research, the book Heavenly Embroidery became the inevitable consequence.
A bursary from the Textile Society enabled study at the Congregation archive in Holland and, visits to Aachen’s Cathedral & the Suermondt Ludwig Museum where the sisters’ early work could be examined. Much of the embroidery from the English workroom was found through searches of scant convent records; parish records; newspaper archives; libraries; museums; dusty cupboards and happily, by ’word of mouth.’
It became essential that I understood the history of the Congregation, founded in Aachen (Aix-La-Chapelle), in 1844 and the development of a commercial workroom and embroidery school. A gift of Pugin art prints influenced the sisters’ early designs and attracted potential clients. Due the entrepreneurial skills of their co-founder, Clara Fey, the resulting embroidery soon became a crucial source of income to finance the sisters’ work with underprivileged children.
The organisation and practice of the workrooms was both ambitious and disciplined. The embroiderers’ worked with architects and designers as well as producing their own unique designs. They produced their own patterns and created a palette of fine hair-silk thread for each design. Their depiction of hands and faces is exceptional.
Exiled from Germany under Bismarck’s Kulturcampf, 690 sisters had to be resettled and, in 1876, a small group of ten arrived at Southam, a small English market town. This, largely due to the efforts, of Mary Caroline Edgar, a Glaswegian, living in Aachen. Little seemed to be known of her, or the Edgar family, despite correspondence in the motherhouse archive, until discovery of a nephew James Edgar. A speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, his papers in the Ontario Archives revealed much about his tenacious aunt and troubled relatives.
Five embroiderers soon followed the original ten to Southam to set up the English workroom and, after an unsteady start, attractedmajor commissions for many of the greatest cathedrals, abbeys, and churches across the country. It was said that the sisters produced some of the most beautiful embroidered vestments in the world. Visits to Downside, Worth and Erdington Abbeys, as well as other religious institutions, confirmed and endorsed this claim.
Speculation on the workroom patrons and, their reasons for commissioning vestments, led down another path revealing more about the practice of the English workroom. It was a truly commercial enterprise run by a remarkable group of professionals many of whom have been identified.
Question: Do I now consider the journey is over, with pen committed to paper? Answer: How can it be with more out there to be discovered.
Heavenly Embroidery by Gillian Grute is published by Gracewing £14.99, 160 full colour pages
There is a special offer available to Costume Society members: £12.50 plus free UK postage and packing. Visit gracewing.co.uk to order.
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