Remember this sampler I completed early last year?

I went on at length about the rather goofy looking cupid strip at the bottom, and about the cousins of the middle strip, but I never discussed the top strip – the cupid and oak branch meander that includes the poor little guy being menaced by the lion.

I haven’t seen this cupid strip in any modelbook (yet).  But I’ve found several examples of it in museum collections.  My rendition is more or less a  “moving average” of all of them, and will be in my ever-forthcoming T2CM.

This design is notable because of the multiple ways in which it has been rendered.  Here are five.  I’ve got another two someplace in my notes.  When I find them I’ll update this post.

First, there’s the standard single strip with edging representation above, marked as 16th century, Italian – double running in silk, in red – one of the most common colors for this type of work. It’s in the St. Gallen Textilmuseum in Switzerland, and can be found in their on-line collection, Accession 23760 (you probably will have to search for the object by accession number because their links are dynamic and break).

This is the same pattern doubled and turned into a frame. It’s also sourced as 16th century, Italian.   Note that the design is butted, not mitered, with an interesting truncated bit to fill in the left and right sides. There is no accessible link for this piece at the source I stumbled on – 1st Dibs Antiques, but that appearance was within the past year. All I have is a screen cap, and the photo is long gone from the sales site.  However complications ensue.  It or something practically identical was offered at Bonham’s site several years ago. Thistle Threads did an excellent write-up of the Bonham’s offering 2016.  (She’s got some up close photos, too).

The blue sample above is from the Hermitage Museum, It’s dated 16th to early 17th century, Italian, double running, with the voided ground worked in squared filling.  It’s accession number is T-2799.  (If the link breaks, search there for “Bad Spread” (sic).)  This is the piece on which my rendition is most closely based.

The black and white image above is hard to make out, but it’s clearly the same cupids, done in polychrome AND with a worked ground.  It’s not really voided because the foreground isn’t left plain or minimally adorned.  There’s not much elaboration on the Metropolitan Museum’s page, but it is attributed as Italian, of the early 17th century. It’s accession 68.145.6.  I hope some day they go back and take another, better photo.

And lastly, there’s this one.  The most unusual of them all.  Here is our friend (blindfolded for a change), done using red silk outlines, but then infilled with couched gold metal thread.

This example is in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.  Its citation is Band, 16th century; silk, metallic yarn on linen; H x W: 110 x 90 cm (43 5/16 x 35 7/16 in.); Gift of Richard C. Greenleaf; 1954-167-2

Now.  Why post all of these versions?  First, because they are interesting.  Second, to refute a commonly held belief that there is only ONE right way to execute these designs.  Stitchers took the same base pattern and used it in many individual ways.  Monochrome, polychrome.  Plain ground, voided, or totally overstiched. There is no canon. 

Be historically faithful and execute historical designs in any of the myriad styles contemporary with the base pattern.  It would be very difficult to make the case that any one of those treatments was never used. Or take the same pattern and reinterpret it using modern styles, scale, or materials.  There are no Embroidery Police who enforce historical precedent over individual expressive creativity. 

Which is a long-winded way of saying that if a pattern sings to you, just go for it.