Smock

A woman's white linen smock decorated with intricate bands of geometric cutwork taken from another object, possibly a cover, and used as insertions on the sleeves, cuffs, collar and upper part of the front. If worn underneath an open-necked gown, the exquisite needlework would have been visible

By tradition the smock was said to have been worn by Queen Elizabeth I at Rycote in 1554. As dress historian Janet Arnold noted, 'it is possible to make a connection between the queen and Rycote in 1603 but the link between the queen and the smock has been discounted. It is unlikely that re-used embroidery would have been incorporated in a gift to the queen. The shape of the smock, with tapering sleeves, could just be 1603 and the style runs on until around 1615-20. The design of the cutwork fits in with this dating. The extra cutwork on the chest and sleeves was carried out when the smock was made, putting it around 1603-10.'

Two narrow (15mm) bands of geometric needle lace worked in a plaited thread base are inset 30 and 100mm above the hem. Scallops of freely worked needle lace decorate the hem, the cuffs, the front neck opening and the collar. Narrow bands (18mm) of bobbin lace are inset around the wrists and neck. The linen is decorated with two vertical bands of cutwork: simple stylised flower-heads and more elaborate squares with needlelace centres. The same motifs are worked in decreasing sizes on three tapering linen bands that alternate with the inset cutwork bands to form the sleeves

A pattern for this smock was published by Janet Arnold in 'Elizabethan and Jacobean Smocks and Shirts', Waffen-und Kostumkunde, 1977, p.103. It was formerly in the Abingdon Collection and was sold at Sotheby's in 1928.

Additional cataloguing by Janet Arnold and Santina Levey.