Coif (late 1500s): Art, History and Details

Coif (late 1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

According to Elizabethan embroidery scholar Jacqui Carey, construction of this woman’s coif is typical of the period, as is its design. The coif is a single piece of embroidered plain weave linen, cut in the usual way. The embroidery features pomegranate, honeysuckle, rose, carnation and acorn motifs set within stylized undulating stems and foliage. Most of the embroidery is worked with two distinct types of metal thread (thin metal strips wrapped around a silk core)—gilt thread and silver thread which has tarnished to black. Black silk thread also is used for the embroidery. Nine different stitches are used on the coif, including Elizabethan blanket stitch (variation three), Elizabethan ladder with filling, chain stitch, Elizabethan double Vandyke/twisted chain, Elizabethan plaited braid stitch (standard version), Elizabethan Ceylon stitch, Elizabethan trellis stitch, corded double detached buttonhole, and Elizabethan spider’s web. Many of the motifs are padded underneath the embroidery, likely with wool.

Object facts

• Title: Coif
• Date: late 1500s
• Culture: England, Elizabethan Period, late 16th century
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: Silk, gold and silver thread, sequins, padding, linen; embroidery
• Dimensions: Overall: 21 x 42.2 cm (8 1/4 x 16 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1934.206

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Underhill, Gertrude. "Old Embroideries in the Museum: Three English Embroideries." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 21, no. 8 (1934).
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Nguyen, Tricia Wilson. “Scandal and Imprisonment: Gold Spinners of 17th Century England.” In Hidden Stories/ Human Lives: Proceedings of the Textile Society of America 17th Biennial Symposium, October 15-17, 2020. (2021).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.