Man's Cap (late 1500s): Art, History and Details

Man's Cap (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, the construction and design of this man’s nightcap is typical of the period. The embroidery on this nightcap—worked with both black silk thread and silver metal thread (metal strips wrapped around a white silk core) onto a plain weave linen fabric—features daffodils, birds, and fruit set within coiling stems and foliage. Five different stitches are used, including Elizabethan plaited braid stitch, chain stitch, stem stitch, straight stitch, and Elizabethan spider’s web stitch. The arrangement of the motifs is the same in each quadrant, and similar motifs are repeated around the brim. In places, the ink lines of the design are visible on the fabric, though most are covered with the embroidery.

Object facts

• Title: Man's Cap
• Date: late 1500s
• Culture: England, Elizabethan Period, late 16th century
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: embroidery; silk and silver gilt thread on linen
• Dimensions: Overall: 16 x 18 x 18 cm (6 5/16 x 7 1/16 x 7 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1942.165

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

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.