Sources for Design: Patterns Books and Prints
Two categories of design predominate during this period: those based on flora and fauna (both native and exotic), and figural designs illustrating narratives from the Bible.
The increasing production and popularity of printed pattern books for lace
and embroidery in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century speaks to the popularity of decorative embroidery as a pastime among amateurs who could afford to buy books and excelled at fine needlework. The first pattern books were printed on the Continent and imported into England (21.15.2bis(1–48)
). The first English pattern book
was published in the 1590s, though the earlier examples are almost entirely copied from German and Italian works. Pictorial designs were also copied from Continental illustrated Bibles and decorative prints of secular subjects such as personifications of the Five Senses, the Four Seasons, or the four known continents (56.597.41[2]
).