New World Tapestry

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The New World Tapestry was for a time the largest stitched

colonisation in North America, Guyanas, and Bermuda between the years 1583 and 1642, when the English Civil War
began.

Work began on the tapestry in 1980 and continued for twenty years. The tapestry was at the

Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery
in storage.

The panels

The New World Tapestry, which in its entirety measures 267 ft × 4 ft (81.4 m × 1.2 m), consists of twenty-four panels,[2][3] each of which depicts the narrative of a particular phase in the period between 1583 and 1642.

Each panel measures 11 ft × 4 ft (3.4 m × 1.2 m).

The figures of the

Aztecs at MexicoLore[4]
The 24 panels of the New World Tapestry
Years Narrative People Plants
1583

 (1)

Expedition to Newfoundland Humphrey Gilbert, Captain William Winter, Robert Davis, Edward Hayes, Richard Clarke, William Cox, Captain Cade, Thomas Edmondes, Thomas Aldworth, Gilbert Staplehill
heartsease, yarrow
1584

 (2)

First Expedition to Roanoke
John Dee, Thomas Harriot
, John Sparke
hollyhock, cowslip, tobacco
1585

 (3)

Second Expedition to Roanoake
John White, Thomas Wise, Robert Masters, John Stukley, Christopher Broking, John Arundel, Edward Gorges, Thomas Cavendish, Walter Raleigh
melilot, peppermint, oxeye daisy, wild pink, mullein, potato, hop
1586

 (4)

Roanoke Colony and Fort Raleigh Francis Walsingham, Ralph Lane, John Harris, Francis Drake, Philip Sidney, Richard Grenville, Thomas Ford, Thomas Luddington, George Raymond, Marmaduke Constable, David Williams
nonesuch
1587

 (5)

Fourth year on Roanoke Island
John White, George Howe, Edward Spicer, Roger Pratt, Edward Stafford, Roger Bayle, John Humphrey, George Maynard, Ananias Dare, Eleanor Dare, Virginia Dare
forget-me-not, bugle, tutsan, bladder campion, pimpernel, strawberry, thyme
1588–1590

 (6)

End of the Roanoke Colony
William Winter, John Hawkins, Francis Drake, Anthony Cage, George More, Martin Frobisher, Robert Hughes, Lord Howard of Effingham
, Christopher Cooper, Thomas Stevens
comfrey
1595–1596

 (7)

Expedition to the Guyanas Walter Raleigh, Lawrence Kemys, Anthony Ashley, John Donne, Thomas Howard, John Hartington, Robert Devereux, Francis Vere, Charles Howard, George Carew, Thomas Bodley
sneezewort
1602–1603

 (8)

Expedition to Cape Cod
John Popham, John Hele, William Parker, Bartholomew Gilbert, Thomas Walker, Edward Hayes, Walter Raleigh
hedge mustard, lily of the valley, self heal, buttercup, marjoram
1605

 (9)

Expedition to Maine George Waymouth,
Thomas Smythe
, James Rosier
tare
1606

(10)

Plymouth Company and London Company John Popham, William Parker, George Popham, Raleigh Gilbert, Thomas Hanham, John Maddock, John Dodderidge, William Waad, James Bagg, Henry Challons, Martin Pring
woad, thistle, fumitory
1607

(11)

Jamestown, Virginia
Chief Powhatan, George Percy, John Ratcliffe, Walter Cope, Edward Maria Wingfield, Robert Killigrew
plantain
1607–1608

(12)

Expedition to Maine, Popham Colony (Sagadahoc) Francis Popham, William Parker, Matthew Sutcliffe, Richard Champernoune, Thomas Horner, Edward Rodgers, John Mallet, Raleigh Gilbert, George Popham, Roger Warre, Abraham Jennings
sage
1609–1610

(13)

Bermuda claimed after Sea Venture shipwreck Thomas Cambell, William Godolphin, William Shakespeare, William Strachey, Thomas Gates, William Craven, George Somers, Matthew Somers, Henry Wriothesley, Richard Frobisher, Robert Aldworth
gentian, biting stonecrop, Solomon's seal, goldenrod
1613–1614

(14)

Jamestown grows
John Smith
sloe, eyebright, red clover, oxlip, marshmallow, garlic, sow thistle
1616

(15)

John Rolfe brings Pocahontas to England
John King, George Yeardley, Ben Jonson
wallflower, purple loosestrife, water ragwort, figwort, lime tree
1617–1618

(16)

Failure of
Guyanas
 Roger North (Oyapoc), Robert Trelawney, Henry Rolfe, Lewis Stukley, Henry Montagu, Robert Tounson, Samuel Argall, Nicholas Frankwell, Walter Raleigh, John Bingley, Edward Coke
mulberry
1619

(17)

House of Burgesses, Slaves and Bartered Brides
Edwin Sandys
opium poppy, avens, onion, yam, beech, orchis
1620

(18)

Mayflower Compact
John Carver
ivy, spearmint
1621–1623

(19)

Indian Raids, beginning of New Hampshire David Thompson, Leonard Pomeroy, John Mason, Thomas Hobson, Robert Rich, Abraham Colmer, Edward Hilton, Robert Gorges, Alexander Shapleigh, Myles Standish, Thomas Weston
lilac
1624–1630

(20)

Massachusetts Bay Colony, Dorchester Company John White, John Warham, John Wolstenholm,
Roger Conant, Thomas Morton, Edward Rossiter, Thomas Holcombe, Roger Clap, Jonathan Gillett, John Endecott
, James Gould
fritillary
1630

(21)

Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop Adam Winthrop, William Laud, Richard Saltonstall,
John Underhill
, John Taylor
brooklime, campion
1628–1634

(22)

Calvert family and the Province of Maryland
Richard Blount, Thomas Dorrell, Thomas Cornwallis, Richard Gerard, Jerome Hawley, Henrietta Maria, Edward Winter, Jerome Weston
, Nicholas Ferfax 		Dyer's greenweed, quince, scarlet pimpernel, nettleleaved bellflower, sea beet, asparagus, sand spurrey, meadow clary, marsh marigold, monkshood, sweet cicely
1635–1641

(23)

New England, Harvard College and Taunton Nicholas Frost,
Elizabeth Pole
corn cockle, sweet woodruff
1642

(24)

Great
herbalists. English Civil War
begins 		William Turner, Edward Seymour, Henry Lyte, Robert Cecil, Thomas Johnson, Nicholas Culpeper, John Gerard, John Tradescant the Elder, John Parkinson, Henry Danvers, John Tradescant the Younger Simpson,
charlock, aster

The creation of the tapestry

The designer was Tom Mor,[5] who also designed the Plymouth Tapestry at Prysten House,[6] Plymouth, the Adventurers for Virginia (London) Tapestry,[5][7] and was the consultant on the Jersey Liberation Tapestry (St Helier, Channel Islands) and the Plympton Tapestry (Plympton, Devon). The panel was researched by Tom Mor, Tom Maddock, Paul Presswell and Freda Simpson. Chief tapissiers were Joan Roncarelli and Renée Harvey. A New World Tapestry Website has been developed as of December 2008 and will soon include 120 pages, showing all complete panels.[8]

Research for the New World Tapestry's twenty-four panels began in 1980. Tom Mor was joined by Tom Maddock, a retired friend from

scholars and teachers.[5]

Two hundred sixty four

medicinal plants, trees and shrubs. The latter are shown because the colonists took ointments and cure-alls with them on their voyages and plant hunters returned with such things as the potato and tobacco
.

All the flowers and florets depicted were drawn from nature by Tom Mor, who studied them under a watchmaker's glass. He was helped from the very early days by Freda Simpson of Plymouth, who was passionately interested in herbs and old herbal remedies. She identified and gave him over 230 flower specimens in the years that Mor lived with his wife and family in Plymouth. Later they moved to Cambridge where he was able to complete the set of 264 drawings with the help of Clive King and Caroline Lawes of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Lady Jane Renfrew of Lucy Cavendish College and Alison Davies, Monica Stokes and Edna Norman.

The stitchers

Tom Mor could not have seen his canvasses brought to life without the help of his friends and the expertise of the dedicated tapissiers. When the very first stitch was made in the New World Tapestry in 1980, the team working in Prysten House numbered twenty. By the time the last stitch was made in March 2000, the number of tapissiers had increased to two hundred fifty-six with the addition of another eight centres. In Devon there was a second in Plymouth at HMS Drake (the Royal Navy's panel), Ivybridge, Chillington, Exeter, Bideford, Totnes and Tiverton Castle. Dorset's Tapestry centre was in the Guildhall at Lyme Regis and it was there that the Great Gardeners and Herbalists panel was stitched.

The first

William Brewster, appears on the 1620 Mayflower
Panel.

The last oblique Gobelin stitch was made by

The Prince of Wales[5] on 3 March 2000 in the Orchard Room of his home at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire
. Most fittingly, with his interest in history and a keen gardener himself, the Prince put his golden wool stitch in the date of the 1642 Great Gardeners and Herbalists' Panel.

Stitches have also been added by The Queen, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Princess Royal and The Duchess of Gloucester.

Racism controversy

In 2017, representatives of the National Congress of American Indians, who had previously been unaware of the tapestry project, issued statements to the effect that the final product was racist in its depiction of Native American people.[9] "It shamelessly perpetuates a centuries-long artistic tradition that seeks to portray Native people as subhuman, warlike savages", according to Jacqueline Pata, the executive director of National Congress of American Indians.[10]

"What I wanted to avoid was the picture of English people coming ashore from their galleon to the New World as peaceful and quiet. It wasn’t so," Mor told The Telegraph. "It's no use pretending about it or being shocked by it. Mine is a cartoon, but it is a reality. I tell it as it is and I tell it with humour."[10]

The Library

The New World Tapestry Library[5] material includes histories of the years 1583–1642, much of it original research, files on the two hundred sixty four people named on the tapestry, plus heraldic information on over three hundred individuals, companies, towns, counties and universities.

Supporters

Supporters of the New World Tapestry include the Adventurers for Virginia[11] patrons of the New World Tapestry and Library. Their names are inscribed for posterity in the Adventurers for Virginia Record Book. Supporters who join the Adventurers for Virginia may also:

References

  1. ^ Caron Parsons (27 September 2004). "Art and Exhibitions: Setting sail for a pow-wow". BBC News. Helping to illustrate the story is the New World Tapestry; which, created in the West Country, is a detailed record of the early colonial period and the largest such embroidery in the world.
  2. Coldharbour Mill in Devon for 10 years. Now the 39 million stitch tapestry, which was 23 years in the making, is to have a new home at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum
    in Bristol.
  3. ^ "New World Anniversary Tapestry in Bristol, July 2006". VisitBritain Press Centre. More than 260 adventurers are named in total and their coats-of-arms displayed, along with a similar number of herbs, medicinal plants, trees and shrubs used by the early settlers. There are several humorous touches in the manner of ancient tapestries and almost 39 million stitches, including one made by Prince Charles.
  4. ^ "Bristol and the New World". Mexicolore. Photograph of 1617-1618 panel.
  5. ^ a b c d e "City marks 400th anniversary of England's American adventure". City of London media centre. 4 April 2006. Archived from the original on 18 June 2006. Today's Adventurers for Virginia are also backers of England's 'Bayeux' Tapestry, The New World Tapestry, which, together with its Library, is a unique source of Anglo-American historical reference and an important international teaching tool. Designed by Tom Mor in 1978 and stitched by 256 volunteer Westcountry tapissiers, the massive work was completed in 2000 with a stitch made by Prince Charles.
  6. ^ a b Frommer's. "Prysten House: Frommer's Review".
  7. ^ "Ceremonies in London mark 400th anniversary of Virginia Charter". Richmond Times-Dispatch. History News Network. 10 April 2006. The Adventurers for Virginia group, based in southwest England, displayed pieces of its New World Tapestry, which depicts the lineage of the families who traveled to settle the colony as well as other well-known aspects of history.
  8. ^ "New World Tapestry website".
  9. ^ Hannah Furness (20 September 2017). "History tapestry with stitches by Queen and Prince Charles condemned as 'racist'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  10. ^ a b Staff (20 September 2017). "'Racist' tapestry completed by Prince Charles denounced by Native Americans". Fox News. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  11. livery companies
    that, in 1620, gave money to support settlements in Virginia.
  12. Flowerdew Hundred (Virginia historic landmark on the James River) Foundation. Archived from the original
    on 21 August 2006.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_World_Tapestry&oldid=1165683471"