Table carpet with the Hardwick arms
Category
Carpets, rugs and mats
Date
1590 - 1600
Materials
Linen canvas, Silk, Metal, Walnut, Glass
Measurements
148 cm (Height) 159 cm (Width) 162 cm (Height) 173 cm (Width)
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1129527
Summary
A needlework table carpet made for Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury (1527-1608). It features the arms of Hardwick surmounted by a countess’s coronet and surrounded by a scrolling design of leaves, carnations, poppies, apples and pomegranates with the Hardwick Stag and Talbot Dog alternating at the corners. Made from linen-canvas, the carpet is worked in tent stitch of coloured silk and silver and gold threads with design details embellished with chain and buttonhole stitches. The carpet appears in the countess’s 1601 inventory located on a table in the Gallery of the New Hall at Hardwick. The entry reads ‘too square inlayed tables…too other nedlework Carpetes for them, one with my Ladies Armes in the middest with a deep gold frenge about and lyned with red sarcenet’.
References
Hardwick, 1601: Elizabeth Hardwick Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury. Of houshold stuff: the 1601 inventories of Bess of Hardwick. London: National Trust, 2001.