Kings and Queens and Caterpillars: Women’s Agency and a Seventeenth-century English Embroidery in Melbourne

Abstract

The large embroidery 1) to be discussed here, in the collection National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, is an oddly doubled composition. 1 On the one hand, it is a picture of a king and queen at the centre of an idealised landscape. The rulers stand on a raised platform, framed by a draped pavilion supported by slim columns with a twisting vine decoration They are crowned and elaborately dressed. Each has a sceptre, and they hold up or exchange something that looks like a cup or chalice. Other regalia sit on a crimson throne behind them, including an orb of rule and a sword scabbard suspended on a blue belt; a dog chewing a bone lies peacefully at the king ’ s feet. Two small cas-tles hover near the top corners of the scene, where a line of clouds, a moon, and a rainbow mark the horizon and sky, and birds are shown in flight. At the bottom, a double-tiered fountain and a rocky pool with frogs and jumping fish suggest the earth and foreground.