In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was high fashion to have mottoes and texts carved or painted on many articles where they would frequently catch the eye. Printed books were then rare possessions, and these mottoes, whether of vanity or piety, took their place. Perhaps inscriptions on various pieces of tableware and drinking utensils were the most common. Specially beautiful and interesting early examples are the sets of "beechen roundels" known to collectors; that is, sets of wooden plates or trenchers carved with mottoes. Women dexterous of the needle embroidered mottoes and words on articles of clothing. Whole texts of the Bible are said to have been inscribed on the edges of gowns and petticoats.
"She is a Puritan at her needle too
She works religious petticoats."
Elaborate vines of flowers and other scroll designs were worked on petticoats, often in colored crewels. There still exists the linen petticoat of Rebecca Taylor Orne, a Salem dame who lived to be one hundred and twenty years old. It is deeply embroidered with trees, vines, flowers, and fruits, on homespun linen. Silk petticoats were also embroidered and painted by young girls, and are beautiful pieces of work.
In New York newspapers we find proof that New York girls were taught decorative accomplishments similar to those which were so fashionable in Boston:—
"Martha Gazley, late from Great Britain, now in the city of New York Makes and Teacheth the following curious Works, viz: Artificial Fruit and Flowers and other Wax-Works, Nuns-work, Philligree and Pencil Work upon Muslin, all sorts of Needle-Work, and Raising of Paste, as also to Paint upon Glass, and Transparant for Sconces, with other Works. If any young Gentlewomen, or others are inclined to learn any or all of the above-mentioned curious Works, they may be carefully instructed in the same by said Martha Gazley."
Flowered Apron
The waxwork of Martha Gazley was more fully detailed in a school advertisement of Mrs. Sarah Wilson of Philadelphia. She taught "waxworks in all its branches"; flowers, fruit, and pin-baskets, also "how to take profiles in wax." This latter was distinctly art work; and portraits of Washington and other Revolutionary heroes still exist in wax—a material that could be worked with facility; but was very perishable.