“The storye of Adam there was goodly wrought
And of his wyfe Eve, bytwene them the serpente.”

In embroidered pictures the working of the nude figures on a necessarily much smaller scale would appear to have been a difficulty it was hard to contend with, and we consequently find the subject treated for the most part rather from the point of view of the animals to be introduced than from that of our first parents.

Curiously enough, Adam and Eve came to the front again as a most popular subject in samplers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at a time when a knowledge of the draughtsmanship of the human figure appeared to be even slighter than heretofore. Consequently, they were usually of the most primitive character, standing on either side of a Tree of Knowledge, from which depends the serpent.

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Fig. 56.—The Judgment of Paris. About 1630.
Late in the Author’s Collection.

Passing onwards in Bible history we find in tapestry embroideries several incidents in the life of Abraham. First the entertainment of the angels and the promise made to him; next the casting forth of Hagar and Ishmael ([Plate XV.]), oft repeated, perhaps, because of the many incidents in the story capable of illustration; then the offering up of Isaac, as illustrated in [Plate IV.] “Moses in the Bullrushes” ([Fig. 57]) completes the illustrations from the Pentateuch. Few other subjects are met with until we reach the life of David as pictured in “David and Goliath” and “David and Abigail.” To these follow the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, and the judgment of that ruler. But the most popular subject of all would seem to be the episode of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus ([Plate XVIII.]), from which Mordecai sitting in the King’s Gate, Esther adventuring on the King’s favour, the banquet to Haman, and his end on the gallows, furnished delightfully sensational episodes, although the main reason for its frequency doubtless depended upon its offering an opportunity of honouring the reigning kings and queens by figuring them as the great monarch Ahasuerus and his beautiful consort, a reason also for the frequent selection of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The only incident subsequent to this is one hardly to be expected, namely, “Susannah and the Elders,” from the Apocrypha ([Plate XIV.]). The New Testament, curiously enough, seems to have received but scant attention, even the birth of Christ being but seldom illustrated.

If space permitted it would be a matter of interest to trace the reasons for this unexpectedness of subject. It may have arisen from the fact that the English at this time were “the people of one book, and that book the Bible.” It is, however, more readily conceivable that the selection was a survival of the times when the mainstay of all the Arts was the Church, and the majority of the work, all the world over, was produced in its service, and therefore naturally was imbued with a religious flavouring.

Again, the pieces being in imitation of tapestries, the subjects would naturally follow those figured thereon. Now we find, curiously enough, in the “Story of Tapestrys in the Royal Palaces of Henry VIII.,” that whilst there were a few such subjects as “Jupiter and Juno,” and “Thebes and Troy,” the majority were the following: In the Tower of London, “Esther and Ahasuerus”; in Durham Palace, “Esther” and “Susannah”; in Cardinal Wolsey’s Palace, the “Petition of Esther,” the “Honouring of Mordecai,” and the “History of Susannah and the Elders,” bordered with the Cardinal’s arms, subjects identical with those represented in our little embroidered pictures.