1 10 2 https://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/333d079b61bcbdfcabe72b873fe2922b.jpg 840b416fb4add6b8b8c43f98e28e299b Exhibition Item Title Embroidered Footstool Category Textiles Description This walnut and inlaid footstool with Berlin wool needlework top was made by John Taylor & Sons, Edinburgh, ca. 1850. It is square, with carved scroll feet and a geometrical coloured inlaid border around the lower edge. The needlework top features a design of a fox head in semi-profile surrounded by winter foliage reminiscent of Victorian Christmas decorations, with a coloured braided cord forming a border on the upper edge. The footstool is stamped underneath with the maker’s mark. An amateur may have made the embroidered top. Footstools existed in the eighteenth century, but the great age for production and use was the nineteenth century, with a peak of newspaper advertising between the 1860s and 1880s. They came in numerous styles, but were typically small wooden objects with an upholstered top covered in fancy textiles often, as in this case, featuring embroidery. Footstools were intended to raise the feet out of draughts and damp floors in houses and churches. They were found in sitting or drawing rooms in spaces usually associated with middle class women. They served various functions in addition to acting as footrest, with contemporary images showing them used as seating for small children or pet dogs and also supporting piles of books and papers. The homemade footstool featuring elaborate and time-consuming embroidery was a display item and often gifted within families. John Taylor & Sons, sometimes styled ‘Cabinetmakers to the Queen’ were founded in Edinburgh in 1825 with premises in West Thistle Street, moving to 109 Princes Street by mid century, where they had extensive retail premises and a workshop and offices behind, and also establishing a more extensive workshop – the Rosemount Cabinetworks – to the west of the city, close to Haymarket railway station. At the Census of 1851, the founder, a wright by training, employed 90 men and four apprentices, one of them his own son who was an apprentice cabinetmaker. John Taylor & Sons designed, made and retailed footstools, possibly employing female needle workers in their premises, or more likely as outworkers, to make the elaborate textile covers, which comprised a large part of the value of the object. They might also have purchased the embroidered tops ready made, since there was significant importing of made panels for sale, mostly produced in Europe and described as ‘German Embroidery.’ This type of needlework, using popular Berlin wool, which was retailed through many premises for home use, was also undertaken by amateur embroiderers and the company catered for this market, as it announced in the Scotsman in 1855 as part of a larger advertisement for their ‘cabinet furniture manufactured in their own works’: J. T. & S. devote great attention to the Making Up of SEWED WORK into CHAIRS, OTTOMANS, CUSHIONS, FENDER and FOOTSTOOLS and they execute Designs specially to suit the WORK. Image copyright National Museums Scotland Item Location National Museums Scotland Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Embroidered Footstool, John Taylor & Sons, ca. 1850 amateur Edinburgh embroiderers middle class needlework textiles women craftworkers https://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/e65161bbcaf78d2fb500834894ef1164.jpg 6eb3ea8545ff874739852c3f19f957d3 Exhibition Item Title Glass Epergne Category Glass and Ceramics Description This cut glass epergne (table centrepiece) has 40 separate pieces. It is about a meter in height and was made by the Holyrood Flint Glass Company, Edinburgh, between 1840 and 1842, to mark the accession of Queen Victoria. An epergne was a glittering centrepiece for a dinner table and was often the largest and most valuable item of tableware on display. They were made of silver or glass or both, in multiple pieces, often embellished with coats of arms. Epergnes were sometimes made as wedding gifts or as commemorative presentation pieces to mark a special event. They were popular in the eighteenth century when they normally included bowls for candid fruits or nuts and they also typically held candles. In the nineteenth century, with changes in the way that meals were served and the introduction of oil lamps, the epergne was less likely to be used as a food container or for lighting effects and was either entirely decorative or held flower arrangements. This epergne was made for a royal table setting and was used on state occasions at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. It was also displayed at the international exhibition displays that were mounted by the company – as in Edinburgh in 1886. The Holyrood Glass Company, with factory premises at the South Back of Canongate and a shop in central Edinburgh, was one of several celebrated glass making firms in Edinburgh. In 1868 it employed over 200 men and maintained mass production alongside higher end craft output, with a group of about 40 skilled engravers or glasscutters and apprentices. The owner of the company mid century, John Ford, who took over from an uncle, was apprentice trained as a glasscutter, making a cut glass fruit bowl as his apprenticeship piece. The company also maintained a strong relationship with a glass engraving workshop, J.H.B Millar, founded in the 1850s by a Bohemian entrepreneur with Bohemian workmen. J.H.B Millar was particularly associated with the development of the Scottish fern pattern design. This glass epergne represents a spectacular display of craftsmanship and ingenious design, with numerous cut glass elements in the eight separate bowls and on the upper section, which is topped with a glass replica of a crown and a Maltese cross. Richard Hunter, foreman glasscutter for the Holyrood Glass Company, made and probably also designed the piece, taking two years to complete it and bringing prestige and publicity for his employers in the process. The company was know for table pieces with a high craft input, including their specialist lines in cut glass lamps, some decorated with ceramic cameos and brass fixings. Other items were made for royal customers including a cut glass toilet service for Princess Beatrice in 1897, which was describe in the Edinburgh Evening News as intended for use at Balmoral but also on show at the company premises at 39 Princess Street Edinburgh for a few days prior to dispatch. But most of the company’s output and their main source of revenue were more prosaic and comprise mass produced glassware for the middle class home Image copyright Museum of Edinburgh Item Location Museum of Edinburgh Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Glass Epergne, Holyrood Flint Glass Company, ca.1841 apprentices Bohemia Brass ceramics Edinburgh engravers exhibitions fern pattern glass middle class Queen Victoria silver tableware