This crewelwork embroidery—fanned fronds on neatly coiled stalks—demonstrates the effectiveness of a limited color palette, which was popular in seventeenth century.  Blue and green twisted wool threads are combined harmoniously on the linen ground to create the bold contours of the foliage and the delicate details within the forms. This design, though essentially Baroque in nature, was strongly influenced by the exotic painted cotton palampores of India, which were themselves a mixture of Oriental and Western decorative vocabularies. This panel was likely part of a larger curtain.

Provenance: Ex-collection Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Salem, NC.