8 - “A formidable undertaking”: Mrs. A. G. I. Christie and English Medieval Embroidery

Summary

A. F. Kendrick began his review of A. G. I. Christie’s English Medieval Embroideryby congratulating her on her “formidable undertaking” involving “no less than visiting, examining and (where necessary) photographing every known example of opus anglicanum in Europe. With an exemplary thoroughness and experience in stitchery few can rival, and, it seems, regardless of expense, she has laid all students of the beautiful art under a lasting debt.” This judgment, written in the year the book came out, surely still stands. There was a major exhibition of opus anglicanum in the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1963, with a helpful but brief catalogue, but this in no way replaced Mrs. Christie’s 1938 volume, with, as Kendrick also said, its “admirable illustrations, careful descriptions, and arguments on both sides.” The recently proposed project to create a new exhibition of thirteenth-century to fifteenth-century opus anglicanum and a new catalogue of English medieval embroideries from 700 to the middle of the fifteenth century cannot but build on the earlier work, and is in fact a testament to the thoroughness of the original project in establishing a true field of study.

Not all reviews of Christie’s earlier work had been as sympathetic to her approach as Kendrick’s. One, on her book Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving, while generally positive, considered she spent too much time on “unimportant stitches” at the expense of those the reviewer thought more significant, a view unlikely to be upheld by modern researchers on the development of stitch. In this respect, Christie was ahead of the game, though she was not alone, nor the first, to attempt a study of stitch. It seems useful to see where she reflected, or differed from, the intellectual background which informed her education as an embroiderer and teacher, and influenced her working life.

Who was Mrs. A. G. I. Christie?

In view of the interest in her work, which seems never to have wavered until the present, one might expect a great deal to be known about Mrs. Christie. Published details of her life are, however, surprisingly sparse, given her fame among students and specialists of early medieval embroidery.