Artwork story
About The Tree of Life
The artist and artwork
An unknown British maker stitched The Tree of Life during the first half of the seventeenth century. The Met suggests that a female amateur probably used a professionally prepared kit outlined on canvas. She worked the surface with silk thread in tent, Gobelin, and couching stitches. The 22-by-24-inch panel is embroidery: every bird, animal, leaf, fruit, cloud, and ripple was built with a needle across the canvas grid.
The world around it
The piece belongs to the domestic needlework culture of Tudor and Stuart Britain. Figurative embroidery decorated cushions and table or cupboard carpets, turning household furnishings into displays of skill, learning, and means. Needlework was associated with girls' education but was also professional work. Printed pattern books became available, while botanical publications, imported flowers, gardening, and experiments such as grafting fed curiosity about natural forms. A prepared design could therefore bring commercial print culture, household education, and the era's growing botanical interests together in one room.
A detail to notice
The central tree organizes a miniature world. Its straight trunk rises from a dark animal at the roots and divides curling branches loaded with fruits and flowers. Birds perch, fly, and feed among the leaves; deer, sheep, rabbits, a snail, and other creatures occupy the ground. Along the bottom, a separate band of water contains fish and waterbirds, while clouds, sun, and moon complete the sky above. The arrangement is decorative, but it also recalls Biblical abundance: the animals of Creation and the promised celestial Tree of Life. The maker followed an outlined kit rather than inventing the whole composition from nothing, yet the thousands of silk stitches remain evidence of individual labor. It made an indoor garden that never stopped blooming.
Look closer: materials, scale, and subjects
The recorded object is embroidered picture made in Canvas worked with silk thread; tent, Gobelin, and couching stitches and held in the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts department.
Recorded dimensions include H. 22 1/2 x W. 24 1/8 inches (57.2 x 61.3 cm);; Framed dim.: H. 25 1/2 x W. 27 1/4 x D. 2 1/4 inches (64.8 x 69.2. x 5.7 cm).
Subject terms include Birds, Fruit, Unicorns, Peacocks, Camels, and Deer. Treat them as guideposts, not a complete interpretation.
Collection history and public-domain source
The collection credit line is Gift of Irwin Untermyer, 1964.
The individual artwork page and official image were verified as Public Domain on 2026-08-23.
No Context Gallery independently uses the public-domain image. The source museum has not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated itself with these products.
Research sources
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