HMS Glory Trapunto - 1900 to 1904
UK Royal Navy Trapunto for a crewman from the HMS Glory, assigned to the China Station. The design consists of a panoply of naval ensigns around exquisite embroidery of Glory, surmounted by the Imperial Crown. The Glory was a purpose built Canopus class British battleship detailed to the China Station in 1900. She would be withdrawn after a treaty with the Japanese Empire reduced the need for the Royal Navy to maintain a large force patrolling the China Coast.

A trapunto is an ornately embroidered commemorative fabric. Making a trapunto involves the addition of padding behind a piece of silk, upon which elaborate designs are embroidered to create a three-dimensional image. It was not uncommon for trapuntos of the time to contain many patriotic symbols.

Many trapuntos made and sold by the George Washington Co. in Yokohama, Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Besides sailors from the Royal Navy's China station (Singapore, Hong Hong and Wei Hai Wei) and their German counterparts from the German East Asia Squadron at Tsingtao, American soldiers and sailors from the Philippines made typical customers for these embroideries. Visiting servicemen would send trapuntos home for framing as a memento service.

Compare with other Trapuntos in the Zaricor Flag Collection: ZFC0150, ZFC0284, ZFC0289
ZFC0742, ZFC1441, ZFC1489, ZFC2219 and ZFC2258

Exhibition History:
University of California - Santa Cruz
Board of Councilors Meeting, Rare Flags Exhibit
Santa Cruz, CA
7 June 2012

Provenance: Acquired in 2011 at auction from Charles Miller Ltd., London, United Kingdom.

ZFC Important Flag
Item is Framed

Sources:


Madaus, Howard M.- Whitney Smith, The American Flag: Two Centuries of Concord and Conflict, VZ Publications, Santa Cruz, 2006.

October 18th to October 25th - Yokohama, Japan, The Great White Fleet, 23 May 2012, from: http://www.greatwhitefleet.info/The_Great_White_Fleet_Japan.html

Larson, Admiral Charles R., Admiral, USN, Letter to Mr. John L. Trost, Lancaster, NY, 08/22/1996, Zaricor Flag Collection Archives.
HMS Glory, Wikipedia, 23 May 2012, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glory_%281899%29

Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection