This pillow features Royal Silk Embroidery with a knife edge finish. In 1599, Nicholas Hilliard painted an iconic portrait of Queen Elizabeth I wearing an intricately embellished gown, a gift from Bess of Hardwick that demonstrated her unwavering support of the Queen. It is that gown that was the inspiration for Royal Silk Embroidery, the debut design in our collection, which focuses on creating the most rarefied patterns in an effort to support age-old techniques. With its lavishly embroidered mythical sea creatures, exotic flora, and fanciful birds - each painstakingly hand-stitched on a fine pearl-hued silk-linen ground - the fabric captures the elegance and eccentricity of the original dress. Remarkably, it takes a team of 25 artisans - including weavers, dyers, embroidered, and more - a total of 30 weeks to produce just 100 yards of this exquisite fabric that contains 58 distinct, hand-dyed colours. We think it’s still a design fit for a queen! The back of the pillow is Venetian silk velvet. Pillow includes a feather/down fill insert and hidden zipper closure.