Gloves of this type, made for show rather than everyday wear, were very fashionable in the early seventeenth century. There are some spectacular examples in the Historic Glove Collection. We do not know if these gloves were made for a man or a woman as the sizing of gloves at this period was not very exact. It was fashionable for both sexes to wear highly decorative and colourful forms of dress.
Buff leather glove with attached gauntlet of cream satin embroidered with pink silk cord, gold thread, seed pearls and gilt spangles in a design of carnations, roses and possibly cornflowers surmounting the pelican in her piety. Trimmed with salmon pink silk ribbon and gilt bobbin lace.
The 'pelican in her piety' was a very popular embroidery motif in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods and refers to the legend of the pelican plucking her breast to feed her young with her blood - a symbol of selfless love.