Tray cloth

This tray cloth is hand embroidered with shields: the left one for Quimper in Brittany, the bottom for France and the right for Dinan (also in Brittany). The top scroll is in Latin ‘potius mori quam foedari’, means ‘death before dishonour’; this is the motto of the Dukes of Brittany. This traycloth was probably given to Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) by Elma Stuart who lived in Dinan. The two women corresponded from 1872 until Mary Ann’s death in 1880.