About

Dr Isabella Rosner

Curator of the Royal School of Needlework | Research Associate at Witney Antiques | BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker | writer, producer, and host of the Sew What? podcast

Isabella Rosner is an art historian who studies material culture from the seventeenth through nineteenth century. She specialises in the study of early modern women’s needlework, especially British examples, and schoolgirl samplers across all time periods. Isabella is a 2023 BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and has recently completed her PhD at King’s College London, where she studied Quaker women’s needle, shell, and wax work before 1800. She was funded by KCL’s Centre for Doctoral Studies. The title of her thesis is ‘”Women Professing Godliness with Good Works”: British and American Quaker Women’s Art Before Ackworth and Westtown, 1650-1800’. For her PhD, Isabella focused on seventeenth-century needlework made by Quaker girls in and around London and eighteenth-century wax and shellwork made by Quaker girls and women in Philadelphia.

Isabella is the curator of the Royal School of Needlework and a research associate at Witney Antiques. Her love of working with historical objects was sparked by her internships and positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Fitzwilliam Museum, and Colonial Williamsburg. Her passion for making historic objects accessible to all led her to create Sew What?, a podcast about historic needlework and those who stitched it. Isabella writes, directs, produces, and hosts the podcast, which has thus far had 75 episodes including discussions about Gee’s bend quilts, mourning hairwork, Māori weaving, schoolgirl samplers, and interviews with textile historians, makers, researchers, and museum professionals. Sew What? has had three formal seasons and now is releasing one-off episodes on a less regular basis.

Isabella is a keen user of social media, where she shares her research and the wonders of historical embroidery with the world. She runs a successful Twitter account dedicated to her research and objects of interest and an Instagram account celebrating embroidery from all regions and time periods.

Isabella’s work appears in print often, having been published by Common Threads Press, Palgrave, Witney Antiques, Textile History, Journal of Early Modern Studies, Art Herstory, and the Costume Society’s blog among other publications. Her first book, a zine called Stitching Freedom: Embroidery and Incarceration, was published in February 2024. She has spoken virtually and in-person at venues including but not limited to the Royal School of Needlework, Decorative Arts Trust, Association for Art History, and Embroiderers’ Guild of America. She also lectures at a number of universities.

Isabella is a member of the Textile Society (UK), Textile Society of America, Costume Society of America, Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture, and the Decorative Arts Trust.