Needlework As Art Part 48

Part of James II.'s Coronation Dress.

From an old Print.]

Occasionally, however, we meet with pieces of exceptionally beautiful work of the end of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries. The style is the most refined Louis Quatorze, but the work is actually English. The white satin coverlets belonging to the Marquis of Bath and the Duke of Leeds are not to be exceeded in delicacy and splendour. The embroidered dresses of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham, in Westminster Abbey (early eighteenth century) are of this description.

From Queen Anne to George III., a great deal of furniture was covered with the different cushion st.i.tches, either in geometrical or kaleidoscope patterns, or else displaying groups of flowers or figures, quaint and sometimes pretty. These designs are generally, however, wanting in grace, and their German feeling shows them to be the precursors of the Berlin wool patterns.

When the crewel-work hangings ceased to be the fashion, home work took another direction. All the ladies imitated Indian dimity patterns, on muslin, in coloured silks or thread, with the tambour-frame and needle;[613] but in 1707 the "Broiderers' Company," we presume, found that the Indian manufactures were engrossing the market, and a fresh statute was obtained, forbidding the importation from India of any wrought material. This cruel prohibition carried its own punishment.

The Indian trade was ours, and we might have adapted and a.s.similated the Indian taste for design. We might have brought over men and women great in their most ancient craft, and so produced the most splendid Indo-English School. The Portuguese at least sent out their own silks and satins to be worked at Goa; _we_ threw away our chance, and signed the death-warrant of our art.

About the middle of the last century, several ladies, notably Miss Linwood, Miss Moritt, of Rokeby, and Mrs. Delany, copied pictures in worsteds. Some of these are wonderfully clever and even very pretty, but they are rather a painful effort of pictorial art under difficulties, than legitimate embroideries. These pictures would have served the purpose of decoration better as medallions in the centres of arabesque panels, than framed and glazed in imitation of oil paintings. Some of the followers of this school produced works that are shocking to all artistic sense, especially as seen now, when the moths have spoiled them. They can only be cla.s.sed with such abortive attempts at decoration as gla.s.s cases filled with decayed stuffed birds, and vases of faded and broken wax flowers.

I may record with praise the efforts of Mrs. Pawsey,[614] a lady who started a school of needlework at Aylesbury. She was patronized by Queen Charlotte; and for her she worked the beautiful bed at Hampton Court, of purple satin, with wreaths of flowers in crewels touched up with silk, which look as if they might have been copied from the flower-pieces of a Dutch master. The execution is very fine, and reminds one of the best French work of the same period. Mrs. Pawsey taught and helped ladies to embroider in silk and chenille, as well as crewels, and in many country houses we can recognize specimens of her style; usually on screens worked in silk and chenille, with bunches of flowers in vases or baskets, artistically designed.

This was our last attempt at excellence, immediately followed by the total collapse of our decorative needlework, and the advent of the Berlin wool patterns.

POSTSCRIPT.

A postscript to this chapter will perhaps be acceptable to those who have taken an interest in the "History of English Embroidery," and who will therefore care to know about the revival which has filled so many workshops with what is now called "Art Needlework."

There was a public demand for something better than the worsted patterns in the trade, and the Royal School of Art Needlework rose and tried to respond to that call by stimulating original ideas and designs, and imitating old ones in conformity with modern requirements. The difficulties to be overcome were at first very great. The old st.i.tches had all to be learned and then taught, and the best methods to be selected; the proper materials had to be studied and obtained--sometimes they had to be manufactured. Lastly, beautiful tints had to be dyed; avoiding, as much as possible, the gaudy and the evanescent.

The project of such a school was first conceived in the autumn of 1872.

Lady Welby, herself an accomplished embroideress, had the courage to face all the difficulties of such an undertaking. A small apartment was hired in Sloane Street, and Mrs. Dolby, who was already an authority on ecclesiastical work, gave her help. Twenty young ladies were selected, and several friends joined heartily in fostering the movement.

H.R.H. the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein gave her name as President, and her active co-operation.[615]

The school grew so fast, that for want of s.p.a.ce for the work-frames, it had to remove into a larger house, No. 31, Sloane Street, and finally in the year 1875 it found its present home in Exhibition Road, when the Queen became its Patron. In 1878 the a.s.sociation was incorporated under the Board of Trade, with a Managing and a Finance Committee, and a salaried manager to overlook the whole concern.

From 100 to 150 ladies at a time have there received employment. Their claims were poverty, gentle birth, and sufficient capacity to enable them to support themselves and be educated to teach others.

Branch schools have been started throughout the United Kingdom and in America.[616]

The education of the school has been much a.s.sisted by the easy access to the fine collections of ancient embroideries in the Kensington Museum, and by the loan exhibition of old artistic work, which was there organized in 1875, at the suggestion of H.R.H. the President; and since then there have been three very interesting loan exhibitions in the rooms of the Royal School.

It was, indeed, necessary that the acting members should avail themselves of every means of instruction, in order to fit themselves for the task they had undertaken. They were expected at once to be competent to judge all old work, to name its style and date, and even sometimes its market value. They were to be able to repair and add to all old work; to know and teach every st.i.tch, ancient and modern; and produce designs for any period, Gothic, Renaissance, Elizabethan, James I., or Queen Anne; besides contemporary European work,--all different, and each requiring separate study.

Some important works have been produced which will ill.u.s.trate what has been said:--

1. A suite of window curtains for her Majesty, at Windsor (style, nineteenth century; sunflowers).

2. Curtains for a drawing-room for the d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleuch: crimson velvet and gold applique (Louis Quatorze).

3. Curtain for Louisa, Lady Ashburton: coloured silk embroidery on white satin (Venetian, sixteenth century).

4. Curtain, also for Louisa, Lady Ashburton: brown velvet and gold applique (_Italian_).

5. Dado for the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham: linen and crewels. Peac.o.c.ks and vines (_Mediaeval_).

6. Furnishings and hangings for state bedroom for Countess Cowper, Panshanger: crimson satin, embroidered and coloured silks (_Chinese_).

7. Curtains for music gallery for Mr. Arthur Balfour: blue silk, applique, velvet, and gold (_Italian_).

The earnest attempt to produce an artistic school of embroidery met with recognition and help from the highest authorities. Sir F.

Leighton granted permission for appeals to his judgment. Mr. Burne Jones, Mr. Morris, Mr. Walter Crane, and Mr. Wade gave original designs.

We cannot guess whether the taste which has sprung up again so suddenly will last. Perhaps its catholicity may prolong its popularity, and something absolutely new in style may be evolved, which shall revive the credit of the "opus Anglicanum." Of one thing we may be sure--that it is inherent in the nature of Englishwomen to employ their fingers. And the busy as well as the ignorant need a guide to the principles of design, as well as the technical details of the art of embroidery. This should be supplied by the Royal School of Art Needlework, which by inculcating careful drawing, by reviving old traditions and criticizing fresh ideas, becomes a guarantee for the improvement of domestic decorative design.

FOOTNOTES:

[555] "The people of Babylon, the Accadians, had a written literature and a civilization superior to that of the conquering a.s.syrians, who borrowed their art of writing, and probably their culture, which may have been the centre and starting-point of the western civilization of Asia, and therefore the origin of our own. Accadian civilization was anterior to that of the Phnicians and the Greeks, and is now received in these later years as the original form, and become again the heritage of mankind. It has been said that a.s.syrian art was dest.i.tute of originality, and to that of the Accadians, which they adopted, we ourselves owe our first customs and ideas. Four thousand years ago these people possessed a culture which in many of its details resembles that of our country and time."--"a.s.syrian Life and History," p. 66, by M. Harkness and Stuart Poole.

[556] "The arts of spinning and the manufacture of linen were introduced into Europe and drifted into Britain in the Neolithic Age. They have been preserved with but little variation from that period down to the present day in certain remote parts of Europe, and have only been superseded in modern times by the complicated machinery so familiar to us.... The spindle and distaff are proved by the perforated spindle-whorls, made of stone, pottery, or bone, commonly met with in Neolithic habitations or tombs. The thread is proved, by discoveries in the Swiss lakes, to have been made of flax; and the combs that have been found for pushing the threads of the warp on the weft show that it was woven into linen on some sort of loom."--Boyd Dawkins' "Early Man in Britain," p. 275.

[557] I am aware that the presence of the Phnicians (or Carthaginians) on our coasts has been disputed; but I think that the evidence of the Etruscan ornaments I have mentioned gives more than probability to the truth of Pliny's account of the expedition of Himilco from Gades, 500 B.C. By some he is supposed to have been a contemporary of Hanno, and of the third century B.C.

There is some confusion in the imperfect record of the voyage; but it is difficult to interpret it otherwise than that he touched at several points north of Gaul.

(See Boyd Dawkins' "Early Man in Britain," pp. 457-461; see also Perrot and Chipiez, "L'Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquite," t. iii.; "Phenicie et Cypre," p. 48.) For a contrary opinion, see Elton's "Origins of English History." Elton ascribes the first knowledge of the British islands to the voyage of Pytheas in the fourth century B.C.; he acknowledges that the geography of Britain was well known to the Greeks in the time of Alexander the Great. We owe to Pliny and Strabo the few fragments from Pytheas that have been rescued from oblivion, and to Pliny the notices of Himilco. (See Bouillet's "Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Geographie.")

[558] See Rock's Introduction to "Textile Fabrics," p.

xii.

[559] I give the following amusing tradition, which was probably founded on the celebrity of the English pearl embroidery of the Anglo-Saxon times, of which much went to Rome:--

"Then Caesar, like a conqueror, with a great number of prisoners sailed into France, and so to Rome, where after his return out of Brytaine, hee consecrated to Venus a surcote of Brytaine pearles, the desire whereof partly moved him to invade this country."--(Stow's "Annales," p. 14, ed. 1634.) Tacitus, in the Agricola 12, says that British pearls are grey and livid.

[560] See Rock's Introduction to "Textile Fabrics," p.

xii.

[561] These are the poor results of the Roman invasion and neglect of Britain during their occupation. The second invasion of Britain by the Romans, under Claudius, was caused by the squabbles between the chiefs of the different tribes. Comnenus, the prince of the Atrebates, was at war with the sons of Cun.o.belinus (Cymbeline). He took his grievances to Rome, and the Roman legions were despatched to settle the matter, and to dazzle the world by the echoes rather than the facts of the triumphant victories in the land of the "wintry pole." Claudius marched with elephants clad in mail, and bearing turrets filled with slingers and bowmen, accompanied by Belgic pikemen and Batavians from the islands in the Rhine, A.D. 44. The dress of Claudius on his return from Britain was purple, with an ivory sceptre and crown of gold oak leaves. One officer alone was ent.i.tled to wear a tunic embroidered with golden palms, in token of a former victory. The Celts, the Gauls, the Gaels, the Picts, the Scots, and the Saxons,--all crowded and settled in Britain when the Romans left it in 410, after nearly four hundred years of misgovernment. (See Elton's "Origins of English History," pp. 306-308.)

[562] Semper, "Der Stil," pp. 133, 134. See Louis Viardot, "Des Origines Traditionnelles de la Peinture en Italie" (Paris, 1840), p. 53, note. Also see "Les Ducs de Bourgogne," part ii. vol. ii. p. 243, No. 4092.

Muratori was born in 1672; and he says the Empress Helena's work was in existence in the beginning of the eighteenth century. (See p. 316, _ante_.)

[563] When St. Augustine (546) came to preach to the Anglo-Saxons, he had a banner, fastened to a cross, carried before him, on which was embroidered the image of our Lord. (See Mrs. Lawrence's "Woman in England,"

pp. 296, 297.) Probably this was Roman work.

[564] Quoted by Mrs. Lawrence, "Woman in England," p.

49, from one of Adhelme's Latin poems. Adhelme, Bishop of Sherborne, died in 709, having been thirty years a bishop. He wrote Latin poems, of which the most important, in praise of virginity, is in the Lambeth Library, No. 200. The MS. contains his portrait. See Strutt's "English Dresses," ed. Planche.

[565] An Anglo-Saxon lady named Aedelswitha, living near Whitby, in the sixth century, collected a number of girls and taught them to produce admirable embroideries for the benefit of the monastery. (See Rock's "Church of our Fathers," p. 273; also his Introduction to "Textiles," p. xxvii.) Bock speaks of Hrothgar's tapestries, embroidered with gold, of the thirteenth century. See Appendix 8. But the earliest English tapestry I have seen is that in York Minster, in which are inwoven the arms of Scrope, 1390. Wright says of the Anglo-Saxon women, "In their chamber, besides spinning and weaving, the ladies were employed in needlework and embroidery, and the Saxon ladies were so skilful in this art, that their works were celebrated on the Continent."--"History of Manners in England during the Middle Ages," by Thomas Wright, p. 52.

[566] See Mrs. Lawrence's "Woman in England," i. p.

296-7.

[567] See Rock's "Church of our Fathers," ii. p. 272, quoting Th. Stubbs. "Acta Pontif. Th. ed. Twysden," 1.

ii. p. 1699; also Bock's "Liturgische Gewander," i. p.

212, and p. 325 _ante_.