Doe and Hope

Description

The Regency silk needlework pictures presented in their original gilt-wood frames, one a portrait of a girl with skipping rope in a verre eglomise mount and the other depicting ‘The flight into Egypt’ both surviving from the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

The pictures and frames are in decorative and tired condition but remain stable, beautifully decayed but still in original un-meddled with a condition, which is always what, we look for. The gilding to each frame is beautifully decorative. The threads themselves are fairly good in the main though the pale backgrounds to each have thin tears.

The flight into Egypt is a biblical event described in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 213-23), in which Joseph fled to Egypt with his wife Mary and infant son Jesus after a visit by Magi because they learn that King Herod intends to kill the infants of that area. The episode is frequently shown in art, as the final episode of the Nativity of Jesus in art, and was a common component in cycles of the Life of the Virgin as well as the Life of Christ. The colours used in this example are still vivid and the depictions are charmingly naïve.

Girls pictured with skipping ropes and hoops are also a favoured Georgian pose for children in portraiture and always command high prices when depicted in oils or watercolours. The subject is charming and the whole has a beautiful serenity to it.

There is always something of the regal decay and the glory of old that we look for in objects, and these just have it. There isn’t a word to describe it.