Doe and Hope

Description

Using two yarns in wool, and of good size, the beautiful crewelwork wall hanging, with a symmetrical stylised floral pattern in pastel shades of powder blues, rose pinks and tea greens, to a soft sand ground, the many flowers to include several chrysanthemums, the whole worked in two sections and hanging from a later pine baton and professionally backed and surviving from late nineteenth century England.

Condition wise the piece has a glorious all over soft fade and remains in good overall condition. The sides are a little tatty and there is one one-penny sized hole to the mid-lower section and there a handful of areas of thinning showing the base.

Crewel embroidery, or crewelwork, is a type of surface embroidery using wool. A wide variety of different embroidery stitches are used to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old. The origin of the word crewel is unknown but is thought to come from an ancient word describing the curl in the staple, the single hair of the wool. Crewel wool has a long staple it is fine and can be strongly twisted. This particular example was probably a bed hanging, due to its size.

Makes for a very pretty addition to soften and add texture to any room.