A rare Arts & Crafts crewelwork screen
English, in the Jacobean/Carolean revival style, circa 1900.
Height: 7ft 1 in (216cm) Width: 7ft 10in (240cm)
Crewelwork hangings were a popular form of English domestic furnishing in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The designs were influenced by contemporary Indian embroidered, printed and painted textiles imported into Europe by the East India Company.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, English crewelwork experienced a revival as fashionable furnishings.William Morris, together with his daughter May, is credited with the revival of the techniques of tapestry and embroidery based on classical Gothic to 17th and 18th centuries styles, though he developed the style which would be termed Art Needlework, under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement. After Morris died in 1896 his assistant John Henry Dearle, took over the company and with May designed folding screens with embroidery.
Following on many work societies were established (over thirty in England) for the training and teaching of needlework, mainly by ladies, which also promoted: charity, missionary, social and welfare work.
Art needlework was introduced to America at the 1876 Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia and in 1896 the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework was established, first to preserve early American Colonial Embroidery and later create their own designs and works using their vegetable dyes and was active until 1926.
The present screen, embellished with French knots and speckling, of bright and exotic patterns of highly stylised flora and fauna, is based on designs from the Jacobean and Carolean periods and has been relined due to the weight of the crewel work.
Price : P.O.A.
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