Description and Details
A long wool needlepoint panel dating to the 1920s or 1930s, hand worked in the revival style of early seventeenth-century Jacobean needlework. Its elongated composition was designed for a window seat, long bench or fender stool, although it could also be finished as a table runner or framed for display.
The design is arranged within three linked architectural cartouches, framed by scrolling acanthus-leaf strapwork. The large central compartment contains a traditional Tree of Life, with a leaping stag and a hound on a grassy knoll. The flanking compartments contain balanced floral arrangements of carnations, pansies and formal roses, drawing on Tudor and Jacobean garden motifs.
The embroidery is worked in even gros point tent stitch, using sage greens, dusty rose, soft mauve, ochre and slate blue. This deliberately muted palette gives the work the softened appearance associated with older country-house needlework, rather than indicating that the panel itself dates from the period its design recalls.
The oatmeal-coloured canvas retains generous, intact unworked margins around the embroidery. These provide room for fitting the panel to a suitable seat or stool, or for mounting it for display. The canvas remains crisp and firm, and the panel is in excellent structural condition.
The wool embroidery is clean, with no thinning, missing stitches or moth damage. Its colours remain well balanced and retain their depth. A few light, localised water or age marks occur in the lower unworked canvas margin, entirely clear of the stitched design. These can be kept out of view within an appropriately planned upholstery or framing arrangement, without cutting away the original margins.
The complete canvas measures 213 × 54.5 cm (approximately 84 × 21½ inches). The embroidered area measures 162.5 × 36 cm (approximately 64 × 14¼ inches).
