DOI issue:
No. 94 (December, 1904)
DOI article:Strange, Edward F.: Needlework at the Liverpool School of Art
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26963#0187
Needlework at Liverpool
EMBROIDERED SIDEBOARD CLOTH
DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY GWENDOLEN PARRY
Needlework at the Liver-
pool SCHOOL OF ART. BY
EDWARD F. STRANGE.
Of all the handicrafts of old time, none is
more pleasant and more beautiful than the most
ancient study of needlework, none better fitted,
as Adrian Poyntz put it some three hundred years
ago, to “sattisfy the gentle mindes of vertuous
women.” Once it was a great and noble occu-
pation, an essential of all completed education,
a means of recording the
triumphs of war and of
the chase, of displaying by-
gone histories and familiar
moralities in a convenient
manner which added sub-
stantially to comfort if not
to edification. From the
great achievements of
tapestry—the epic period
of the craft—it declined,
by way of the adornment
of chasuble, cope, and altar
frontal; and further, but
still pleasantly, by that of
the making of lace and
book-binding, to the
samplers and needlework
imitations of pictures of the
eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries; and again
to the crochet and tatting
of the early Victorian age ;
preserving even at this
lowest level an uncommon
amount of unintelligent
ingenuity and misapplied
restore something of its ancient worth and dignity
to the time-honoured industry, to invest it with
new forms and new uses, and to place it once
again on the high-road to its ancient office.
We have, nowadays, little occasion—perhaps
unhappily, little time—for the making of tapestry
hangings. The Church is once again demanding,
and to some extent receiving, the services of skilled
needlewomen. But secular employment abounds ;
and the finely-furnished house offers large and
generous opportunities for good and artistic work.
DESIGNED AND EXECUTED
BY GWENDOLEN PARRY
purpose. It has remained
for our own generation to
EMBROIDERED TABLE CLOTH
147
EMBROIDERED SIDEBOARD CLOTH
DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY GWENDOLEN PARRY
Needlework at the Liver-
pool SCHOOL OF ART. BY
EDWARD F. STRANGE.
Of all the handicrafts of old time, none is
more pleasant and more beautiful than the most
ancient study of needlework, none better fitted,
as Adrian Poyntz put it some three hundred years
ago, to “sattisfy the gentle mindes of vertuous
women.” Once it was a great and noble occu-
pation, an essential of all completed education,
a means of recording the
triumphs of war and of
the chase, of displaying by-
gone histories and familiar
moralities in a convenient
manner which added sub-
stantially to comfort if not
to edification. From the
great achievements of
tapestry—the epic period
of the craft—it declined,
by way of the adornment
of chasuble, cope, and altar
frontal; and further, but
still pleasantly, by that of
the making of lace and
book-binding, to the
samplers and needlework
imitations of pictures of the
eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries; and again
to the crochet and tatting
of the early Victorian age ;
preserving even at this
lowest level an uncommon
amount of unintelligent
ingenuity and misapplied
restore something of its ancient worth and dignity
to the time-honoured industry, to invest it with
new forms and new uses, and to place it once
again on the high-road to its ancient office.
We have, nowadays, little occasion—perhaps
unhappily, little time—for the making of tapestry
hangings. The Church is once again demanding,
and to some extent receiving, the services of skilled
needlewomen. But secular employment abounds ;
and the finely-furnished house offers large and
generous opportunities for good and artistic work.
DESIGNED AND EXECUTED
BY GWENDOLEN PARRY
purpose. It has remained
for our own generation to
EMBROIDERED TABLE CLOTH
147