International studio (81.1925)

mteRnAtionAL

ENGLISH SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PETIT POINT PANEL In the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Needlepoint^ a Revived Elegance

Gur day is marked by Present-day decorators are Today the same compara-
a widespread revival making splendid use of this tive limitation is true—but

of interest in one of delicate needlecraft of many over a wider area a?d within

the most delicate of all turles aao & m°Xe populous cIass-

embroidery. Fifteen years Cen U " The market is crowded,

ago an example, even an un- JoknW. VANDERGOOK Tne chateaus of France
important one, of this now have been ransacked in the

flourishing craft was discoverable only by the national bankruptcy sale which has followed the

most diligent and learned of antiquarians. Today war. Exquisite pieces of petit point and gros

ancient and modern pieces of varying beauty and point which upholstered the furniture of the

value are to be found by nearly anyone nearly seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were ripped

anywhere. The "nearly" is advisable. Needle- off by dealers of greater diligence than taste,

point two hundred years ago, three hundred years Replaced by less faded coverings designed to

ago, and four centuries before that—in every era catch the dulled eyes of the New Aristocracy,

in which it has flourished—was an esoteric pos- these pieces were flung in disregarded piles in

session and a still more limited accomplishment, corners. But their unhappy tenancy was short.

SEPTEMBER I Q 2 5

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