It is strange to see these old Jacobean hangings (perhaps the drapery of the now tabooed four-post bedstead), which might some thirty years ago have been carried off for the asking, sell at Christie's for £800, as happened in the dispersal of the Massey-Mainwaring sale last year. Even a panel of no use except to frame as a picture, say 4 feet by 3 feet, will fetch £30 and a full-sized bed-cover can only be bought for over £100. The reason is not far to seek. The colouring and the drawing of this fine old Crewel-work are exquisite (even though the design savours of the grotesque), and Time has dealt very leniently with the dyes. I endeavoured to match some of these old worsteds a little time ago, and though able to find the colours, could not get the tone. After much tribulation I was advised to hang the skeins of worsted on the trees in the garden and forget all about them, and certainly wind and weather have softened the somewhat garish worsteds to the soft, fade colours of the old work.
The same class of embroidery was executed during the reign of Queen Anne, though she herself did little of it. Costly silks and brocades and Venetian laces were the dress of the day, and no little dainty accessories appear to have been made.
XI
PICTORIAL
NEEDLEWORK
OF THE
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
