Highland Scene Silk Embroidery, Scotland, circa 1830
Price: $1950, Size of the needlework 17" x 25¾"

This is a large and beautifully worked sentimental scene set in the Scottish highlands, complete with a bagpiper, a young couple and a pair of cherubic children, all of them dressed in classic attire of the highlands. Brightly colored plaids, argyle socks, a tam-o-shanter hat and a lustrous edging to the pink skirt provide wonderful decoration. The wooly sheep, depicted in French knots, and the richly shaded dog are nestled into a lush, green landscape. A large Scottish thistle grows in the foreground. Enormous thought and fine work supply interesting details to both the needlework and the paint: note the tiny seed stitches worked onto the mountains throughout the background. The faces are painted like miniature portraits on ivory, and must have been done by a painter with talent and experience.

As was typically the case with silk embroidered pictures, this is unsigned. We can be certain that it was hung with pride in the maker's home and admired by family and friends.

A very similar silk embroidery is published in Catalogue of Embroideries: The Lady Lever Art Gallery by Xanthe Brooke on page 173 and it is suggested that the source came from an engraving that illustrated a scene from a novel by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Our embroidery is more fully developed and more skillfully worked than the published example but the similarities are easily apparent.

Worked in silk, wool and paint on silk, it is in excellent condition with very slight darkening in the sky. It is in a black and gold molded and painted frame.