'King Charles I bidding farewell to his children' worked in coloured wools by Jane Edwards; English, 1850-75

Needlework picture, coloured wools in cross-stitch on canvas. King Charles I is seated in a lofty compartment, the Duke of Gloucester is on his left knee and Princess Elizabeth is leaning on the back of his chair. There is a dog beside the group. In the background to the right is valuted passage, with a halberdier and a musketeer on guard duty.

Given by Mrs Christine Jordan

Embroidered from a commercially-bought kit by Jane Brumlen (nee Edwards, d.1909). The embroiderer was an enthusiastic needlewoman, originally ten of her pictures were offered to the V&A by Mrs Christine Jordan, of which this and one other were accepted (T.8-1927, a picture after Charles Landseer's painting Mary Queen of Scots mourning over the dying Douglas at the Battle of Langside). This picture was loaned to the Bethnal Green Museum (now V&A Museum of Childhood) in 1927, and later transferred to their collection.

Other pictures worked by the same lady are in the collections of the Museum of London, the National Museum of Scotland, Reading Museum and Towneley Hall Museum, Burnley.

Charles I last saw his surviving children who were still in England at the Greyhound Inn, Maidenhead, in 1647, under Parliamentary supervision.

Berlin woolwork was completed by following a pattern on a marked canvas ground or by counting stitches on a separate squared painted paper pattern. Each square represented a stitch and the work was carred out in brightly coloured merino wools in very simple tent or cross stitch. These kits acquired their name from the first examples, produced in Germany at the start of the 19th century. They heralded an entirely new, easy and quick form of amateur embroidery which could be done by anyone irrespective of their level of technical or artistic skills. By the 1830s, London shops began to sell English printed patterns, wools and even canvases already marked with patterns. Hundreds of thousands of panels - for upholstery, cushions, firescreens, slippers, bags, waistcoats, as well as pictures - were worked. Many are large-scale, with complex patterns and compositions. By the 1870s shop selling needlework equipment were referred to as 'Berlin Warehouses'.

T.7-1927