Picture or panel depicting Spring and quoting from epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596) by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), silk embroidered on linen or possibly silk, probably British, ca. 1900-1914

Picture or panel depicting Spring and quoting from epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596) by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599). Text reads reads ‘SPRING ALL DIGHT / IN LEAVES OF FLOWES / THAT FRESHLY BUDDED & / NEW BLOOMS DID BEARE. / E. SPENSER’. Linen or possibly silk embroidered with silk. The embroidery was carried out in stem stitch, back stitch and satin stitch.

Gift of Ian and Rita Smythe

Hand embroidery was an important aspect of the Arts and Crafts and connected Art Nouveau movements. William Morris and others, dissatisfied with the often formulaic and bright Berlin woolwork fashionable throughout most of the nineteenth century, ushered in what Linda Parry terms an ‘artistic re-appraisal of the craft in the 1870s’ (Linda Parry, Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, new ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005), p. 29). The embroideries associated with this re-appraisal were influenced by the period’s interest in both nature and the classical world as sources of forms and inspiration. Such pieces featured a wide range of stitches and the subtle shades favoured by Arts and Crafts designers and makers. Brighter colours and more stylised figures emerged as Art Nouveau rose to prominence towards the end of the century. Many of the designs were produced by leading artists, such as Selwyn Image. Originally the embroideries were worked at homes, usually by the designers’ female relatives. Later, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau embroidery was also made professionally and came to be known as Art Needlework. Societies such as The Royal School of Art Needlework, founded in 1872, produced, sold and exhibited pieces, as well as selling designs and partially completed embroideries to home embroiderers. In 1873 this School held an exhibition at the South Kensington Museum, which would become the V&A.

This picture or panel is a striking example of Art Nouveau design. It includes a quotation from a poem and in this way points towards the rich connections which existed between the design movements in question and literature.

T.75-2019