es, the Italian raised work, are
gracious, graceful figures perfectly proportioned, and set in lovely
elegant arabesques, with no exaggeration of style or period. Some
specimens of this work must have been brought from Italy, through
France, and the English workers quickly adopted and adapted them to
their own heavier intelligence. Some of the little figures are certainly
very grotesque. Frequently the tiny little hands are larger than the
heads, but the _stitchery_ is exquisite.

No time seems to have been too long to have been spent in perfecting the
petals of a rose, the loose wing of a butterfly, or to make a realistic
curtain in fine Point lace stitches to hang from the King's canopy. Some
of the King's dresses are said to have been made of tiny treasured
pieces of his garments. There is no doubt that much devoted sentiment
was worked into these little figures, and these touches of nature add a
pathetic interest to them.

[Illustration: SUPERB EXAMPLE OF STUART PICTURE.

(_S.K.M. Collection._)]

In the illustration of "King Solomon receiving the Queen of Sheba" from
the South Kensington Collection Solomon is obviously King Charles I.,
while the Queen of Sheba is equally recognisable as Queen Henrietta
Maria. The picture is perhaps the finest in the Kensington Collection,
the colours being fresh and the work intact. The little faces are
worked over a padding of soft frayed silk or wool, the features being
drawn in fine back-stitch. Natural hair is worked on the King's and
Queen's heads, and the crowns are real gold thread set with pearls. The
canopy is worked _solidly_ in silk and gold thread, and from it hang
loose curtains in old brocade, worked over and over with gold and silken
thread.

The King's mantle and that of the Lord Chamberlain are worked in Point
lace stitches, afterwards applied to the bodies and hanging loosely. The
Queen's dress is brocade, worked over with gold and silver, while
strings of real pearls decorate the necks and wrists of the ladies, and
real white lace of the Venetian variety trims the neck and sleeves of
these fairy people. The Stuart castle we see perched up among the trees
and touching the sun's beams is more like an English farmhouse than
Whitehall. Yet either this or Windsor Castle is always supposed to be
represented.

The British lion and the leopard, again, make the identity of these
little people more certain. The quaint little trees bear most
disproportionate fruits,