quarters, or
given to dependants, who used them constantly, shaking and keeping
them in repair, as the eighteenth-century housewives liked to keep their
homes swept and garnished.

[Illustration: NEEDLEWORK PICTURE OF QUEEN ANNE PERIOD.

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

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 L800, 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 L30 and a full-sized bed-cover can only be bought for over
L100. 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

[Illustration: A FINE "PAINTED FACE" SILK-EMBROIDERED PICTURE.

(_Author's Collection._)]

XI

PICTORIAL NEEDLEWORK OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The "painted faces" period--Method of production--Revival of
Scriptural "motifs"--Modern fakes--Black silk and hair copies
of engravings.

An immense number of pictures must have been worked during the
eighteenth century. Almost, we might say, no English home is without an
example. Much of the work is intensely bad, and only that Time has
tenderly softened the colours, and the old-time dresses add an element
of quaintness to the pictures, can they be tolerated. Works of art they
are not, and, indeed, were never intended to occupy the place their
owners now proudly claim for them. Just here and there a picture of the
painted face type is a masterpiece of stitchery, as in the example
illustrated,