I

NEEDLEWORK PICTURES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

XII

NEEDLEWORK PICTURES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Entire decline of needlework as an art--Miss Linwood's
invention!--The Berlin-wool pictures--Lack of efficient
instruction--Waste of magnificent opportunity at South
Kensington Museum.

It were kindest to ignore 19th century needlework, but in a book
treating of English embroidery something must be said to bridge over the
time when Needlecraft as an Art was _dead_. During the earlier part of
the century taste was bad, during the middle it was beyond criticism,
and from then to the time of the "greenery-yallery" aesthetic revival all
and everything made by woman's fingers ought to be buried, burnt, or
otherwise destroyed. Indeed, if that drastic process could be carried
out from the time good Queen Adelaide reigned to the early "eighties" we
might not, now and ever, have to bow our heads in utter abjection.

The originator and moving spirit of this bad period was Miss Linwood,
who conceived the idea of copying oil paintings in woolwork. She died
in 1845. Would that she had never been born! When we think of the many
years which English women have spent over those wickedly hideous
Berlin-wool pictures, working their bad drawing and vilely crude colours
into those awful canvases, and imagining that they were earning undying
fame as notable women for all the succeeding ages, death was too good
for Miss Linwood. The usual boiling oil would have been a fitter end!
Miss Linwood made a great _furore_ at the time of her invention, and
held an exhibition in the rooms now occupied by Messrs. Puttick &
Simpson, Leicester Square. Can we not imagine the shade of the great Sir
Joshua Reynolds, whose home and studio these rooms had been, revisiting
the glimpses of the moon, and while wandering up and down that famous
old staircase forsaking his home for ever after one horrified glance at
Miss Linwood's invention?

Not only Miss Linwood, but Mrs. Delany and Miss Knowles made themselves
famous for Berlin-wool pictures. The kindest thing to say is that the
specimens which are supposed to have been worked by their own hands are
considerably better than those of the half-dozen generations of their
followers. During the middle and succeeding twenty years of the
nineteenth century the notable housewife of every class amused herself,
at the expense of her mind, by working cross-stitch pictures with
crudely c