Saturday 18 June 2016

The detective and the needlework

First of all we have to look at the needlework.



facts
  • We see a sweet couple with fish under a tree.
  • We know it excisted already in 1877.
  • It was in the vicarage in Stalisfield owned by Jerome Nicholas Vlieland.
The we wonder if it was there could it be made by his wife .
His second wife was Frances Elisabeth Samworth.
Frances grew up as daughter of John Samworth and lived on Clive Dale farm and Brookland.
She and her sisters were friends with the Leigh-Smith children that lived nearby.
One of them was Barbara Leigh -Smith after her marriage Bodichon.
She painted a painting "cornfield after the storm" which was the cornfield of the Samworths as she wrote in a letter.
Another part of the Samworth garden is also painted .This time by Holman Hunt


He was a friend of the family and often stayed in the Leigh -Smith house together with Thomas Woolner

Buy Illustration to Thomas Woolner's 'My Beautiful Lady' Published in 'The Germ' 1850 (Engraving) Other
 and Dante Gabriel Rossetti
So could the needlework be situated in Hastings .
We know they found the fishmarket there very inspiring.
The Leigh -Smith and Samworth girls also went to Europe together  to study painting and art which was not very common in those days.
So is the needlework from France or Italy?

It is amazing how many interesting people the Samworth girls  have met when they were young .
They also met the Howitt girls .
So I have to find their paintings to see if there is something in it.

And al this research is just to find if we kind find the same kind of figures in their painting and if the clothes match the time in which they were painting.
So far the reasearch for today.

For now it seems different .
It is from 1800-1810 so it is much older.

The needlework is a gobelin ,embroidered with loop stitches.
The clothing and the cane hat indicates a timeperiod of 1800-1810.
It is probably made in southern France or northern Spain.
The shrubs are acanthus leaves.
The acanthus symbolizing :life with all the ordeals that have to be overcome.
The fishes symbolizing : plenitude and happiness.
The young couple is up to something........maybe a proposal.

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