Europe

Europe

'The Maiden's Chamber' is an English book illustration from 1840 depicting a young lady’s room. The print shows a young woman at her desk with a book in her hand. The print (a steel engraving) is based on an image by the English painter Alfred Edward Chalon (1780-1860) and was made by the artist and engraver, John Jewell Penstone (1817-1902).

Clementine Augusta, Marchioness Camden (née Spencer-Churchill; 1848-1886), is portrayed in this print that was published in the Whitehall Review in 1877. The Marchioness is shown being seated working a piece of needlework.

A photograph from c. 1850 shows a seated woman working what appears to be a narrow band of needlework. The photograph is housed in the British Museum, London. In pencil a text is added: Presented by the Earl of Ellesmere. The woman is believed to be the Earl's wife, Harriet Catherine, Countess of Ellesmere.

This fashion plate was published in St Petersburg in October 1834 and shows the latest (Parisian?) fashions in ladies wear, including a white ballgown with embroidered floral motifs on the skirt and sleeves.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam houses a hand coloured lithograph published by the firm of Dollfus-Mieg & Cie in 1866, showing a lady wearing a dress ('robe caroline') embroidered with the buteh or paisley motif. The print itself measures 29.7 x 22.7 cm.

The 31 March 1800 issue of the Journal des Dames et des Modes contains an illustration of a lady dressed according to the latest Parisien fashion, and carrying a reticule, or small handbag, which was often delicately embroidered. The illustration is entitled 'Costume Parisien'. The journal was published in Paris between 1797 and 1839.

Les brodeuses ('The embroiderers') is the name generally given to any of a series of drawings and lithographs by the French painter and lithographer, Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour (1835-1904). They are now spread all over the world.

A painting by Thomas William Wood, exhibited at the Royal Academy, London in 1855, shows private Thomas Walker (95th Derbyshire regiment), sewing a so-called military quilt. He had been wounded at the battle of Inkerman in the Crimean War, on 5 November 1854. In the painting, Walker is sewing triangles made from woollen uniform cloth, in black, gold, red and white, creating a simple geometric design.