An English needlework picture

Circa 1692-1719. Finely worked in petit point coloured silks and wools, with a lion lying over four rounded hillocks, from which issue large flowers, on a white silk ground worked in a diaper pattern.

Mounted on a wooden panel, with the name Christoble Ingram written in ink to verso.

Christoble, or Christobel, Ingram, was the name of two Quaker residents of Bristol, mother and daughter, during the time this needlework panel would have been made.

The journal Marriage Discipline in Early Friends A Study in Church Administration illustrated from Bristol Records reads…

‘…Snead performed this service (…) in 1692 for Robert Ingram of London, marrying Christobel
Coal.’ (Ingram had been born in London to William and Susannah Ingram on 1st January 1670 (1669 O.S.), and it had been necessary for him, as a ‘stranger’, to be represented by a Bristol Friend.)

The article Loudin's (Alias "Lowris") China House, Bristol (conclusion), by William Pountney for The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 32, No. 182 (May, 1918), pp. 174-177, makes reference to the marriage of Robert and Christoble’s daughter to Benjamin Lund, later to become the director of the Bristol porcelain factory …

‘…Benjamin Lund acted as "the Proprietors'" agent, and may have subscribed to their fund, but in business he never was either a practical glass-maker or a potter.

He was, however, a Quaker, and was married 24.10.1719, at the Friends' Meeting House, Bristol, to Christobel, d. of Robert Ingram, of London.’

Bristol Record Society’s Publications, Vol. XXV, The Inhabitants of Bristol in 1696, E. Ralph, 1968, makes possible reference to the family as resident in the Castle Precinct of the city in a transcription of the tax assessments made on inhabitants for the financing of the war against France, in the record…

‘Robert  George Elizabeth & Christoble ch.’

A Queen Anne banded needlework sampler, stitched with the name Christobel Ingram and dated 1705 - and most likely the work of the daughter - was sold at Sworders in September 2020.

Set in a japanned lacquer frame of the same period, the backboards with the later inscription Worked by Christoble Ingram, c.1700.

Two pictures of this type are illustrated in Art of Embroidery, Lanto Synge, 2001, no. 182, p. 197 (and dust jacket), and no. 331, p. 352.

The textile 21.4cm (8⅜”) high and 23.4cm (9¼”) wide.

Framed size 25.2cm (9⅞”) high and 27.2cm (10¾”) wide.