A pair of crewelwork hangings

English, circa 1700-1720

Each with an array of exotic animals and birds amid exuberantly flowering trees, worked in crewel wool in long and short, stem, and French knot stitches on a linen twill ground. These hangings are an enchanting demonstration of the contemporaneous European fascination with the east - the idiosyncratic interpretations of the various flora and fauna illustrate the remove at which these subjects remained from everyday life while exercising a provocative effect on the imagination. A very similar hanging is shown in Art of Embroidery - History of Style and Technique, Lanto Synge, 2001, plate 161, pp. 180-181, and a curtain in the V & A, accession no. T.172-1923 - and another of the same set in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no: 08.186a - make use of some of the same bird and animal motifs.

The embroidery re-applied, and with restorations.

203cm (80”) high and 182cm (71⅝”) wide, and 203cm (80”) high and 170cm (67”) wide.