An 18th century needlework picture

Circa 1720-1740. New England, or England.

Worked in coloured silks and wools with a shepherdess and a seated gentleman beneath trees bearing large fruits and flowers, her dog at her feet and a stag behind her, and her flock, the fleeces worked in silk cross stitch, on small hillocks in the foreground.

This needlework bears comparison with three panels of the same period in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Two of these, accession number 39.108.1 and accession number 39.108.2, were made in the American colonies, while the other, accession number 64.101.1355 is English.

Similar American needlework pictures are also held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 63.2669, and in that of Winterthur Museum, Delaware, 1951.0079.

The textile 45.7cm (18”) high and 44.5cm (17½”) wide, mounted on perspex.

Framed size 58cm (22⅞”) high and 55.4cm (21¾”) wide.