Picture

Object name

Picture

Date made

Circa 1800

Place made

United Kingdom

Description

Circa 1800 silkwork picture showing a seated woman surrounded by a lion and a donkey, taken from Francesco Bartolozzi's print of Una and the Lion from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.

Content description

Circa 1800 silkwork picture showing a seated woman in a forest binding her hair with a ribbon, with a lion at her feet and a donkey looking over her shoulder. The trees, dress, and animals are in long and short stitch, the ground and smaller plants are done as block shading, and the details of the woman's ribbon, the lion's face, and the donkey's face and bridle are in stem and seeding stitches. The woman's face, hair, and feet are painted directly onto the backing silk satin, which is typical of silkwork embroideries from this period. Most of the design is stitched in smooth silk, but the lion's mane, the woman's hair ribbon, and the lower part of her dress are in heavier twisted silk. This picture is housed in its original frame. Holes in the back of the frame reveal that the picture is embroidered through a layer of silk and a layer of linen.

The image is a reproduction of a circa 1780 print by Francesco Bartolozzi depicting Una and the lion from Edmund Spenser's 1590 poem The Faerie Queene. The tale is of a young, beautiful princess who meets a fierce lion who captivated by her innocence and becomes her friend and protector. It was typical for girls and young women to craft silkwork embroidered pictures, many of which were based on prints that depicted tales from literature or scenes of pastoral life.