Antependium
Object name
Based on design by
Date made
Circa 1900
Place made
Description
Gold and silk embroidery of Sandalphon, the angel of prayer, made at the Royal School of Art Needlework. Takes inspiration from an original painting by Matthew William Webb.
Content description
A gold and silk embroidery of Sandalon, the angel of prayer, which was made at the Royal School of Art Needlework and which borrows from Matthew William Webb's painting of the same angel. The embroidery is an antependium, a decorative object often made of fabric, metal, or stone that adorns the front of an altar, lectern, or pulpit in a Christian church.
The angel is worked in fine passing gold thread and silk thread (including floss and filoselle). Techniques used include couching, or nue, long and short stitch, split stitch, and Burden stitch. This is passing gold thread laid down horizontally with a small vertical upright straight stitch in two tones of orange. The gown has been decorated with split stitch and couching to give an appearance of drapery, highlighted in areas of importance with passing gold thread couched in green silk. The angel's wings, starting at the centre, are rainbow colours in fine silk floss in radiating long and short stitches. The feathers are a mixture of filoselle and fine silk floss in straight stitches.
The purple flowers are fine long and short in filoselle silk. The ribbon is passing gold couched with a Maltese thread with the lettering in or nue in brown silk thread. The top background pillars are outline couched to give the effect of pillars. The radiating clouds' background are a fine floss silk partly outlined in fine passing gold thread. The centre heart of the rainbow is passing gold thread couched with Maltese thread and the radiating fire is long and short in fine floss silk. The serpent at the bottom is worked in long and short with a brown couched line over the top to give the appearance of rings on its body. The dove is long and short in filoselle silk, as is the bird's nest and eggs.
This embroidery dates to approximately the turn of the 20th century. A note on the back of the conservation mounting states that this piece was worked at the Royal School of Needlework, which would at the time have been called the Royal School of Art Needlework. It was conserved by RSN apprentices in the mid-1990s. The background silk was very worn so a couching silk thread was used to secure the worn areas and then a very fine conservation net was applied over the whole before reframing.
The original source for this embroidery is a painting by Matthew William Webb (1851-1924), a London-based painter active from the 1880s onwards. In 1893 he was elected a member of the Art Workers Guild and was a member of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society with whom he exhibited in London in 1888, 1889, 1890, 1893, 1896, 1899 and 1903. He also exhibited at the New English Art Club, London Salon, and the Royal Society of British Artists in London; the Walker Art Gallery; and at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. The original oil painting of Sandalphon by Matthew William Webb was sold at Bonhams in September 2023. The painting is dated 1888 and is itself based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A line drawing of Webb's Sandalphon was produced and circulated in the January issue of Home Art Work, a magazine founded in 1889 and edited by Mrs Conyers Morrell. Home Art Work included articles and patterns for all types of artmaking, including needlework. Objects in the RSN Archive indicate that the publication was a source of design inspiration for the school's early designers and embroiderers. The Honourable Mrs R.H. Lyttelton, wife of the cricketer, drew a picture based on Webb's Sandalphon which appeared in Home Art Work. It is this drawing that inspired the RSN's embroidery.
The angel is worked in fine passing gold thread and silk thread (including floss and filoselle). Techniques used include couching, or nue, long and short stitch, split stitch, and Burden stitch. This is passing gold thread laid down horizontally with a small vertical upright straight stitch in two tones of orange. The gown has been decorated with split stitch and couching to give an appearance of drapery, highlighted in areas of importance with passing gold thread couched in green silk. The angel's wings, starting at the centre, are rainbow colours in fine silk floss in radiating long and short stitches. The feathers are a mixture of filoselle and fine silk floss in straight stitches.
The purple flowers are fine long and short in filoselle silk. The ribbon is passing gold couched with a Maltese thread with the lettering in or nue in brown silk thread. The top background pillars are outline couched to give the effect of pillars. The radiating clouds' background are a fine floss silk partly outlined in fine passing gold thread. The centre heart of the rainbow is passing gold thread couched with Maltese thread and the radiating fire is long and short in fine floss silk. The serpent at the bottom is worked in long and short with a brown couched line over the top to give the appearance of rings on its body. The dove is long and short in filoselle silk, as is the bird's nest and eggs.
This embroidery dates to approximately the turn of the 20th century. A note on the back of the conservation mounting states that this piece was worked at the Royal School of Needlework, which would at the time have been called the Royal School of Art Needlework. It was conserved by RSN apprentices in the mid-1990s. The background silk was very worn so a couching silk thread was used to secure the worn areas and then a very fine conservation net was applied over the whole before reframing.
The original source for this embroidery is a painting by Matthew William Webb (1851-1924), a London-based painter active from the 1880s onwards. In 1893 he was elected a member of the Art Workers Guild and was a member of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society with whom he exhibited in London in 1888, 1889, 1890, 1893, 1896, 1899 and 1903. He also exhibited at the New English Art Club, London Salon, and the Royal Society of British Artists in London; the Walker Art Gallery; and at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. The original oil painting of Sandalphon by Matthew William Webb was sold at Bonhams in September 2023. The painting is dated 1888 and is itself based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A line drawing of Webb's Sandalphon was produced and circulated in the January issue of Home Art Work, a magazine founded in 1889 and edited by Mrs Conyers Morrell. Home Art Work included articles and patterns for all types of artmaking, including needlework. Objects in the RSN Archive indicate that the publication was a source of design inspiration for the school's early designers and embroiderers. The Honourable Mrs R.H. Lyttelton, wife of the cricketer, drew a picture based on Webb's Sandalphon which appeared in Home Art Work. It is this drawing that inspired the RSN's embroidery.
Dimensions
width: 33cm
height: 70cm
height: 70cm
Materials
Stitches
Techniques
Motifs
Catalogue number
RSN.101
© Royal School of Needlework