Picture
Object name
Maker
Date made
1925
Place made
Description
Embroidered picture illustrating a pair of cockatrices, made by Agnes Marie Kindberg for her City & Guilds exam in 1925.
Content description
Embroidered picture illustrating a pair of rainbow cockatrices, made by 19-year-old Agnes Marie Kindberg for her City & Guilds exam in 1925. The picture shows a symmetrical composition with two wyverns facing each other. In one claw each they hold two bunches of grapes. They hold in their beaks a red knotted object. White, red, and pink flowers blossom from the bottom corners of the composition, growing between each wyvern's coiled tail.
The picture is worked in silk threads on linen and features long and short stitch, satin stitch, French knot, stem stitch, chain stitch, couching, various herringbone stitches, leaf stitch, straight stitch, and trellis stitch. Though the back of this picture lists these creatures as wyverns, their rooster-like heads indicate that they are actually cockatrices. Cockatrices are two-legged dragons with rooster heads.
The RSN has in its collection multiple embroideries by Agnes Marie Kindberg (1906-circa 1990). Agnes was a painter and a gifted embroiderer who was born in Hartlepool, County Durham to Swedish parents. Her father was a ship's carpenter, master mariner, and captain. In 1922, at 16 years old, she became a student at what is now the College of Art in Hartlepool and joined the full time staff there in 1930. She undertook her City & Guilds in the 1920s, which enabled her to teach. In 1942 she took up an appointment at the Edinburgh College of Art as a teacher of dress design and embroidery. She taught there for 21 years. In 1951 there was a one woman show of her Agnes Kindberg's work at the Lyceum Gallery in Edinburgh, which displayed hundreds of pieces of designs, linocuts, watercolour sketches, and embroideries.
The picture is worked in silk threads on linen and features long and short stitch, satin stitch, French knot, stem stitch, chain stitch, couching, various herringbone stitches, leaf stitch, straight stitch, and trellis stitch. Though the back of this picture lists these creatures as wyverns, their rooster-like heads indicate that they are actually cockatrices. Cockatrices are two-legged dragons with rooster heads.
The RSN has in its collection multiple embroideries by Agnes Marie Kindberg (1906-circa 1990). Agnes was a painter and a gifted embroiderer who was born in Hartlepool, County Durham to Swedish parents. Her father was a ship's carpenter, master mariner, and captain. In 1922, at 16 years old, she became a student at what is now the College of Art in Hartlepool and joined the full time staff there in 1930. She undertook her City & Guilds in the 1920s, which enabled her to teach. In 1942 she took up an appointment at the Edinburgh College of Art as a teacher of dress design and embroidery. She taught there for 21 years. In 1951 there was a one woman show of her Agnes Kindberg's work at the Lyceum Gallery in Edinburgh, which displayed hundreds of pieces of designs, linocuts, watercolour sketches, and embroideries.
Dimensions
width: 55cm
height: 40cm
height: 40cm
Materials
Stitches
Chain stitch 
Long and short stitch
Herringbone stitch
Closed herringbone stitch
Laced herringbone stitch
French knot
Couching
Trellis
Stem stitch
Satin stitch
Leaf stitch (surface)
Straight stitch
Long and short stitch
Herringbone stitch
Closed herringbone stitch
Laced herringbone stitch
French knot
Couching
Trellis
Stem stitch
Satin stitch
Leaf stitch (surface)
Straight stitch
Motifs
Catalogue number
RSN.1403
© Royal School of Needlework