THE ART-NEEDLEWORK EXHIBITION.
111HE Americans have not bought the beautiful samples of Art 1 Needlework which were sent to the Centennial Celebration at Philadelphia, and which we should have thought some of the cultivated and art-loving among them would have especially de- sired to possess. For beyond almost all other things—certainly those portable—revivals of the curious, graceful, suggestive art of old-world needlework are eloquent of the past, the far past of the classical, the near past of the medireval times ; the ages that are unrecorded in the great Continent of the West, and to which these beautiful, stately objects furnish a sort of brief handbook, all in broidered hieroglyphics. They are of the oldest fashion, for did not the valiant woman of King Solomon's days set her maids to spinning and embroidery, and imitate the bravery of the Tabernacle in the purple and fine linen of domestic life ? They are of the newest, for who has not com- pared the respective merits of rival dados, and been charmed with .the slim coolness of Mr. Walter Crane's classical reminiscences in red and blue outlines on white linen, which preserve all the characteristics of pagan art, and yet contrive somehow to be not quite soulless? They are as suggestive of the dead days of Chivalry as are the trophies of arms in the old baronial halls of England, for while the knights were afield, with "lance and pennon and dancing plume," it was with such tasks as these that,
"Bending o'er their broidered flowers, With spirit far away, the ladies of an age which knew not skating-rinks nor "Mudie's" beguiled the tedium of their lives. We wish, for the sake of the "School" that the beautiful collection had been sold in
America, for the twofold purpose of the Princess Christian and her associates in this work—" the supplying of suitable-employ- ment to poor gentlewomen, and restoring ornamental needlework to the high place it once held among decorative arts "—is not easy of attainment, and stands in need of that universal stimu- lant, money ; but we are sensible, for our own part, of the plea- sure which the exhibition, at home, of these exquisite samples of combined art and industry affords. The aspect of the two large rooms appropriated to the dainty display, when pre- pared for the Queen's visit on last Tuesday, was as rich and stately as a palace scene in the "Arabian Nights," where everything is space and drapery, cushions and screens. The subdued colours everywhere—the least suspicion of glare is carefully excluded from art needlework — the prevalence of the sunflower and the pomegranate in the most salient of the designs, the rich deep browns, and the sullen sun- full yellows, gave a Moorish physiognomy to the scene, peaceful and harmonious, without being sultry, and one felt that the ladies who glided about in slim black gowns, with beautiful embroidery on some of them, ought to have worn veils of silver gossamer, slippers with turned-up toes, and many chains of amber and sweet-smelling bean. The wide doors were draped with portieres in bronze-brown velveteen, with valance and borders of gorgeous sunflowers, their rich black hearts and broad yellow nimbus-like circlets flaring and flaunting ; these were just such curtains as Boabdil might have pushed aside, and yonder were satin cushions, embroidered in gold and silver, with silken threads of tender colour in them, against which Zayda's shapely and idle head would have showed well. Then the dados ! One looked with the lazy admiration which all that rich- ness and depth without a bit of glitter inspires, at the exquisite needlework in which Mr. Morris's "Peacock and Vine" are re- produced, at the blending hues of the feathers of the proud bird, the weighty luxuriance of the luscious fruit, the undulating sheen of the surface ; and from them to a second design by him, which is a beautiful tangle of honeysuckle, as one sees it in the wayside woods in Galloway, or sometimes tumbling about an English lodge or gate-pier; and thence to a third, striking in its simplicity, a design by Mr. Walter Crane, a stripe and leaf on sateen, in which there is a curiously restful charm. But the latter dado belongs to a series which, while it is exceedingly beautiful and delightful to contemplate adorning the walls of an exhibition, fills one with speculative wonder concerning the probable future possessor of this marvellous "com- plete design for decorating a room with hangings." What an intel- lectual eminence he must have attained for whom it would not be too much to live in a room arranged as follows !—‘, Frieze, figures of the Arts on green background; festoon and basket, valance ; valance for portiere, three Fates; wall-banging on gold twill, repre- senting the Elements ; pilasters on white satin ; portiere curtains ; figures 'Vale' and 'Salve." Only a brow as "calm and classical" as that of the poet of Mrs. Jarley's Waxwork Show could be worthy to bend itself in studious contemplation within walls thus arrayed. With the sincerest admiration for much of Mr. Walter Crane's work, we venture to think the realisation of this "series" would be a terrible experience,—what Sam Weller called "a reeler knock-down of talent." The sombre splendour of curtains, bordered with lilies, conventionally stiff, but very impressive ; of others, a soft dull green in colour, with a superb border of oranges and flowers ; and again, of others, in " soie sauvage," with a border of red velvet embroidered in white lilies, unconventional, and most gracefully grouped, the design by the Princess Louise, is a relief from what we must call the pedantry of Mr. Walter Crane's hangings. A different train of asso- ciations is aroused by the elaborate yet delicate beauty of the table-covers, the quilts, the cabinet panels, the ottomans, the sofas, chairs, and footstools, which form the centre groups of the exhibition. Here are tabourets, in "sad "-coloured satin, so wonderfully worked in flowers that one would think Titania and her maidens had wrought on them the veritable portraits of the blossoms from whose recesses they skipped to earth ; tabourets on which princesses might have sat within the privileged rail at a Queen's levee ; quilts of satin, gold and flower broidered, in quaint devices, with all the old romances, since the time when one of them might have wrapped the Sleep- ing Beauty for a hundred years, stitched into them with the precious threads. A sofa and chairs, worked for Mrs. Tyssen Amherst, in wondrous combinations of flowers on gold-coloured satin ; and an old chair, in the softest, richest crimson embroidery on a satin ground of the same, brings Trianon before one's fancy with the first glimpse of them. Every flower is worth separate study, like the wreaths of forget-me-nots on the white
satin cushion in an adjoining case, or the feathers of Mr. Walter Crane's "Vain Jackdaw" on a fourfold screen hard by.
There was a stir of expectation in the great hall and in the work-rooms when the Queen and the Princess Beatrice made their brief tour of inspection. It was pleasant to observe the interest with which her Majesty regarded the objects to which her elder daughter directed her attention, gratifying the workers in each department with the sight of her calm, welcome face, too rarely seen, and saying a few kindly, appreciative words, as the nature of their several employments was explained to her. There was a strange contrast between the vision of old-world pageantry which many of the objects in the exhibition summon up before the mind of the visitor, and the quiet simplicity of the Queen and her two daughters.
A few words are due to the Screens, which form an important section of the exhibition. They are all beautiful, but a few are of quite exceptional merit in design and execution. The palm in both must be assigned to a screen, composed of musgrave satin, the design by Miss Gemmell, who also contributes two others. No. 79 is the most beautiful screen we have ever seen ; the designs are, for the three folds respectively, myrtle, jasmine, and wild rose, and it would be impossible to imagine, or perhaps to see in an old English garden on a summer's day anything more lovely than the flowers and their combinations. The shading, the workman- ship, are as perfect as the design, and this exquisite work deserves indeed the name of high art. A fourfold screen on brown velvet, with poppy, iris, foxglove, and Canterbury bells, designed by Miss Gemmell, is only slightly inferior to this gem, but the touch of poetry which one feels in the former is not so evident in the latter. The Princess Christian, President of the School, contributes a lovely design. It is only a bird and leaves, embroidered on pale green satin ; but the bird is full of life and song, and the leaves are perfectly natural and graceful. A great number of small objects deserve close examination, and more lengthened notice than we can give them here. The public have now a fair opportunity of judging of the performance and the progress of the Royal School of Art Needlework,—of the way which the enlightened and generous project has made in the five years of its working existence—and it is much to be desired that it may be liberally aided by those persons who have houses of the kind for which really high-art decoration is suitable and proper. The School which can train its pupils to carry out such designs in such perfection as we see in these specimens is a genuine success, and honour is due to all who are connected with it.
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