THE SERBIAN RELIEF FUND.
[To THE EDITOR. OF THE SPEcTram."1 SIR,—May I again call your attention to the Exhibition of Serbian handicrafts which opened last Tuesday, May 1st, at 64 New Bond Street? The work shown there consists of valuable old Serbian work on loan, the Royal robes of the Empress Melitza, kindly lent by the Hon. Lady Whitehead, and other things. It is not generally known that Serbian designs and needlework received ..a. great impetus from the marriage of the Serbian King Oorosh I. in 1250 with the French Princess Helene de Courtenay, who was not only an expert embroideress herself, but who established schools in her own castles of Skadar, Bar (Antivari), and Brgnani, where the daughters of poor nobility were taught religion, reading and writing, but especially needlework. After the great upheaval and the subjugation of Serbia by the Turks more than a century later, the love of the beautiful work sur- vived, borrowing sometimes through the ages somewhat of the character of the Turkish and other needlecrafts, though it is still easy to trace the evolution of such well-known motifs as the Briar Rose, Fleur-de-Lis, the Vine Leaf, &c. These workrooms were organized by Miss Evelyn Radford under the aegis of tho Serbian Relief Fund.—I am, Sir, &c., GERTRUDE F. WILDE. 5 Cromwell Road, S.W.
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