A WOOL-WORK PICTURE*

THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Details

A WOOL-WORK PICTURE*
Third quarter 19th Century
Rectangular, depicting strips in full sail before a shoreline with houses, worked in woods with gold braid detail on a canvas ground, within a contemporary 'Oxford' frame
17 x 27in. (43 x 68.5cm.)

Literature

J. Ayres, English Naive Painting, London, 1981, p. 129
J. Ayres, British Folk Art, Woodstock, NY, 1977, p. 79
J. Ayres, Two Hundred Years of English Native Art 1700-1900, Alexandria, VA, 1996, no. 76, p.161

Exhibited

See lot 340.

Lot Essay

Wool-work pictures of ships were generally made by sailors serving in the Royal Navy. In some ways it was an extension of their trade: the maintenance of sails and of their own clothing. This is a particularly unusual example in that it includes no less than five vessels (one is more common) and a shoreline with houses. One of these houses, with a mast flying a white ensign standing in the garden, is presumably the official residence of the commander of the shore establishment. Although the white ensign is now the flag of the Royal Navy as a whole, it was, until 1864, confined to the White Squadron. The "wire" on the garden fence is made of gold braid from an officer's uniform.