POSSIBLY BY BENGTA OREDSDOTTER, SKANE, SOUTH SWEDEN, DATED 1840

This charming cover was most certainly woven as a wedding gift for a newly wed couple in the year 1840. The attention to detail that has been given to the many different figures; men, women, horses, birds, and castles echoes the confident style of Benta Oresdotter, who is the only known professional weaver of such pieces in north east Scania in the first half of the 19th century, (Viveka Hansen, Swedish Textile Art, Traditional Marriage Weavings from Scania, The Khalili Collection: Volume I, London, pp.42-3). Although not all her pieces are signed, one characteristic motif found in her work was the depiction of trees with bent tops which can be found in several of the panels in the present lot. Also known as Benta Aman from Lyngby in Gärds district, one of her most famous recorded pieces was an interlocked tapestry for The Crown Prince of Lyngby, 1826, (Viveka Hansen, op.cit., fig.14).