11th Sep, 2025 10:30
Autumn Specialist Sale
English mid 17th century embroidered panel, 'Orpheus Charming the Animals'
English mid 17th century embroidered panel, 'Orpheus Charming the Animals' (sometimes alternatively 'Orpheus Playing to the Beasts'), showing Orpheus with his lyre within a landscape incorporating a high tower and timbered barn, surrounded by birds, animals and insects, including camel, leopard, lion, peacock, dog, hare, squirrel etc., a lake with fish and a kingfisher in the foreground, linen canvas embroidered in silks. The figures, animals and plants are worked in fine tent stitch outlined in black against a background landscape worked in encroaching gobelin stitch to create a shaded effect. Orpheus wears heroic costume based on late 16th century dress, and his face bears a distinct resemblance to printed images of Charles I. A faded flower in the foreground originally represented a striped tulip, suggesting a date in the mid 17th century: ‘tulipomania’ was a fashion particularly noted from the 1630s. The stitching is of exceptional quality and condition.
24.8cm x 40.7cm, in later frame under glass
For a closely comparable example in the Colonial Williamsburg Collections, see:
https://emuseum.colonialwilliamsburg.org/objects/8507/needlework-picture-orpheus-charming-the-animals;jsessionid=319C90DBB69F919266C55A451EC18F29?ctx=79f550919c71f107a4f7bc6cde2d7b8673cd01d1&idx=0
Where stated:
This framed needlework picture consists of twisted and untwisted silk and metal wrapped silk embroidery threads on a linen ground with metal embellishment in a veneered walnut frame with gilt liner. It portrays the scene, “Orpheus Charming the Animals,” a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. The composition is roughly based on the title page of A BOOKE OF BEASTS, BIRDS, FLOWERS, FRUITS, FLIES, AND WORMES, by John Payne around 1630. It shows Orpheus in the center of the picture, surrounded by a plethora of animals, and two structures in the background.
At the top left of the picture is a group of dark clouds, created by couching metal purl onto the ground fabric using blue, red, and cream threads. Some of the coils are tinted blue. Contrasting the dark clouds is a group of bright clouds at the top right of the picture, created using a different technique. Dimension is created by covering stuffing with untwisted floss, then couching over-twisted two-ply silk, or silk wrapped around a silk core, into spiral patterns. A sun, worked in tiny tent stitches, shines out from below the bright clouds.
Orpheus is in the center of the composition and is show wearing a blue tunic with a yellow collar and a laurel wreath on his head. He is draped in red fabric and wearing yellow boots that are cuffed at the top. He holds a small harp, the strings of which are portrayed with threads made of silver wrapped around a silk core.
The remainder of the composition is filled with animals and flowers that are not shown to scale. The animals portrayed are a peacock, a parrot, a squirrel, three caterpillars, a rhinoceros, two butterflies, a kingfisher eating a fish, a fish in a spring-fed pond, a stag, a hare in a warren, a bunny, a ladybug, a worm, a unicorn, a lion, a leopard, a snail, a camel, and two flying bugs. The flowers shown are a red rose, an iris, a red carnation, a yellow tulip, and a daffodil. Except for the body of the lion, the motifs are all worked in small tent stitches. The lion’s body, but not his head or tail, is worked in queen stitches. The black outline of the lion appears to be couched. The ground, consisting of many hills, trees, and a pond, is worked in queen stitches.
The castle, unicorn, and the rock with the spring appear to be unworked and painted. However, the ground threads are pulled apart and fibers are evident beneath the canvas, which likely indicates that the motifs were once stitched but the fibers have since disintegrated. The only portion of unworked ground that does not appear to have once been stitched is at the back of the blue bird, where the queen stitching of background and the tent stitching of the bird do not meet, perhaps indicating that the entire ground was worked before the motifs. The portion is also unpainted.
The needlework picture is framed in a late 19th-century walnut ogee veneer frame with a gilt liner.
Stitches: couching, French knot, queen, tent, tent variation
Sold for £3,200
English mid 17th century embroidered panel, 'Orpheus Charming the Animals' (sometimes alternatively 'Orpheus Playing to the Beasts'), showing Orpheus with his lyre within a landscape incorporating a high tower and timbered barn, surrounded by birds, animals and insects, including camel, leopard, lion, peacock, dog, hare, squirrel etc., a lake with fish and a kingfisher in the foreground, linen canvas embroidered in silks. The figures, animals and plants are worked in fine tent stitch outlined in black against a background landscape worked in encroaching gobelin stitch to create a shaded effect. Orpheus wears heroic costume based on late 16th century dress, and his face bears a distinct resemblance to printed images of Charles I. A faded flower in the foreground originally represented a striped tulip, suggesting a date in the mid 17th century: ‘tulipomania’ was a fashion particularly noted from the 1630s. The stitching is of exceptional quality and condition.
24.8cm x 40.7cm, in later frame under glass
For a closely comparable example in the Colonial Williamsburg Collections, see:
https://emuseum.colonialwilliamsburg.org/objects/8507/needlework-picture-orpheus-charming-the-animals;jsessionid=319C90DBB69F919266C55A451EC18F29?ctx=79f550919c71f107a4f7bc6cde2d7b8673cd01d1&idx=0
Where stated:
This framed needlework picture consists of twisted and untwisted silk and metal wrapped silk embroidery threads on a linen ground with metal embellishment in a veneered walnut frame with gilt liner. It portrays the scene, “Orpheus Charming the Animals,” a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. The composition is roughly based on the title page of A BOOKE OF BEASTS, BIRDS, FLOWERS, FRUITS, FLIES, AND WORMES, by John Payne around 1630. It shows Orpheus in the center of the picture, surrounded by a plethora of animals, and two structures in the background.
At the top left of the picture is a group of dark clouds, created by couching metal purl onto the ground fabric using blue, red, and cream threads. Some of the coils are tinted blue. Contrasting the dark clouds is a group of bright clouds at the top right of the picture, created using a different technique. Dimension is created by covering stuffing with untwisted floss, then couching over-twisted two-ply silk, or silk wrapped around a silk core, into spiral patterns. A sun, worked in tiny tent stitches, shines out from below the bright clouds.
Orpheus is in the center of the composition and is show wearing a blue tunic with a yellow collar and a laurel wreath on his head. He is draped in red fabric and wearing yellow boots that are cuffed at the top. He holds a small harp, the strings of which are portrayed with threads made of silver wrapped around a silk core.
The remainder of the composition is filled with animals and flowers that are not shown to scale. The animals portrayed are a peacock, a parrot, a squirrel, three caterpillars, a rhinoceros, two butterflies, a kingfisher eating a fish, a fish in a spring-fed pond, a stag, a hare in a warren, a bunny, a ladybug, a worm, a unicorn, a lion, a leopard, a snail, a camel, and two flying bugs. The flowers shown are a red rose, an iris, a red carnation, a yellow tulip, and a daffodil. Except for the body of the lion, the motifs are all worked in small tent stitches. The lion’s body, but not his head or tail, is worked in queen stitches. The black outline of the lion appears to be couched. The ground, consisting of many hills, trees, and a pond, is worked in queen stitches.
The castle, unicorn, and the rock with the spring appear to be unworked and painted. However, the ground threads are pulled apart and fibers are evident beneath the canvas, which likely indicates that the motifs were once stitched but the fibers have since disintegrated. The only portion of unworked ground that does not appear to have once been stitched is at the back of the blue bird, where the queen stitching of background and the tent stitching of the bird do not meet, perhaps indicating that the entire ground was worked before the motifs. The portion is also unpainted.
The needlework picture is framed in a late 19th-century walnut ogee veneer frame with a gilt liner.
Stitches: couching, French knot, queen, tent, tent variation
Auction: Autumn Specialist Sale, 11th Sep, 2025
Our Autumn Specialist Sale of Fine Furniture, Modern Design, Paintings, Prints, Silver, Jewellery, Watches, Ceramics, Glassware & other Collectors items.
Highlights will include a Rare Rolex ‘Double-Red’ Sea-Dweller Submariner 2000 stainless steel bracelet watch, a Victorian carved walnut and marble specimen table stamped Gillow and Edwards & Roberts, a fine selection of jewellery including a 3ct single stone diamond ring, a 17th century needlework, and a large collection of Ecclesiastical silver. A number of lots in the sale are from descendents of General Charles Gordon (1833-1885).
Over 120 lots of pictures including original artworks by Montague Dawson, FRSA, RSMA (1895-1973), Edward Brian Seago, RWS, RBA, (British, 1910-1974), Frederick Henry Howard Harris (British, 1826-1901), Edward Wesson (British, 1910-1983), and Barrington Tabb (British, 1934-2022) will also feature. A good selection of portaits are offered on behalf of charity for the Bristol and Weston Hospitals Trust.
Viewing
Wednesday 10th September - 10am until 5pm
