8th Sep, 2020 10:00

Arts & Crafts and Art Deco - Live Online

 
  Lot 161
 

161

An embroidered panel

An embroidered panel,
'Maids of Honour', designed by May Morris in 1880-92, the verse reads 'Welcome maids of honour - You do bring in the spring and wait upon her', inset into a mahogany firescreen,
62cm wide
90cm high

Provenance: From a descendant of the Trevelyan Family of Wallington Hall, Northumberland.

May Morris, William’s youngest daughter, was an important figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement. The verse is the opening of 'To Violets' by Robert Herrick, a 17th century poet. May helped transform embroidery from a domestic pastime - undervalued because it was mostly done by women - into a serious art form. Her work was exhibited widely and pieces like this showed what could be achieved by imaginative and inventive free-hand stitching, as opposed to the more plodding woolwork dominating much amateur production.

May had become the head of Morris and Co.’s embroidery department by the time she was twenty-three, but she was concerned by the lack of professional organisations open to women and tried to redress this by founding the Women’s Guild of Arts in 1907.

Wallington Hall is now owned by the National Trust. The interiors were remodelled with Pre-Raphaeliate art, sculpture and decoration.
The artist William Bell Scott was commissioned to paint the walls with a series of vivid Pre-Raphaelite scenes depicting great moments in the history of Northumberland.
Bell carried out most of the painting and one panel was painted by John Ruskin. Another Pre-Raphaelite friend of the Trevelyan family was sculptor Thomas Woolner, who created sculptures in the entrance hall.
Lady Mary Terevelyan (1881-1966) was keen on the arts and there are a series of tapestries woven by her at Wallington Hall – it may be that she used the May Morris design from a pattern which was known to have been published in the ‘Day Book’.

Take advantage of our Sworders Delivery Service. Please see 'Shipping estimate' below.

Sold for £1,400


Condition Report

See additional images.
Fading to the colours of the embroidery. Blue ground with stains throughout. The right leg has had damage and the spindle support is no longer present.

 

IN PERSON

To bid in person at auction for the first time please register for a bidding paddle in advance by filling out and submitting a registration form at our front desk. When registering in person we require photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence.

ABSENTEE BIDDING

If you cannot attend the auction in person we can bid on your behalf. You can leave an absentee bid on our website.

The amount you bid should be your maximum bid. We will bid up to that limit for you, and remember you may end up paying less than your limit, depending on other bidding on the day.

You can leave an absentee bid up to half an hour before the start of any sale. Please note when we receive two or more absentee bids for the same amount, the first bid received will be the one taken.

LEAVE COMMISSION BIDS ONLINE

If you would like to leave a commission bid on our website you can do so up until 30 minutes before the sale starts. Leaving a commission bid through sworder.co.uk is free for all registered clients. Thereafter you may register bank card details under your account in order to bid live. Click here to register an account.

BID LIVE ON sworder.co.uk

You can bid live at our auctions from the comfort of your home or office using bidding platform Sworders Live.  It is easy to register and you can watch the auction live as it happens.  A 'Bid Live' button will appear on the auction on our website homepage when a sale is live; simply click the button to sign in or register with your card details. There is no additional charge for this service. 

For further instructions on registering to bid live, please click here.

TELEPHONE BIDDING

If you would like to bid by telephone please contact our team prior to the auction with your details of the lots you are interested in and your full name, address, telephone number(s) and email address. Once our team have entered your bid request you will receive an email confirmation. We will contact you during the sale and one of our team will bid live with you over the phone.

Please note that we normally offer this service for lots with an estimate of £500 or higher and all telephone bid requests must be received by close of business the day before the auction.

Auction: Arts & Crafts and Art Deco - Live Online, 8th Sep, 2020

The Arts & Crafts and Art Deco sale is shaping up to be one of the most interesting sales within our 20th Century Design department this year.

Fresh to the open market is a collection of Stanley Webb-Davies furniture commissioned in the 1930s, one of Great Britain's premier makers of Arts and Crafts furniture. A pair of chairs, by the architect and designer C F A Voysey, comes to us from a private collection and are a very exciting inclusion; they feature the designer's signature heart-shaped backs, following his ‘sense of proportion and puritanical love of simplicity’. Also included by Voysey is a rare example of his architectural clock in oak, the dial inlaid with pewter letters 'Tempus Fugit'. Works by Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson, John Makepeace Workshop and Liberty of London are a few of the designers included in the sale.

Within the Art Deco category is a fine figure of the ‘Dancer of Karpurthala’ by the genius of the period Demetre Chiparus (1886-1947), created in bronze and ivory, placed on a marble and onyx plinth this comes from a private collection. Further Art Deco figures, furniture and lighting, including an iconic table lamp by Tiffany, complete the sale.

Viewing

VIEWING BY APPOINTMENT 

Due to current social distancing restrictions, we will be offering viewing by appointment only.  One hour time slots will be available from:

Friday 4 September, 9am - 5pm;

Saturday 5 September, 10am - 4pm;

Sunday 6 September, 10am - 4pm;

Monday 7 September, 9am - 5pm  

Book Appointment

View all lots in this sale

Sorry, we cannot calculate a pre-sale automated shipping cost due to the items weight/size.

Should you be successful in buying this item, a specific shipping estimate can be requested after the sale by using the link in your invoice email; this also includes requests for international delivery.

If you would like further information about shipping and collection please see here.

Buying a pre-loved, antique, or vintage item not only provides you with unique style and value for money but it also helps to reduce landfill, and the annual emissions of an antique or vintage piece can be as little as one sixteenth of those of its new equivalent!

Sworders is proud to be supporting the work of Antiques are Green - the movement that was founded in 2009 to promote “a greener future created from the past”. Read their fascinating carbon footprint study of a Georgian chest of drawers versus a modern equivalent here

 

Antiques are Green

 

Request A Valuation

Here at Sworders, we are happy to offer a free online valuation service. Please fill out the form and press the 'Submit' button below.

To help us with your valuation please attach clear photographs of the item where possible. You can submit up to 5.

Approximate dimensions are also useful. Expect to hear from the appropriate valuer as soon as possible.

Images

Drag and drop .jpg images here to upload, or click here to select images.