Worked in silk floss thread by Margret Williams
On a fine linen gauze ground with two female figures - a falconer in an Empire gown, and a harpist trailing sheets of musical staves and standing with boxes and barrels - beside a palm tree in a broad landscape before distant hills and beneath stars and a crescent moon, in a variety of stitches including satin, long and short, chain, back, and stem, and with a blue glass bead for the falcon’s eye.
Below these, together with the inscription Margret Williams / her Work, are embroidered vignettes copied from two of the three copper-plate engravings that illustrated The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk, published in 1807 by Benjamin Tabart at The Juvenile and School Library, No. 157, New Bond Street. Copies of both engravings are shown here, and are taken from the edition of the book held in the Hockliffe Collection (see the Hockliffe Project https://hockliffe.dmu.ac.uk/items/0019.html).
Benjamin Tabart (1767/8-1833) published edit
...ions of moralising children’s literature from his premises on New Bond Street between 1801 and 1820 (many which were either written or rewritten by him) and employed as his editor Mary Jane Godwin, the second wife of William Godwin. Tabart’s version of Jack and the Beanstalk was influenced by much earlier oral traditions, and at least one 18th century published edition of a related tale, but his was the first in which the story assumed its standard form and is the one from which all later versions derive.
Internal Reference: 115
Antique ID Number (AIDN): SA1159492
Dateline of this antique is 19th Century
Height is 53.3cm (21.0inches)Width is 47.3cm (18.6inches)Depth is 0cm (0.0inches)
Thank you.
Your comment has been sent to Sellingantiques.