This one. I purchased her from a dealer in my neck of the woods with really exceptional things all pretty much all beyond my reach, but this came along with a much more elaborate 17th c. stumpwork, which was his interest, and so I was able to attain her--and I do feel as though she travelled across nearly four hundred years and an ocean just to be found by me! I mean, look at those hands!
This is a fragment from a c. mid-17th century English stump work embroidery--a complex type of needlework incorporating a variety of stitches and materials (these were very early "mixed media" works) rendered in a raised-work style, hence "stump work." Detail photos tell the story best, each inch full of painstaking labor, and texture, and creative invention--and to my eye completely amazing and full of life. And she keeps reminding me of Velasquez portraits of the Infanta Margarita Teresa--las Meninas et al--and what could be better than that!?
In an antique frame where it has lived a long time with marbled paper backing. 9" t x 8 15/16". Excellent condition.
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