SIR ROBERT LORIMER (1864-1929) FOR EARLSHALL CASTLE, FIFE ARTS & CRAFTS CREWELWORK PANEL, CIRCA russet silk embroidery on a natural linen ground, later framed

(87cm x 93cm)

Provenance: R.W.R. Mackenzie, Earlshall Castle, Fife, Scotland Note: In 1890 Sir Robert Lorimer was commissioned by R.W.R. Mackenzie to restore and enhance his sixteenth-century tower house, Earlshall, near Leuchars in Fife, Scotland. Lorimer designed several pieces of furniture for the house, including the settle now in LACMA and the buffet which Walter Shaw Sparrow illustrated in his The British Home of To-Day (1904). The work included embroideries to complete the decorative scheme. Walter Shaw Sparrow illustrated the bedcover from this set (now with The National Museums of Scotland) in The Modern Home (published in 1908). This embroidered panel formed part of a suite of hangings worked by Mackenzie's wife Jessie and her friends in 1893 and remained at Earlshall until the contents were sold in 1983. The larger hangings from this suite were sold in these rooms (see 'Paul Reeves: Textiles as Art', 23rd February 2017, lots 42 and 43).