H. Blairman & Sons Ltd

Designed by Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98)

Worked by Frances Horner (1854-1940)

Silk and wool, partly painted; original gilt wood frame

50.8 x 54.6 cm

English, 1895

‘Design by Edward Burne-Jones / Worked by Frances Horner / [illegible] 1895’ (in pen and ink, on the backboard)

Perhaps Frances Horner, Mells Park; perhaps Cecily Lambton, Mesnil Warren; […]; Haslam & Whiteway, 1980s; H. Blairman & Sons; English private collection until 2019

Private collection

An undated letter (around 1891) written by Burne-Jones to Horner enclosed a drawing (private collection), which may be the drawing referred to below.

‘Dearest Frances

Rooke tells me you want little figures in the spaces left in his bed quilt thing he has copied for you – so I have done a sort of Flora, amended from the original which may perhaps do – but it is only a guide for the outline & I dont know what colour the rest is – so dont bother about the colour, make it what you like that will go with the rest – its the first work I have done & I am still as weak as con be, but perhaps it is good enough for the purpose … I wonder if the figure will do – Rooke drew the space out but on such nasty coloured paper that it was discouraging to work but I dare say it will do my dear…’

A design survives at Mells.  Our needlework presumably post-dates a fragment of needlework, now part of a bedhead,  that also remains at Mells, as well as a framed panel with the same design surrounded by an elaborate design of embroidered flowers.

We are grateful to Lord Oxford and Caroline Dakers for their help in identifying our needlework.