Redwork Derived from Kate Greenaway and Her Illustrations of Children
Chapter 3
A scene from Under the Window by Kate Greenaway, page 40.
Kate Greenaway,
(1846-1901), was a prolific British artist. Her influence on Redwork
Embroidery is legendary. She illustrated more than sixty books for
children and her work was published in numerous magazines, including:
Cassell's Magazine, Century Magazine, Harper's Young
People, and Ladies Home Journal. She wrote many of the
poems that she illustrated, but also did commissioned art work for
the books of other writers. Her pen and ink sketches were often
enhanced with watercolor paints.
Greenaway experienced a wonderful childhood. Her almost photographic memory was of great assistance in capturing seemingly countless images of children at play. She lived at home with her parents, never married, and never had children. For twenty years, she enjoyed friendship with John Ruskin, a prominent English philosopher. In spite of voluminous correspondence, marriage did not result.
The Artist's Designs Captured in Other Media
For more than a century now, Greenaway has been a revered artist. Her lovely watercolor designs have found their way onto calendars, fine china, and other items. A collectible “Kate Greenaway” doll has been manufactured, and the Royal Dalton Company produced a series of Kate Greenaway figurines that are now sold as collectibles.1
New Book Captures Essence of Greenaway's Work
A current book, published in England, is entitled, A Treasury of Kate Greenaway.2 This book provides extracts from selected books of Kate Greenaway. Included are: Apple Pie, Book of Games, Mother Goose, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Under the Window, The Birthday Book, and the Book of Tunes. The book is very pleasing and features not only the artist's illustrations, but also the verses that inspired them.
Greenaway's designs are almost unmistakable. When we were looking at an antique Redwork quilt recently, one of the designs brought Kate Greenaway to mind. The image is that of a bent-over, bonneted, old woman, shown below. Luckily, the source of the design was found in the book, Under the Window.
Collection of Marilou MacLean. Photo by James Cummings.
After retrieving an antique, well-used book from my bookshelf, I discovered the illustration upon which the Redwork image above is based. The page appears in Under the Window, Greenaway's first book.
The second verse of the poem:
A dame went
walking by herself,
A very ancient
crone;
She said,“I
wish that all you geese
Were starved to
skin and bone!
Do stop that
cackle, cackle, now,
And leave me here
alone.
Surprising Discovery
The design appears in Kate Greenaway's Painting Book with Outlines from Her Various Works for Boys & Girls to Paint (London & New York: Frederick Warne & Co.)3 This book was a lucky “find” in an antique store, or so I thought at the time. The little book was purchased without even opening the cover. One can only imagine the surprise to find that an urchin from a former time had taken dark purple paint and had “colored” or rather, blotted out, many of the line drawings.
A remedy was sought. Thank goodness, the ancient paint is water soluble! With gentle rubbing of the surface of the paper with cotton swabs dipped into lukewarm water, some of the heavier stains lifted, but were not removed entirely. In that particular book, Greenaway provides line drawings, and on the facing page, shows them as the artist had painted them. Perhaps other, less destructive, children actually attempted to do a good job of coloring in books of this type.
To know Kate Greenaway's work is to love it! The problem for researchers is that if not all of Greenaway's art work is at hand, there is difficulty in verifying whether or not she is the artist responsible for any particular sketch of children that may have become a Redwork motif. There are certain known Greenaway designs that appear frequently on old quilts and other textiles. Several that come readily to mind are: the woman sitting in a tree; a boy blowing up a balloon/while a little girl bakes; and a mother reading to her child. The fact that Greenaway's designs were published in America by several companies4 may account for their widespread use in Redwork quilts at the end of the nineteenth century (1800s).
Source of “Tug of War” Designs Remain a Mystery
Two different “Tug of War” scenes appear on the next page. One is a line drawing, based on a vintage textile, and the other is a photo of a vintage splasher. Both of these designs suggest a possible connection to Kate Greenaway. In her book, entitled, Book of Games, which is included in A Treasury of Kate Greenaway, there are painted sketches that depict children playing a number of different games. This design is not pictured. However, that may be due to the fact that the book offers selected designs, not all of them. The descriptions of how each game is played are particularly enjoyable.
The vintage design (drawn) above is just one depiction of the game, “Tug of War.” Though seen here, drawn in blue ink, this early design would have been stitched in Redwork.
“Tug of War II.” Note the rust spots on this textile, in the corners and at intervals along the sides of this Redwork splasher. These marks indicate that the piece was tacked to a vertical surface with tacks that rusted, a condition facilitated by dampness. Note also the exquisite drawn thread work on this linen piece. Feather stitching forms a visual edge border, and the outside edges of the linen are hemstitched and fringed on three sides, with the selvedge top, left unadorned.
Silk Thread Company Gives Advice
A booklet published in 1889 by “The Leading, Largest, and Most Reliable American Silk Manufacturers,” provided projects for the home and advice for needleworkers. The “salutatory” remarks of Belding Bros and Co's Souvenir: Hints on Art Needle Work5 applaud the ingenuity of the ladies of America who are involved with the “Art of Decorative Needlework.” An introductory statement promises that these embroiderers will soon be as adept as their Oriental peers. The following thoughts are included:
The pretty trifles of needlework made by the hands of mother or sisters and scattered through the rooms of the plainest appointed home are more potent factors in developing the finer sensibilities of our children than the most learned homily every written on the subject; and we hold it to be one of the home duties of every mother to know something of decorative needlework.
Artists Influenced by the Decorative Arts Movement and its English Philosophers
John Ruskin is an art critic who is perhaps best remembered for his influence during the late nineteenth century Decorative Arts Movement in England. He very much tried to influence Kate Greenaway's choice of art media, and also encouraged her to change her choice of scale. He may have viewed book illustration as a career inferior to the pursuit of fine art. Both Ruskin and his friend, Decorative Arts specialist, William Morris, played an important role in how artists of the time viewed their work and themselves. Morris was a writer, a socialist, and a prolific designer of wallpaper and fabrics, whose influence and work are still very much present in today's world.
"Fancy Work"
"Fancy Work," just another name for decorative needlework, is a vintage phrase which includes not only embroidery, but filet crochet, knitting, tatting, tambour work,6 and other techniques. These creative activities provided artistic expression for stay-at-home mothers of the nineteenth century. The umbrella term, “Outline Stitch Embroidery,” of which Redwork is a part, was referred to as “Etching on Linen.”7 For this simulated “etching” process, silk thread was often used.
Serenity Through Needlework
The theory in the Victorian Era appears to have been, “A beautiful home is a happy home.” A good woman provides a pleasant place for her children to learn and grow, and a restful haven for her husband upon his return home from his labors. In addition, it was commonly thought that just the sight of a woman engaged in needlework lent a calming influence to the home and might even be responsible for inspiring morality in the family.
Greenaway's Work Pirated
Whether Greenaway was aware of any of the societal issues around her or not, we will never know. While she was busy creating original work, other people were copying her, often without attribution.
In her 1884 book, Fancy Work Re-creations: Knitting, Crochet, and Home Adornments, Eva M. Niles includes a section entitled, “Outline Designs for Patchwork.” In one instance, which is documented in my book Redwork Renaissance,8 Niles has “lifted” one of Kate Greenaway's designs, that of two girls feeding the birds. She never mentions the source of the design, in spite of the fact that Niles' own book is copyrighted. She provides pages of various line drawings for Outline Stitch Embroidery/Redwork, including the ones below.
1 The Art of Kate Greenaway: A Nostalgic Portrait of Childhood by Ina Taylor (Gretna: Pelican Publishing Co., 1991), 116.
2 A Treasury of Kate Greenaway (Bath, England: Robert Frederick Publishers, First Edition, 2000).
3 There is no date of publication provided in the book. However, there is a little ad on the back cover which gives the names of the seven other books that Kate had published prior to that one. In order, they are: Under the Window, Marigold Garden, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Little Ann & Other Poems, Mother Goose, Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book, and The Marigold Painting Book. How wonderful it is make connections with original source material!
4 Briggs & Co's Patent Transferring Papers, Village Scenes, 1885, featured a great number of Greenaway designs. Briggs manufactured silk and recommended their threads for stitching the designs.
5 Belding Bros and Co's Souvenir: Hints on Art Needle Work (Chicago: Foster Roe & Crone, Art Printers, 1889), “Salutatory” page.
6 Sometimes done with a needle and sometimes done with a small hook, tambour work resembles an embroidered chain stitch on one side of the fabric.For the most definitive resource on tambour work, see: Tambour Work by Yusai Kukuyama (London: Dryad Press, Ltd., 1987).
7 Etching: a term that usually refers to an artistic process of carving a design.
8 Redwork Renaissance: 49 Designs from an 1893 Coverlet by Patricia Lynne Grace Cummings (Concord, NH: Quilter's Muse Publications, 2002, 2004, 2006).
Go to Chapter 4
©Copyright 2006/2007. Patricia and James Cummings, Quilter's Muse Publications, Concord, NH. All Rights Reserved. Please enjoy the designs contained in this pages, and make lots of fun projects, but we ask only one thing, PLEASE DO NOT REPRODUCE THE DESIGNS FOR SALE. Thank you.
If you have any questions, please contact us at: pat@quiltersmuse.com