A large historical woolwork and glass bead needlework picture panel, second half 19th century, depicting ‘Mary Queen of Scots weeping over the dying Douglas at the Battle of Langside, 1568’, after Charles Landseer (1799-1879)

Margaret Stark (n.d);
to her daughter also Margaret Stark (b.1879);
thence by descent in that family.

The present lot was embroidered by female members of the Stark family, who lived in the prosperous 'West End' of Glasgow in the second half of the 19th century. According to family tradition the piece is most likely the work of the elder sisters of seven, Helen, Isobel, Elizabeth, Annie, Mary, Jessie and Margaret Stark (see fig. 1, a photograph from the end of the 19th century, where the girls appear in the named order above, starting centre back and proceeding clockwise).

This textile panel is inspired by a very popular painting by the celebrated artist Charles Landseer, who was especially well known for his heroic and historical subject matter and exhibited the painting in 1837 and 1862. The army of Mary Queen of Scots was defeated by Regent Moray at Langside in 1568, and George Douglas of Lochleven died on the battlefield and the defeat resulted in her flight to England and eventual imprisonment by Elizabeth I. It is an especially poignant event in the life of Queen Mary. The painting is thought to have been inspired in turn by Sir Walter Scott's novel 'The Abbot'. On the painting's initial presentation in 1837 it inspired four versions interpreted by embroiderers which were shown in the Great Exhibition of 1851. As such a popular subject for embroiderers in continued to be copied throughout the 19^th century. Worked from a 'Berlin woolwork' kit, which is a colour codes canvas on which to work in polychrome wool threads, and usually using a repeat of tent or continental stitch, the technique became the most popular form of embroidery from 1860 onwards. 

Two versions are housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. They include a needlework version worked in wool by Mrs Jane Brumlen from a woolwork kit, circa 1870, approximately 110cm high, 154cm wide and framed 140cm by 185cm (Inv. T.9-1927) and another version in lighter and paler colours, worked between 1830-1869, possibly by Mrs Vincent P. Rawlings (1804-1886), mounted in a glazed frame, approximately 138cm high, 169cm wide (Inv. T.298-1963). The present panel has the addition of the glass beads which is very time consuming additional technique to incorporate into a large panel.