Pillow Cover

Provenance

Lord Abingdon, Rycote House
Sotheby’s, June 1928
The Richmond Collection, 1928–87
Private collection from 1987

Description / Expertise

In brightly coloured silks, gold and silver thread.

This important and exquisitely worked pillow cover or pillow bere is one of a group of four from the Lord Abingdon Collection. One is in the Victoria and Albert Museum; another is illustrated in Victoria Hackenbroch’s catalogue of the Irwin Untermyer Collection, (fig.6 pl.4). The brilliance of the colours gives it a jewel-like appearance and the scrolling stems are
interwoven with pomegranates, pansies, carnations and other flowers that have symbolic meanings.