Another Stunning antique Victorian era (Napoleon III in France, which is the origin for this one) large fire screen still with the original silk needlework, needlepoint, emphasized with glass and metallic beads - really beautiful palette. Ready to hang or to incorporate into a pillow top for one of those luxuriant down-filled decorator sofa or throw pillows. You know the ones i mean. Selling off my own collections now. Will leave it to you to make them up into lush beautiful pillows. It's a simple project and this one will turn out beautifully. French made, and entirely by hand. The yarns are silk, and the panel is in excellent condition for a pillow top project.
Very good to excellent for age and type, it has hundreds s of those Victorian glass beads worked into a very French abstraction of florals, a feel of acanthus to it, mostly worked in graduations of white to deep gray and metallic beads in silver and gold, too. The silk needlepoint stitches that form the ground are in very good condition, not much fade to the color though we can't open the backing to compare, but if anything a tiny wear to the almost black wool yarn here or there, primarily to one small are of lavender upper right. No tears, no holes. Lots of photos to check every stitch. It's not a small face screen, but one which would have hung on mantle with an extending arm apparatus which no long is with it. Whether you hang it as wall display, or make it over to a pillow top, you're sure to love it for generations. Measurements noted on the photos, too, but it is 18" longest, 16" wide and 12" tall to the part where it starts to curve in for the shield-shaped bottom. The original green silk backing is in place but has flaws (see photos).
