Lot 158
A CREWELWORK BED HANGING, SIR ROBERT LORIMER (SCOTTISH 1864-1929)
DATED 1893
Auction: Day One | Wednesday 19 August from 10am | Lots 1 - 198
Description
each worked with allover sprays of flowers with insects within a meandering border of flowers and birds, russet silk embroidery on a natural linen ground, with later linen backing, bears penwork label verso WORKED BY J.R.S. MACKENZIE/ IN 1893
Dimensions
227.5cm x 96.5cm
Provenance
Earlshall Castle, Fife, Scotland
Footnote
In 1890 Sir Robert Lorimer was commissioned by R.W.R. Mackenzie to restore and enhance his sixteenth century tower house, Earlshall, near Leuchars in Fife, Scotland. Lorimer designed several pieces of furniture for the house, including the settle now in LACMA and the buffet which Walter Shaw Sparrow illustrated in his The British Home of To-Day (1904). The work included embroideries to complete the decorative scheme. Walter Shaw Sparrow illustrated the bedcover from this set (now with The National Museums of Scotland) in The Modern Home (published in 1908). These embroideries were worked by Mackenzie's wife Jessie and her friends in 1893 and remained at Earlshall until the contents were sold in 1983.
Sir William Bruce built the castle in 1546. He had fought at, and unusually, survived the Battle of Flodden in 1513. Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1561. One of the family was killed at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, fighting for Charles II; and another Sir Andrew is known as "Bloody Bruce". He and his men killed Richard Cameron, a noted Covenanter, at Airds Moss. Bruce then hacked off Cameron's head and hands and took them back to Edinburgh.
The castle was abandoned and ruinous before being restored for R.W.R. Mackenzie by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1892. The gardens were relaid and the formal garden replanted.