Stitched exhibition star object: House of Dun pelmet
Stitched: Scotland’s Embroidered Art is a new exhibition, held in Edinburgh this autumn/winter, that explores 200 years of household embroidery in Scotland. Looking at themes of display and decoration, inspirations and design, skills and collaborations, it takes a comprehensive view across the textile collection of the National Trust for Scotland, bringing new research and stories into the light.
A star object in the exhibition is a curtain pelmet, designed to hang above the centre window in the saloon at House of Dun and embroidered by Lady Augusta Gordon (formerly Kennedy-Erskine) around 1860. Lady Augusta was a follower of fashion as well as having an eye for a bold design. Parrots feature strongly in her embroideries, their designs copied from contemporary publications such as Edward Lear’s Illustrations of Parrots and John Gould’s Birds of Australia and monograph on the toucan family. The natural yet engaging poses of Gould’s parrots were particularly popular with embroidery pattern designers – Lady Augusta’s pelmet shows how vibrantly the natural world could be transferred onto canvas or silk.
Having a father who became King William IV, and a social circle that included European royalty, may have inspired Lady Augusta with a grand style. Following her second marriage in the late 1830s, her father appointed Lady Augusta as State Housekeeper and she lived in apartments at Kensington Palace in London. In addition to her travels in France, this gave her access to a high calibre of embroidery design, which is evident in her later works.
The cartoon for the centre pelmet of the saloon windows at House of Dun is highly professional. Painted on paper and backed with linen, the image gives a sense of the intended scheme for the saloon, including the colours in which the flowers, foliage and birds should be worked. The selection of flowers is not dissimilar to those included in Lady Augusta’s earlier embroideries but in this set they have an added (possibly French) sophistication and flair. They were remembered by her granddaughter, the author Violet Jacob:
‘the curtains of the three very high windows of her drawing room – amber and pale blue satin [were] worked, drapery and pelmet, with thick wreaths of flowers and exotic birds.’
The completed set of curtains and pelmets were installed in 1863, the year after Lady Augusta’s son moved into the house with his new bride, and she herself moved out. Her previous scheme for the room had been much more conventional, including curtains of green ground chintz with wide figured pink lining, and green silk rosettes under each curtain ring. Ten years later, her impressive embroidered scheme was in place. Whether the embroideries were always intended as a gift for her son and daughter-in-law, or were embarked upon as an expression of the love she reputedly held for the house, is not known.
Since then, the effects of light have sadly deteriorated the colours of the centre pelmet, but the quality of Lady Augusta’s stitching and the exuberance of the design remains.
To see this pelmet and over 80 other inspirational embroidered textiles, visit Stitched: Scotland’s Embroidered Art at Dovecot Studios, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh from 25 October 2024–15 January 2025.