Fine Naive Needlework House Portrait

Coloured Wools on Linen
Inscribed and Dated ‘SOUTH FARM WITHCALL 1942’
Signed ‘ELIZABETH BAILEY’

English c. 1942

20.25” high x 30.5” wide

Ref: 28/42

In genuine original condition and retaining good original colours, this unusually large scale and historically interesting Folk Art Needlework Picture depicts the Farmhouse at South Farm, Withcall, during the Second World War in 1942. In the top left hand corner there are fighter planes depicted in the sky, possibly a unique feature. It is also of particular interest that the garden in front of the house is neatly cultivated with vegetables in neat rows, which was typical of all rural homes that had any land. In an attempt to help the war effort all families were encouraged to “Dig for Britain” and produce as much foodstuffs as possible. So this delightful hand embroidered needlework picture, dating from the mid C20th is a wonderful and rare work of Folk Art of its time and tells its own story as a social historical document. Now housed in a bespoke ebonized moulded section frame with gilt slip and Museum Mounted, it retains the flat perspective and iconographic qualities in common with earlier pictorial needle works from the Folk Art tradition and benefits from an appealingly naïve composition, curiously sensitive details and subtle palette.