Very Exuberant Markmaking! Mid 19th Century Penwork Woman in Hat on Horse in Period Frame bottle with paper label from the crazy quilt style

from the crazy quilt style velvet patchwork

upside down and right side up) and declarative (almost Biblical feeling

with light creasing/toning to the corners from where they were tucked into the sleeve for many years

dates to the 1840s or so

which is how it would show when cased

Very Exuberant Markmaking! Mid 19th Century Penwork Woman in Hat on Horse in Period Frame bottle with paper label from the crazy quilt styleTotal love at first sight for me with this one, starting with this woman's wonderful, very folky, wide eyed and double browed face. I've got a great love for 19th century penwork drawings, which were very much a thing, but much less so for the ones that perfectly mimic examples published in instructive books of the period it's the expressive singularity that makes them special to me, as very much the case here, this one 1850s or so I believe. A