Coventry

Reference Number:- Sprake Number:- Godden Number:-
st 100 STG129 7
 

Image of the City of Coventry in the early 1900's, with Grey Friar's Green in the foreground
the image of this silk picture kindly donated by John Hartwig, USA

Words:
Woven on silk:-
COVENTRY
Printed at bottom of card-mount:-
WOVEN IN SILK BY THOMAS STEVENS (COVENTRY) LTD
 
Size:
Card-mount:
30.5cm deep by 44.1cm wide

silk:
18.5cm high by 32.7cm wide

Comments:
by Austin Sprake:
Large size black and white picture depicting Grey Friar's Green in Coventry as it was in Edwardian days. Title woven in lower left corner. Stevens' identification printed on front. No back label.

by Geoffrey Godden:
A superb large-size black-and-white scene of Grey Friar's Green, Coventry, as it appeared early in the last (20th) century. The sight size of this view is approximately 12 3/4inches by 7 1/4inches. The title "Coventry" is woven in the bottom left-hand corner. The printed credit "Woven in silk by T. Stevens (Coventry) Ltd." on some card-mounts indicates the late post-1906 date of these pictures, which do not bear a back-label.
The view of Kenilworth Castle [see st 368 on this site], of similar size, and this Coventry view form a good pair.
The basic design occurs also in postcard form.
Mr G. S. Hill has related that special large-size looms were expressly made to produce these large silk pictures of Coventry and Kenilworth. Apparently, Mr Stevens was inspired by the large-size Continental silks that were being imported into this country in the early 1900s and resolved to produce similar or larger pictures to counter them.  

Other comments:
This view of Coventry, and that of Kenilworth Castle were the two largest silk pictures made by Stevens, and are significantly larger than all the other pictures.

 


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This page was created on 14 December 2003
new image added 16 April 2012, and replaced 27 October 2014, and improved version on 14 January 2018

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