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.
