Georgian Literary Needlework Pictures, Realization, and Iconic Meaning-Making

Abstract

This article examines a group of Georgian needlework pictures based on late eighteenth-century cabinet prints of literary works. Focusing on how these needlework productions were realized, including which decisions regarding the colour of silk thread and chromatic patterns, as well as visual revision, were made by the female silkworker, the article seeks to introduce these pictures as meaningful remediations of printed visual literary culture. The silkworks will be shown to advance interpretations of and to provide framing for six literary characters and the ways in which their stories were iconically rendered by the silkworkers.