Antique armchair embroidery patterns

    I recently won at an online auction two hand painted Victorian era seat cover patterns.... Like I too often do, I looked at the photo and skipped reading the description.
  
    Once again, it was one of those sellers who take bad photos, but from what I could see the patterns were faded, and damaged.... so I put a low bid, and won ! Yeah !
   
    A week or so later I come home from my day job and am told by my oldest son that he had to sign for some mail that the postman delivered to the door. And there it was waiting for me on the living room table,  a huge flat package. I opened it and was surprised to see how big the patterns were.... The largest being 46 x 69 cm !

    Now I have a new problem, where to store them !  Antique, hand painted patterns cannot be folded, rubbed against other items, and certainly never bent, or exposed to humidity !

    How old are the patterns ? I can't say for sure, but this style/quality is what you would find at the end of the Berlin wool work craze - late 1800's... the quality of the colours, details and workmanship is lower than the earlier models. They were by this time considered 'mass produced', and William Morris of the arts and crafts movement did not approve of them.

Imagine how much patience it would take to stitch such large patterns

Notice the little numbers on the painting... probably colour marking.

Detail in all its faded glory

    I was a bit impatient to start charting them... even though I have several other projects in the waiting queue.... so I chose to chart the little rose vase from the first pattern.

   

     The pattern is available here: https://www.etsy.com/no-en/listing/256399919/rose-vase-cross-stitch-pattern-instant?ref=shop_home_feat_1