Design for Embroidery with a Series of Bundles with Stylized Flowers and Leaves

Drawing with a variety of design motifs for embroidery typical from the 19th century, which saw a revival of styles, including the Calssicism of Greece and Rome, Renaissance styles, Rococo and Neoclassicism. These revivals were linked to the "collector mania" that took place especially after 1850, and coincided with the Romantic movement in literature that saw in the past an escape from modernity. Some of the most common design motifs that emerged from this renewed interest in antiquarianism were naturalistic and floral motifs, including thin garlands and bundles, vases, classical musical instruments, and ribbons.

This drawing presents a series of thin, elongated bundles of flowers and branches with leaves, most of them stylized and rendered with exotic colors, organized in two groups. On the left half of the sheet are two rows, showing 8 different bundles: The first has a bundle of thin branches with large stylized leaves renderedwith several shades of green, some green flower buds, and two large stylized flowers, possibly camelias, colored with shades of pink. The second contains several branches with stylized leaves rendered with different shades of green, two large stylized flowers with red, orange and gray petals, decorated with a white zig-zagging line, and dark green and orange pistils, and some flower buds of the same flower, which reveal the red and orange petals emerging from a green-and-yellow cocoon. The third bundle consists of thin green branches with thorns and several flowers with layers of elongated petals colored with purple and blue, and yellow pistils. The second row starts with a bundle of several branches containing groups of small stylized flowers that look somewhat like lilies of the valley, rendered with two shades of blue, and three large leaves rendered with shades of green. The next bundle has three elongated leaves colored with shades of green, brown and yellow, three smaller, almond-shaped leaves colored with two shades of green and yellow, and three large rosettes colored with shades of grayish-purple. Next to it is a bundle with two elongated leaves colored with shades of green and three thin branches with several stylized flowers each, colored with shades of blue and with shades of pink. Below it are two smaller bundles, one with a large rosette with almond-shaped petals executed in cream around a blue circle with dots, standing on a thin stem with two large stylized leaves executed in shades of green, and two small flower buds; the other with six thin, elongated green leaves and a bunch of small stylized flowers colored with cream and with offsetting dotted blue pistils.

The right half of the shee contains more bundles: The first has long, scrolling branches with small green and yellow shuttle-shaped leaves and three large rosettes made up of ovals, half rendered with orange and half with red, the separation marked by a zig-zagging line executed with ink, around a group of red dots outlined with ink. The next bundle is made up of a large exotic flower with elongated petals colored with shades of orange, pink, red, blue, gray and yellow, and a flower bud of the same type, on a stem with elongated leaves colored with shades of green. Below it are two other bundles with leaves colored with shades of green and stylized flowers: on one, the flowers consist of small green bell-shapes hanging from the branches and two petals, one colored with red and the other with orange and yellow, and on the other, the flowers consist of elongated bell shapes that hang from the branches, colored with shades of green, that end on rosettes with blue petals and yellow pistils. To their left, below the first design of the group, is a bundle with an undulating branch colored with pink and gray from which scroll out several stylized flowers colored with green, pink and yellow, pink stylized flowers and flower buds with elongated petals and red sepals, and semi-abstract flowers with petals and pistils colored with shades of grayish-purple and with sepals colored with green and yellow. Below, and positioned horizontally, is an undulating branch colored with light grayish-green with elongated shuttle-shaped leaves colored with green and yellow or with two shades of pink-orange, and a large rosette with petals colored with two shades of pink-orange and decorated with abstract shapes of cream abr brown color, and with pistils created by thin lines ending on small dots around a brown-and-cream circle.