A Pontremoli Needlework Carpet, London, Circa 1924

According to family tradition, commissioned c.1924 by the Hon. Arthur C E Somerset (1859-1948) and his wife Louisa Somerset (d.1940), for their residence at 8 Stratford Place, London W1;

Transferred in 1945 to Kingstone Lisle Park, Oxfordshire;

Thence by descent until sold Sotheby's London, 6 November 2018, lot 37;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Lots 657 and 659 are rare and particularly accomplished examples of the production of the Pontremoli workshops. Of Italian Sephardic Jewish origin, Jacques Mereno Pontremoli (1886-1952) emigrated to London and founded a business supplying furnishings and antique textiles in Paddington, West London in 1910. In the 1920s his workshops began producing handmade needlework carpets based on designs by William S. Haines, son of a tapestry restorer who had worked for William Morris at Merton Abbey, and also inspired by historic textiles in the Victoria & Albert Museum, especially Elizabethan and Jacobean crewel work embroidery, as seen on the present lot. Pontremoli was granted a royal warrant by H.M. Queen Mary and in addition to the Royal Household his clients included the Duke of Kent, Henry 'Chips' Channon M.P. and numerous members of the British aristocracy. Carpet production continued in the workshops until the Second World War.

Comparable Pontremoli carpets that have appeared on the market include an example previously in the Edward James Collection, West Dean Park, sold Christie’s, London, 23 May 2012, lot 375; another from the collection of Mary Sayles Booker Braga, Sotheby's New York, 19-20 October 2015, Lot 707; and a further example sold Sotheby’s, New York, 18-19 April 2002, lot 804.