Stitching the Standard
Edmund Blair Leighton, 1911
Stitching the Standard is a 1911 oil on canvas by the English painter Edmund Blair Leighton, known for historical genre scenes set in the medieval and Regency periods. It shows a young woman with long dark hair, dressed in period costume, seated on the battlement of a castle. She works on a banner with a black eagle on a golden field, finishing its embroidery in the open daylight, away from the activity within the fortress. The scene is set in a time of peace, and this quiet domestic task sits in tension with the warlike purpose of the flag she is making. Leighton's manner is highly finished and naturalistic, less stylised than the Pre-Raphaelite work with which his art is often associated. His romanticised medieval scenes, often featuring women in historical dress, enjoyed wide popular appeal, and this painting reflects that taste for history rendered as an intimate, everyday moment.
- Painter
- Edmund Blair Leighton
- Date
- 1911
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 98 × 44 cm
- Genre
- genre art
- Depicts
- castle, military flag, woman, sewing
