![]() Also fetching a higher price tag are those with complex artistic detail: for instance, works illustrating the intricacies of a ship’s rigging using finer threads like silk. Most were left unsigned, making pieces bearing the names of their artists more valuable. Yet much remains unknown about woolies and their makers. (Sewing was a vital skill for most, so they were adept at cross-stitch, chain stitch, and long-stitch.) By the time the craft peaked in the mid to late 1800s, the shipmen had begun embellishing their portraits with bits of bone, metal, glass, and sequins, further personalizing their works. “They were symbols of the pride they felt representing their ships and country.”īritish sailors, believed to be the primary makers of woolies, would spend their downtime stitching images of their ships onto duck linen using Berlin wool. ![]() ![]() “These were simply crafts to document their journeys,” adds Vandekar. He’s the world’s largest dealer of woolworks, or woolies: embroidered ship portraits sewn primarily by 19th-century mariners between trips to sea. "Seamen never made woolworks with the idea that they would be considered valuable works of art,” says New York–based antiques dealer Paul Vandekar.
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