36 Lange, Bessemer, G'oransson and Miishet. 



being one of the first to introduce art needlework as an 

 industry for ladies into London. 



" Some very beautiful work was executed by Miss 

 Bessemer's staff, and amongst it some of the tapestries at 

 Chatsworth Hall. The Devonshire Banner, with the 

 Devonshire Arms richly emblazoned in beautiful colours, 

 now in the Hall, was executed under Miss Bessemer's 

 superintendence by her staff of ladies." 



Lady Allen sent half of this interesting specimen to her 

 uncle, and in acknowledgment received the following char- 

 acteristic letter from him : — 



Denmark Hill, London, S.W. 

 March 31st, 1897. 

 My Dear Niece, 



Allow me to thank you very much for the most 

 interesting specimen of embossing in Utrecht velvet 

 which you have been so kind to send me ; it brings back 

 old remembrances that will be for ever dear to me. 



My sister was an artist of more than average ability 

 in water-colour drawing, and excelled greatly in the art of 

 embroidery in silk, and in due course was appointed 

 embroideress to the Princess Victoria before she became 

 Queen. 



It is rather curious that I seemed born with an 

 instinctive taste for designing patterns, and when I reflect 

 on my natural aptitude for mechanical inventions, this 

 old power of designing foliage and flowers, but more 

 especially, grotesque ideal scroll work and foliage, it seems 

 to . me to have been a sort of faculty of inventing unseen 

 forms in almost endless variety, and when I was only 

 eighteen I designed for one year the principal Indian 

 patterns for the great Indian silk merchants — Everingtons' 

 of Ludgate Hill. It is a curious fact, in connection with 

 your friend's letter, that I designed the patterns em- 

 broidered by my sister, in the draperies of the beautiful 

 cradle of Her Gracious Majesty's first infant, at which 

 early period I had the honour to be an exhibitor, together 

 with my sister, at the Royal Academy, then held at 

 Somerset House, in the Strand. 



My sister had made a great number of flower paint- 

 ings which she put together in a portfolio she had made, 

 and on which she asked me to wtite in bold printing 

 letters, "Studies of Flowers from Nature, by Annie 

 Bessemer." This little incident shaped my whole future 

 life. I thought I would write the inscription in gold 



