[Sarah Ellis], ‘The Exhibition. Letter from a Country Visitor to her Friend in the North’, Morning Call (1851)

This chapter provides several types of exhibit; in particular, English examples of tapestry that are being crudely coloured and lacking in taste, compared with the sophisticated exhibits by the Manufacture des Gobelins. Some people suppose it is the stitch, in worsted work, which occasions the difficulty, and believe that if we could accomplish the stitch of the Gobelin tapestry, we should work in the same manner. Truly, there are stitches small enough in many of our specimens; and the effect, instead of being better, seems generally to be worse. With regard to the stitch difficulty, the questioner would do well to spend a little time in an apartment of great interest almost adjoining that which contains the tapestry, where a few specimens of Roman mosaics will satisfy her that the stitch is not in fault.