sketcher, designer and carver, was born at Hexham in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, daughter of the Rev. Robert Thorley Bolton and Jane, née Ball. In 1866 she married the English surveyor Edward Twynam, who had been working in NSW since 1855. They lived at Riversdale, Goulburn, and raised a large family there, until 1887 when Edward was appointed Colonial Surveyor of NSW and they lived in Darlinghurst, Sydney. They returned to Riversdale in the 1890s and Emily is thought to have begun working as a carver then, using a small room attached to the stables as her studio. Numerous works by her survive at Riversdale, now owned by the National Trust (NSW), including an elaborately carved wooden frame holding a photograph of the artist and two of her sisters, Anne Bolton and Lady Windeyer ( see Ethel Stephens ).
Lady Windeyer was President of the NSW Women’s Committee for the 1893 World’s Columbian Fair at Chicago (the Chicago International Exhibition) and chief organiser of the preliminary Women’s Work Exhibition held at Sydney in 1892, where Emily exhibited a 'highly artistic’ knitted counterpane. Sent on to Chicago, it reputedly won a prize. Lady Windeyer was also the major figure in charge of NSW contributions to the 1907 Women’s Work Exhibition in Melbourne, at which Mrs Twynam exhibited a portière (door curtain) she designed and embroidered and an elaborately carved hall chair in a Jacobean style more notable for its effort and intricacy than its historical fidelity (Riversdale).
Emily Twynam also designed a large bird and flower panel (208 × 83.5 cm) embroidered and shown in the Women’s Work Exhibition by Louise Guerry de Lauret , a neighbour at Goulburn, who lived on the property Wynella. The crewel embroidery is worked on linen, and some of the motifs employed can be seen in one of Emily Twynam’s sketchbooks, also at Riversdale, which are filled with drawings of the plants and birds that were the basis of many of her designs for both woodcarving and needlework. When the panel was shown in the preliminary Sydney exhibition held to select the final entries for Melbourne, the Sydney Mail (11 September 1907) commented: 'A large picture of parrots and fruit in needlework by Miss De Lauret, of Goulburn, stands out noticeably’. Naturally, it was sent on to Melbourne, where it was exhibited in the Art Needlework section, class 160: 'Best Single Article, such as-The Best Bag, Box, Frame, Blotter, Sachet, Sofa Back, Panel, Table Cloth (not less than 1½ yards square), Hassock, Threefold Screen, etc.)’. This was an extraordinarily popular section with 643 entries and several special prizes were awarded-including one of three guineas to Louise de Lauret. First prize went to Mrs J. W. Fletcher of New South Wales, mother of the photographer Judith Fletcher , for an unusual needle-painting Interior (p.c.) apparently designed by the painter William Blamire Young , while second prize went to Vera de Lauret Simpson of New South Wales (presumably a relative) for her 'Sofa Back, Old English Embroidery’.
The same issue of the Sydney Mail illustrated a large embroidered screen by Louise de Lauret of three allegorical figures, evidently after a design copied from an English print. It too was sent to Melbourne and shown in the same 'Art Needlework’ class – though not as an original design, like the bird and fruit panel. It is therefore unclear which De Lauret work was responsible for the prize-awarded to the artist not the exhibit – but the panel designed by Mrs Twynam seems more likely since the judges strongly favoured original work. It remains at Riversdale, along with two of the four other panels known to have been designed and embroidered by the same pair of artists.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
stokel
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 1992
