Painted Cloths from Brandeston Hall
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Painted linen cloth depicting a wooded landscape interspersed with a church, a watermill, and lakes. A boar hunt with hounds is occurring.
The painted cloths from Brandeston Hall are recorded as coming into the collection of the Lincoln City and County Museum (now The Collection: Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire) in 1951 with a gift of arms & armour. They were put on display in the Grey Friars building on Broadgate. In 1975 they were loaned to Gainsborough Old Hall where they remained on display until 2005 when they were removed for condition assessment by a textile conservator and returned to Lincoln.
Brandeston Hall is located near the village of Brandeston in Suffolk. In 1844 Brandeston Hall burned down and its owner, Charles Austin, restored it as an exact replica. In 1947 the Society of Old Framlinghamians bought the Hall from the Austin family as a living war memorial to commemorate the boys and masters from nearby Framlingham College who fell in both world wars. The junior school of Framlingham College officially opened there in 1949 and Brandeston Hall is now its preparatory school.
We believe that the painted cloth was displayed in the South Room, as it was described in the 1947 sale catalogue as having ‘panelled walls and a deep frieze richly painted with Fruit Foliage and Sporting Subjects’.
