Hippopotamus in Gold & Silver on Red

One of my favourite things about old natural history illustrations are the number of animals that were obviously drawn from descriptions, by artists who had never seen the real thing. So many old hippo drawings just looked all wrong, with little tiny heads! I finally found a happy hippo with a properly gigantic head in the 1895 book ‘Brehm's Life of Animals: A Complete Natural History for Popular Home Instruction and for the Use of Schools’.

The hippopotamus is 4.25 inches wide, stitched by hand on 5x7 inch 100% cotton watercolour paper, which means that it will pop right into any commercial frame in that size, and be ready to hang on your wall. 

Materials: Japanese paper, glass bead, and cotton floss on cotton paper.