La vieille

Mabel Frances Beldy was one of a long line of artists. The daughter of the British animal painter Heywood Hardy, she was also the mother of the artist Daphne Maugham, herself the wife of Felice Casorati. Using sewing and embroidery techniques, Mabel Beldy composed her figures with pieces cut from different sorts of fabric, like gauze, silk and jute, assembling them on the canvas with almost invisible stitches. She then framed them like genuine paintings