This scallop-shaped piece may originally have been used as a small place mat. It seems that it was carefully cut to shape after completing the embroidery.

The colourful interlace design is made up of two interlaced strands. Both are outlined in blanket stitch and then infilled with feather stitch. The pale green in one of the ribbons provides a subtle contrast to the other strand.

Drawing spirals can be surprisingly complex. In this drawing Bain explores how to create them in one, two, three, four or five-parts. He then elaborates on the basic design, joining spirals together by using what he calls his ‘C-method’. These two designs are not repeated in any of Bain’s publications. But he does include llustrations of the C-method in other ways, based on an example from the Book of Kells.

George Bain’s passion was to bring together methods for drawing Celtic interlaced art that anyone could use. He clearly hoped to publish his work, the illustrations in this series beiing dated 1935. But it wasn’t until 1945 that his first booklets appeared.  One of them focussed on spirals, but it didn’t use this illustration. Nor did his 1952 book Celtic Art, Methods of Construction.

Celtic art designs were used when decorating various early medieval items.  George Bain studied photographs and drawings of examples from Britain and Ireland. He wanted to draw them accurately. These complex spirals are from various objects. The designs are in the Northumbrian Book of Durrow, Irish church silverware and Pictish sculpture.

At top left, Bain shows a portion of a border of spirals from underneath the base of the Ardagh Chalice. He uses this border in the chapter on spirals in Methods of Construction. But there he adapts the design from curving to linear. This allows him to compare it directly with panels from the Book of Kells.

Exact copies of the other examples drawn here are not used in his book. However, he does emphasise the importance of spirals in Pictish sculpture. He draws those at at Tarbat (Portmahomack), Aberlemno and Shandwick (Easter Ross).

TCD MS57 folio 3v Trinity College Dublin (digital link MS57_014)

This fabulous drawing of spirals shows how a disc of spirals from the Book of Kells was created. Down the left side this is developed by celebrating the work of one of George Bain’s school pupils. Here there are two different disc designs linked in a single panel by interlaced knotwork. It is just as sophisticated as any in the illuminated manuscripts of 650AD to 800AD.

It is intriguing to wonder why Bain didn’t re-use the illustrations that he had painstakingly assembled in 1935. Perhaps he felt that there were better ways of teaching how to draw these designs. The change from portrait to landscape booklets meant that layouts had to change. Possibly this led to using different examples of early medieval objects.

This intriguing piece came with a collection of other small items in a finely decorated box. All were donated by the family of George Bain. It is a small wooden block, onto which has been screwed an engraved metal plate.

The cut corner, jagged lower edge and damaged decorative swirl suggest to me that it was once larger. Perhaps it was originally part of a printing block for one of Bain’s commercially produced Celtic greetings cards.

This looks rather like a work in progress or an experimental piece. It doesn’t seem to be quite finished. The design is quite complex for such a small carving and must have been difficult to produce. It’s fascinating working out how two apparent circles have been linked to make the oval shape.

It’s a shame that we don’t know who created the plaque, or when. Perhaps it was one of Bain’s school pupils, or a member of his family.

The details in the design of this rug are amazing and well worth a closer look. They include huntsmen on horseback, wild boar, deer and hounds. It was called ‘The Hunting Rug’ by its manufacturers, Quayle and Tranter of Kidderminster. Designed by George Bain the rugs sold very well. 

In the late 1940s George Bain was approached by the carpet maker Quayle & Tranter Limited to provide some Celtic designs suitable for rugs. This became a very productive collaboration. Bain was soon taken on as a consultant as well as designer. Not all of the designs that he provided were actually put into production. However, the rug shown here is the most successful of those that were. 

Initially, in March 1948, Bain delivered the hunting design for a rug 6 feet by 3 feet in size (around 1.8m by 0.9m). Later that year he supplied a second design for increasing the size of the rug to 12 feet by 9 feet (around 3.65m by 2.75m), the one shown here. He used the same motifs but cleverly incorporated more of them into a very pleasing, balanced and more symmetrical design. 

There are rugs of both sizes and two different colourways in the Collection.

See Tattersall CEC 1966 A History of British Carpets, from the introduction of the craft until the present day

In the late 1940s and early 1950s George Bain was advising the Kidderminster carpet firm of Quayle & Tranter Ltd. It seems that they asked Bain to produce some designs for a logo for the company. In our collection there are four different drafts. This design was the only one of them in which Bain tried to incorporate some Celtic ornament in the form of very angular knotwork.

It’s a shame, but there is no evidence that any of the logo designs were used by the firm. However, Bain supplied several rug designs, some of which were actually commercially produced. Quayle and Tranter also used other Celtic designs for their manufacture of carpets.

This is a wonderfully simple, single strand interlace design applied to a piece of lino that has been cut to reflect its shape.

There are no records about the maker of this lino bookmark. Presumably it was made by a student of George Bain or a member of his family. It was amongst a variety of items in a box donated to the museum by the Bain family.