All Sewn Up

About the Item: I was intrigued to find that Mrs. Paul Mellon (yes, that Mellon) was a collector of Mary Faulconer's work, and that a number of her paintings around this size had sold from the Mellon estate in 2014 for an average of around $1,800 each at AUCTION (wholesale)! (Pic included of auction record.) Part of that was surely the provenance. But at any rate - I like this one better than those, as it's the one example I have seen of her doing this much hard-core trompe l'oeuil - others might have a patch of imitated tablecloth or something like that here or there but not nearly this much detail. In this one, what appear to be collage of pieces of material are actually PAINTED - even though some have minute details that look impossible to reproduce accurately by hand. I am a painter myself, and I have no clue how an artist can have this level of patience. Check out the very-close-ups. Oil on artist's board.