In a letter to her nephew, Phoebe Anna Traquair writes:

“To the artist, be he the poet, painter or musician, the world is a great treasure house, stored with endless material for him to use, teach yourself to match the beauty of red-lipped buds, sunlight through green leaves, the yellow gorse on the hill, the song of the wild birds, so on, step by step, the world opens out. This is life. This is to live, the perfection comes when one’s own life is in harmony with this beauty” 

I recently stumbled upon an artist of remarkable depth and vision—though, in truth, I had already encountered her work without realizing it. For some time, I have been captivated by The Progress of the Soul, a breathtaking four-panel tapestry that speaks to the very essence of transformation and spiritual evolution.

Yet, until now, I had been unable to find other works in a similar style, and for good reason—the original source where I discovered the image had misattributed the piece! No wonder my search had felt like chasing shadows. But now, with her name illuminated before me, I am uncovering the brilliance of an artist whose legacy is far more expansive and profound than I first imagined.

• The Progress of a Soul: The Entrance, 1895 (Panel One) Silk and gold thread embroidered on linen

This is the first from a suite of four embroidered panels which follow the journey of the human soul to heaven. It illustrates the happy stage of hope and innocence when the soul is in tune with nature, unaware of the realities of life. The theme was inspired by a performance of Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal, which premiered in Germany in 1882. It was also loosely based on Denys L’Auxerrois (1887) by Walter Pater (1839-1894), a tale about the god Dionysus living as a priest in medieval France.

• The Progress of a Soul: The Stress, 1897 (Panel Two) Silk and gold thread embroidered on linen

Here the forces of evil begin to invade the soul’s world and destroy all precious, living creatures. Hands reach out for flowers, birds and even the soul’s tunic, while a snake entwines one leg. The figure is reminiscent of both Orpheus (with his lyre) from Greek mythology and Denys l’Auxerrois. Pater described Denys, a character in a 13th-century tapestry, as a flaxen and flowery creature, sometimes well-nigh naked among the vine leaves … with all the regular beauty of a pagan god’.

• The Progress of a Soul: Despair, 1899 (Panel Three) Silk and gold thread embroidered on linen

Pater described Denys l’Auxerrois as a ‘suffering, tortured figure’. – Traquair provided her own explanation of the embroideries, asserting that in this scene ‘frustration, disillusionment and despair have gained the upper hand’. She employed a vast range of coloured silks for each panel, using traditional and more fashionable stitches to create the rich, textured effect. They included laid and couched work (also used in the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry) for the vine leaves.

• The Progress of a Soul: Victory, 1902 ( Panel Four) Silk and gold thread embroidered on linen

Here the human soul is welcomed into heaven, awoken from death with a kiss from a red winged angel. According to Phoebe Anna Traquair, this final panel symbolised ‘ultimate salvation by the grace of Higher powers, rather than the merits of the individual’. She based the design around Pater’s description, not of Denys, but of a ‘wine-god who had been in hell’. As customs labels on the back of each panel confirm, all four embroideries were exhibited at the St Louis Exposition in the USA in 1904.

Phoebe Anna Traquair was a force within the Celtic Revival and the Scottish Arts and Crafts Movement of the early twentieth century. Though celebrated as a Scottish artist, she was, in fact, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1852. Her artistic journey began at the School of Design in Dublin, where she honed her craft before moving to Edinburgh in 1874. This relocation came after her marriage to Dr. Ramsay Traquair, a distinguished naturalist who would later serve as the Keeper of Natural History at Edinburgh’s Museum of Science and Art.

Traquair’s work was deeply influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris, and the Arts and Crafts Movement, as well as the visionary mysticism of William Blake and the luminous storytelling of early Italian Renaissance painters—the very period that inspired the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (so named for their reverence of art before Raphael). She corresponded with the eminent critic John Ruskin, was a friend of William Holman Hunt, and, through sheer dedication, carved out a career that earned her international acclaim as an artist, designer, and craftswoman.

Her body of work is staggering in its range and ambition. While she produced a number of traditional paintings on canvas and panel, her artistry extended far beyond conventional boundaries. She was a master of mural painting, book illumination, embroidery, enameling, and tapestry, infusing each medium with an almost sacred quality—her work radiates with spiritual symbolism, intricate storytelling, and a sense of the divine feminine.

An incredibly skilled embroiderer, Phoebe Anna Traquair produced a body of stunning tapestries, including The Salvation of Mankind:

Perhaps most astonishing is the sheer scale and vision of her mural work, particularly in Edinburgh. She transformed spaces into realms of transcendence, painting vast ecclesiastical frescoes that shimmer with otherworldly beauty. Her most famous murals, including those in Mansfield Traquair Church, have been likened to the Scottish equivalent of the Sistine Chapel—testament to her ability to fuse art, myth, and spirituality into something truly divine.

Her legacy, once overshadowed by misattribution and historical oversight, is now being rightly reclaimed. The more I learn about Phoebe Anna Traquair, the more I feel she was not only an artist but a visionary—a woman who painted with a soul that spanned across time, bridging the mythic past with the ever-evolving present.

Have you encountered her work before? If not, I encourage you to dive into the luminous world she created—it is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

Heart to Heart, Elizabeth