Rt. Hon. J. Chamberlin, M.P.

Printed at bottom of card-mount:-
WOVEN IN PURE SILK BY T. STEVENS, COVENTRY.

Rt. Hon. J. Chamberlain, M.P. 

silk:
cm deep by cm wide

by Godden:
Joseph Chamberlain was born in London on 8 July 1836. By 1874, he had retired from business life and actively taken up politics as a Liberal. He was mayor of Birmingham in 1874, and in a few years had initiated many important developments for the improvement of Birmingham. He was elected as a Member of Parliament for Birmingham in 1876, and in 1895 he became Secretary of State for the Colonies - a post he held during the trying Boer War period and during the peace settlement, when he went out to South Africa. He was, later, a great advocate of Colonial Preferences. He died in Birmingham eight years later.

The Stevens portrait silk shows the 'Mr. Chamberlain' facing slightly left. The subject was first listed on label 21+9+2 of 1887 and it is normally mounted on card D. The title was included in an advertisement published in May 1887.

Two slightly different versions are so far recorded, one a very rare one without the usual spray of flowers woven across the jacket [so180 on this site].
§96a The other version has a spray of orchid-like flowers woven across the jacket [the image above].

Other comments:
From a paper envelope used to post the original pictures and portraits, it is confirmed the flowers are Orchids.