cutting the mustard

Size - 35 cms tall by 27 cms wide
Style of frame - old French walnut (?)
Fabric - battered mustard coloured velvet from a flea found pair of curtains with an original metal mustard tin
Wording  - cut the mustard – there are several suggestions for the origin of this saying, my preferred one being directly from Norfolk, still the home of Colman's (founded in 1814) which explains that when mustard was one of the main crops in East Anglia, it was cut by hand with scythes, in the same way as corn. The crop could grow up to six feet high and this was very arduous work, requiring extremely sharp tools. When blunt they "would not cut the mustard".....ineffective and useless.