Needlework Picture, 1747-1750
To begin, Needlework Picture is a Boston-made embroidery that colorfully depicts a lush green landscape, likely a generalized stand-in for Boston Common. In the forefront are a young lady holding a fishing pole, a group of reapers, a promenading couple, and a mounted horseman. Around them are dogs, birds, and leaping deer. Made between 1747 and 1750, it is the largest of seventeen scenes called "fishing lady" pictures. It is worked in wool and silk with beads on linen canvas. Although its maker is unknown, the picture descended through the Lowell family and hung at Elmwood, the home of James Russell Lowell. The image of a young woman waiting to catch a fish while other couples are frolicking suggests a youthful maker and romantic fantasies (Historic New England).
Material Composition
Needlework Picture is an embroidered image that was made of wool and silk on a linen canvas in the mid-18th century. Although embroidered images were not uncommon in the 18th century, the use of needlework in this way offers an intriguing window into the artifact's social history. There is a long history behind the association of women and needlework, with class playing a significant role; in the early modern period (between 1500 and 1800), women of humble means spun and wove cloth from necessity whereas women from affluent families had more leisure time. For them, the ability to carefully embroider cloth became a means of advertising their social status (Klein 2001, p. 38). Thus, it is likely that it was a higher status woman behind the fabrication of this piece. Often, embroidered images were considered to be the "capstone project" in an elite woman's education, something through which to stake their role in the family's presentation of its gentility and fashionable taste (Pappas 2015, p. 2). The use of this medium and its incorporation of wool and silk suggests that the work was meant to exhibit the artist's refinement and, by extension, the gentility of the family.