Embroidery as the Thread of History

Susan reporting,

In the modern era, examples of amateur needlework created by women and girls of the past have often been regarded as sweetly decorative, and no more. The notion of dainty feminine hands bent over a sampler is a romantic one that's hard to shake: tiny precise stitches simultaneously represented not only industry, but also the luxurious spare time to sit and embroider with costly materials. While there is certainly an element of truth to this, the admiration can also be tinged with condescension. Boys went out into the world and did important things. Girls sat sequestered indoors and stitched pretty pictures.

Lately, however, material culture scholars have begun to study samplers and other embroidery from a different perspective. A new exhibition at Winterthur Museum called Embroidery: The Thread of History (now through January 6, 2019) considers these embroidered pieces as historical documents that described not only the workers themselves, but their families, friends, and the world in which they lived. As the catalogue notes, "Women are often poorly represented in traditional archival sources, but their needlework can provide crucial evidence of lives that would otherwise remain unknown."

Eighteenth and early nineteenth century samplers that listed the maker's hometown and her birth date as well as the dates for other family members were regarded as important family documents. They held the same importance and legitimacy as the handwritten pages in the front of family Bibles, and in an era when many families were moving to new regions, a sampler could be more lasting and more portable than a Bible page, too. Samplers noting marriages and births were even accepted as evidence in the military pension applications presented by widows of Revolutionary War veterans.

Through their needlework, women and girls could evoke a familiar place or culture left behind through emigration, or display civic pride by showing a new local town building or church. They could document the family's trade or wealth, documenting ships, farmlands, and homes. They could memorialize and honor the dead, whether a family member or a national figure like George Washington.

Needlework could also represent a much larger history, as the exhibition notes for the family sampler shown above - worked in silk on linen by Sarah Ann Major Harris as a schoolgirl c1822-1828 - explain:

"This sampler documents an extraordinary family and foreshadows the legal fight for equal rights for African Americans. Seeking to further education in order to become a teacher, Sarah Ann Major Harris (1812-1878) , asked Prudence Crandall if she could become a day student at her school in Canterbury, Connecticut, in 1832. Crandall agreed and, in protest, many parents withdrew their daughters from the school. Crandall then recruited other young black female pupils, many of whom were from out of state. As a result, the state of Connecticut adopted what became known as the Black Law, which prohibited the teaching of 'Colored persons who are not inhabitants of this state.' The arguments developed by Crandall's defense attorneys were used later in the case of Dred Scott vs. Sanford (1857) and were echoed in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

"Sarah Harris continued to be active in the abolitionist movement throughout her life. She married another activist, George Fayerweather, and today their home in Kingston, Rhode Island, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Sarah was clearly well educated, having worked this sampler before attending Crandall's school."

Many thanks to Linda Eaton, Director of Museum Collections and Senior Curator of Textiles, Winterthur Museum, for her assistance with this post.

Above: Sampler, worked by Sarah Ann Major Harris, possibly at a school in Saybrook, CT, 1822-28. Winterthur Museum.

From the Archives: A Beautiful (and Romantic) 18th c. Man's Shirt

Susan reporting,

Today I'm reposting one of the breathtaking examples of needlework from The Diligent Needle: Instrument of Profit, Pleasure, & Ornament, a 2014 exhibition at Winterthur Museum. 

Hung against a dark wall, this 18th c. man's linen shirt was almost sculptural in its pristine perfection. I've written other posts about similar shirts here and here, so I won't repeat how they're made, how often they're laundered, or who wore them.

So why write about another one here (except, of course, because it's so stunningly beautiful)? While most men of every class purchased shirts made by tailors (remember that at this time, the primary cost of any garment lay in the fabric, not the labor), shirts were one of the few garments that wives and mothers could, and did, make at home. The economical geometry of 18th c. shirts made them comparatively easy to cut out and sew, and the voluminous shape did away with any challenging issues of fitting. The simple construction focused the attention on the stitching, and an accomplished seamstress could display her gifts for perfect tiny stitches and neat hems, left. Fancy needlework was admired, but skillful plain sewing like this was almost considered a wifely virtue.

Shirts were also intimate garments, worn next to the skin, and for most men at this time who still had not adopted the new-ish fashion for underdrawers, the tails of shirts also served as underwear. All of these reasons made a well-stitched shirt a popular gift from a bride or newlywed wife to her husband, and they are often mentioned in letters and diaries of the time. A new wife could happily clothe her husband with her own labors and romantically think of him with every stitch, while he in turn would also be proud to wear a shirt that showed his new wife was accomplished and frugal.

Although the curators at Winterthur don't know either who made or wore this shirt, their guess is that it was one of these "newlywed" shirts. Not only does its sparkling condition hint at a shirt that was perhaps put aside as a keepsake, but the stitcher also added a small, sentimental touch: at the bottom of the neck-opening, serving as a reinforcement, is a small appliqued heart, right. Awww....

Above: Shirt, maker unknown, linen, probably made in America, c1790-1820. Winterthur Museum.
Photographs © 2014 by Susan Holloway Scott.

The Spoils of War...in a Patchwork Quilt

Susan reporting,

When I was little, my godfather spoke often about a Meissen porcelain platter that he'd hidden in his knapsack during the last days of World War II. He'd guarded it fiercely, refusing to let it out of his sight until he could bring it home as a trophy of the war. He assured us that it had belonged to Hitler, and had been part of the Führer's own dinner service.

To be honest, I don't remember the actual platter itself. Had my godfather sold it? Did it failed to survive the Atlantic crossing back to New York? I don't know. But even then it was clear to me that the real significance of the platter to my godfather wasn't its intrinsic value, but that it represented a piece of the enemy that he'd won and kept, a trophy to be proudly discussed and marveled over for the rest of his life. It was tangible proof that when he'd fought for his country, he'd been among the victors.

Of course, my godfather wasn't alone in this. No matter how much officers frown and governments try to outlaw looting, soldiers have always brought home "souvenirs" from their battles and their enemies - the infamous spoils of war.

I thought of that earlier this year when I first saw these baby shoes, cut from the red wool of a captured British uniform coat during the American Revolution, and I thought of it again when I saw the quilt, above, on display at Winterthur Museum. Although the quilt is believed to have been made in the early 19thc, a family heirloom from the American Revolution dominates the patchwork pattern. The unusual scarlet shape in the middle is a man's 18thc red wool cloak. The larger semi-circle would have wrapped around the wearer's shoulders, while the smaller semi-circle would have folded back around the neck into a collar. The cloak would have been worn over another coat as an extra layer of warmth and protection during a harsh winter.

Family tradition says the cloak was captured from a British soldier by an ancestor fighting in the northern campaigns, where the weather was coldest, during the American Revolution. The cloak was then likely passed down through the next two generations, and probably with a tale or two attached as well. Winterthur believes the quilt was most likely made by Myranda Codner Patterson (1808-1881) around the time of her marriage to Thomas Patterson in 1828. From there, the trail becomes a bit more hazy. There were several ancestors in the Codner and Patterson families who were the right age to have fought with the Continental Army, but it's unclear which one might have actually captured the cloak.

No matter. When Myranda (or whoever else might have made the quilt) began to cut her patchwork pieces, she left the bright red wool cloak untouched, and instead incorporated its geometric shape into her design. It's easy to imagine the stories that surrounded the quilt after that. Imagine being a child tucked beneath it, and hearing about how your brave ancestor plucked this very cloak from the shoulders of a wicked redcoat officer. Imagine touching that red wool as you drifted off to sleep, and dreaming of hard-fought victories won for the sake of liberty and America.

Much like my godfather and that Meissen platter.

Above: Quilt with inset 18thc men's cloak. Possibly made by Myranda Codner Patterson, possibly Ohio, early 1800s. Winterthur Museum. Photo courtesy of Winterthur Museum.

Pearls, Lace, & Purple Silk: A Magnificent c1770 Dress

Susan reporting,

Some surviving 18thc dresses have become internet celebrities (I'm thinking of all the beautifully photographed dresses from the websites of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kyoto Costume Institute, and the Los Angeles County Museum.) Thanks to social media and blogs like this one, these dresses are instantly recognizable - old friends of silk damask and lace - by costume historians, re-enactors, historical seamstresses, and anyone who just likes a beautiful, beautifully made garment from the past.

This dress, upper left, deserves to be as well known as her more publicized sisters. I've heard about this dress in costume circles for years ("The PEARLS", whispered in hushed awe), and I finally had the opportunity to see it in person at Winterthur Museum this past fall, thanks to Linda Eaton, John & Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections and Senior Curator of Textiles.  As always, click on the images to enlarge.

The rumors were right. It's stunning. The dress is a saque, or sack gown, made between 1765-1775, most likely in France. There are so many layers of texture and embellishment in this single dress. To begin with, the fabric (see detail, right) is a purple plain weave silk with a brocaded lace and flora design in white, yellow, orange, green, red, and pink textured yarn.  It almost appears to be elaborate embroidery, but all those flowers are in fact woven into the fabric.

The dress has several different kinds of trims. Around the neckline and edging the skirt is gathered lace, and loops of green silk cording. There's a different kind of gauze-like lace gathered into poufs on the skirts, (see detail, left) and the poufs are in turn decorated with silk tape or ribbon that has been hand-painted with red and purple c-scrolls, vines, and medallions. The tape is exquisite, the work of a highly skilled specialist, and I can't imagine how long it must have taken to paint such delicate detail.

If that isn't enough, there are strands of pearl-like glass beads threaded through the other trimmings. There was some question whether the pearls were a 19thc addition, when the dress could have been used as a fancy-dress or theatrical costume, but it was finally determined from the stitching and the beads themselves that they are in fact an 18thc embellishment, though likely added about ten years after the dress was originally made. Strands of faux pearls on dresses are shown in many 18thc portraits, but I'd never seen a dress with any still in place. When the next generation plundered an older dress, I'm sure glass pearls were among the first things cut off for reuse.

I also liked how the sleeve flounces were lined with a contrasting plain-weave blue silk. The flounces had an extra little secret, too, bottom right. Sewn inside each flounce was a flat, oval-shaped, lead weight, covered in fabric, that made the flounce hang correctly from the wearer's arms. Like all the most sumptuous 18thc clothing, it's the little luxurious details - everything stitched or otherwise created by hand - that are so special.

I saw the dress in a storage box, not on a mannequin; the photo, upper left, is by Winterthur, and the detail pictures are mine.

Saque dress, c1765-75, Winterthur Museum.

The Tragedy of the Ex Dress & the Settee, c1760-80

Isabella reporting,

Fashion never stands still. But as we've discussed here before, women in the past didn't always buy a new dress to reflect a new style, but instead refurbished, retrimmed, or remade existing clothes that they already owned to fit the latest trends. (See examples here, here, here, and here.)

However, that's not what happened to the once-lovely 18thc dress shown here in pieces.

Last week I visited Winterthur Museum for a fine Nerdy History Girls afternoon with Linda Eaton, John & Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections and Senior Curator of Textiles. Linda showed me some of the treasures of Winterthur's costume and textiles collection - my idea of a perfect afternoon. In one of the storage rooms, Linda pulled a long archival box from a shelf and asked me if I'd like to see some "ex dresses." This was a new term to me, and at once I envisioned dresses worn by someone's former girlfriend. But in curatorial language, the "ex" refers more to the former state of the textile; in other words, it once was a dress, and now it's a fragment.

When new in 1760-1780, the ex dress shown here was a fashionable robe a la francaise (like this one), with a floating, pleated back and full petticoat, or skirt. The costly silk was likely woven in either Lyon, France, or Spitalfields, London, England, and then made up into a dress for a wealthy woman. The now-unknown mantua-maker who cut and stitched this dress was a skilled seamstress: the meandering floral pattern is carefully matched on the front of the bodice, with the two fronts mirroring one another.

The dress survived intact until the mid-20thc, when it fell prey not to another dressmaker, but to an upholsterer. In a practice common at the time, the dress was cut apart to provide a period-correct fabric for the 18thc settee also in Winterthur's collection, lower right. In theory this was a good choice: the settee was made in New England in 1760-1775, around the same time as the dress, and the style of the robe a la francaise offered plenty of yardage. In the hierarchy of colonial antiques, furniture outranked clothing until the late 20thc (when the study and collecting of historic dress began to be taken more seriously), and so the dress was sacrificed to outfit the settee.

At least the pieces of the dress that couldn't be used were saved - the bodice plus the shaped

sleeve ruffles, upper right, - but while the fragments are useful for study, they're also heartbreaking. To me the final indignity is the the remnants of the linen lining from the back, above left, showing the inner lacing that would have adjusted the now-vanished pleats.

Many thanks again to Linda Eaton for her assistance with this post.

Left: Ex Dress, maker unknown, silk woven in France or England, dress made in North America, 1760-1780, Winterthur Museum.
Lower right: Settee, maker unknown, Massachusetts, 1760-1775, Winterthur Museum.
Photographs used with permission of Winterthur Museum.

Ann Flower's Drawing Book, c1753-1760

Isabella reporting,

Sketchbooks are the notebooks of artists. They use them to explore influences, capture quick impressions, and save ideas for later work, all in (mostly) visual form. But like many notebooks, sketchbooks are often fragile, made of inexpensive paper that over time disintegrated, and often discarded by the artist her/himself, or tossed later after the artist's death.

Compared to Europe, there were relatively few artists in colonial America, and even fewer of their sketchbooks survive today. Only three are currently known: one each by John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West, and the one featured here by Ann Flower. Copley (1738-1815) and West  (1738-1820) are prominent names in art history, men whose talent was encouraged and supported, and whose skill eventually carried them from the colonies to London and the celebrity of noble, even royal, patrons.

Ann Flower (1743-1778) was a Quaker woman from Philadelphia who would never have considered a career as a professional artist, or have travelled to Europe to pursue such a career. This modest sketchbook, or drawing book, and several pieces of her needlework are all that remain of her youthful creative spirit. It's believed to date from around 1753-1760, when Ann would have been an adolescent, living in the largest city of the American colonies.

I saw Ann's sketchbook and her embroidered book cover, bottom right, as part of the Embroidery: The Language of Art exhibition currently at Winterthur Museum (see here and here for other posts I've written about this exhibition), and I learned more about her and her work at the Winterthur conference inspired by the exhibition this weekend. Amanda Isaac, Associate Curator, George Washington's Mount Vernon, has extensively studied Ann Flower and her work, and spoke about her drawing book as well as women's artistry in colonial Philadelphia.

Ann's sketchbook is small, only about 8" x 5" and made from fifteen sheets of paper. While it was purchased commercially, over time she tore some pages out, and added another. She drew in pencil and in ink, and added color with watercolor paints purchased from Philadelphia shops. The early pages of the book are filled with the kind of brightly colored, fanciful birds popular in 18thc embroidery, including a stupendous peacock, middle left, plus a rabbit, and a cat. Ann was a skilled needleworker, and it's possible she was experimenting with new designs or archiving older ones. There are also designs for flowers, vases, and animals.

But later in the book, Ann also drew from her life: pictures of Philadelphia women, middle right, detailing their dress, and a view of a house that may have been her own. (I particularly liked the thin black ribbons worn around the throat of one of the women that, according to Ms. Isaac, were a worldly fashion embraced by young Quaker women around 1760, and deplored by their elders - exactly the kind of thing that a teen-aged artist would note.) Fragments of faces in faded pencil peer from the pages, and more realistic drawings of flowers and birds were likely copied from botanical prints. Although untutored and unsophisticated, there's an undeniable energy to her drawings, and a quick eye for detail.

The final section of the sketchbook contains carefully inked patterns for embroidery, as well as colored drawings of flowers copied from a well-known 18thc book: Augustin Heckel's The Florist; An extensive and curious collection of Flowers/For the imitation of/Young Ladies,/Either in Drawings, or in Needlework. Ann's versions weren't literal copies of Heckel's work (so much for ladylike imitation), but her own interpretations. When she designed the embroidery for the book cover, she combined Heckel's flowers with her own to create a new design, a bouquet tied with curling ribbons, and clumps of strawberries on the spine.

The book cover is the last known example of Ann's needlework, and it likely must have held special significance for her. It covers a copy of the Anglican Church's Book of Common Prayer that was given to her by her father around the time of her marriage in 1765. Ann left the Quaker meeting to marry a man who was an Anglican, and the prayer book may have been her father's way of supporting her as she left her old faith behind. As Ms. Isaac suggested, the elaborately worked cover, too, may also been Ann's way of making her new religion and new life her own by surrounding it with familiar flowers and needlework.

While I know most of you won't be able to visit Wintherthur to see Ann Flower's sketchbook in person, the museum has made it available to read or download online here.

Many thanks to Amanda Isaac for sharing her research on Ann Flower.

Above: Illustrations from a Sketchbook, by Ann Flower, watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper, c1753-1760. Winterthur Museum.
Below: Embroidered Book Cover, by Ann Flower, wool and silk on linen, c1765. Winterthur Museum.

An Early Sampler from Salem, MA, 1673

Isabella reporting,

Here's another sampler from the exhibition Embroidery: The Language of Art, currently on display at Winterthur Museum. This one, too, doesn't fallow into traditional notions of what a sampler should be.

Most Americans today think of 17thc New England as a mythical Pilgrim-Land, where everyone is dressed in black with buckles on their hats, barely scraping out an existence in the new land before they finally erupt into the paranoia and persecution of the witch trials. It's seen as a grim, forbidding place where it's always winter, and it's more than a little scary.

Yes, the first years of the Massachusetts Bay Company were grim. But by the middle of the century, life was growing more comfortable. Many of the settlers in the Boston area were prospering, and actively trading by ship with London, and therefore with the rest of the world. The silk thread for this sampler likely came in one of those ships, and it could have come to a Boston or Salem shop from silk manufacturers in France, Italy, or even China. Even those north American colonies were already part of a global economy.

This sampler was made fifty years after the first Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and twenty years before the infamous witch trials. Sarah Collins, the young woman who made the sampler, signed and dated her work in the bottom rows of letters.  She lived in Salem, a coastal town about twenty miles outside of Boston with a good harbor, and she must have belonged to one of the families that was benefiting from this shipping trade. Clearly she wasn't required to work all day in the fields or preparing food for her family's sustenance, as girls might have done earlier in the colony's history. Instead she had sufficient time to devote to learning elegant, decorative needlework like this, and she was likely encouraged to do so as a sign not only her own skill, but as proof of her family's gentility.

The stitches and patterns are traditional designs that, once learned, could be employed in different ways. Letters and numbers would have been used to mark linens, shifts, and shirts, while the floral designs could embellish both clothing and household linens. Most of the sampler is worked in cross stitch, although there are some more linear stitches used as well. (Compare these geometrically-inspired designs with the more free-flowing flowers of the needle lace sampler I posted earlier from the 1790s.) Though faded with time, the colors would once have been rich and vibrant, and their selection would have been an integral part of Sarah's creation.

What impressed me the most, however, is not only Sarah's skill at needlework and design, but also the extraordinary tidiness of her work. The sampler is displayed sandwiched between two sheets of Plexiglas so that both sides are visible. If it weren't for the letters being backwards and the colors of the thread being brighter on the reverse (shown above right), it would be impossible to tell the right from the wrong side of the sampler. For Sarah, Puritan Massachusetts wasn't necessarily gloomy, but a place that included flowers, colors, and gleaming silk on fine linen - and beautiful embroidery.

Winterthur will be hosting a needlework conference in connection with this exhibition on October 14-15, 2016. Entitled Embroidery: The Language of Art, the conference speakers will include international experts on needlework as well as hands-on workshops in the needle arts. Click here for the conference brochure for more information.

Sampler, worked by Sarah Collins, 1673. Winterthur Museum. Photographs copyright Winterthur Museum.

A Beautiful Needle Lace Sampler, 1795

Isabella reporting,

Last week I visited one of my favorite places, Winterthur Museum, and among the current exhibitions is Embroidery: The Language of Art. Our readers know that embroidery is one of my absolute favorite things, and this exhibition had plenty of examples to make me ooh and ahh.

For most modern people, the word "sampler" means cross-stitched letters and designs. It can be that, yes, but a sampler can also feature all kinds of needlework, from decorative stitching to darning stitches and even the so-called plain stitches used to construct clothing and household goods. Most samplers were worked by schoolgirls as they learned the various stitches. Not only were the samplers an educational tool, but they could become a kind of record of stitches for future projects. If a sampler was decorative as well, then it could also be proudly displayed by the girl's family as proof of her newly-acquired expertise.

The identity of this sampler's maker is now sadly lost beyond her initials, but her exquisite workmanship remains. Worked in a school in the Philadelphia area, the sampler features both traditional embroidery stitches and needle lace to create a stylized basket of flowers, a motif popular with embroiderers in many different cultures. The sampler is worked in silk thread on linen. (As always, please click on the images to enlarge them.)

Needle lace, sometimes called Dresden work, involves cutting or drawing away parts of the supporting fabric and then using the needle to weave elaborate patterns to fill in the empty spaces. This example must have required phenomenal skill and patience from its young maker. The needle lace sections are done with very tiny stitches - the geometric circles shown in the details are only about 1-1/2" in diameter. (The pink backing is modern to provide contrast.)

Yet there's an unmistakable exuberance and joy to the design as well. Too often fine embroidery seems like drudgery to 21st century eyes, but a piece like this is clearly as much an expression of the young needleworker's imagination as a painting might have been. You can see her enjoyment in her design and her pride in the precision of her stitches. How fortunate her work has survived so we can enjoy it, too!

Winterthur will be hosting a needlework conference in connection with this exhibition on October 14-15, 2016. Entitled Embroidery: The Language of Art, the conference speakers will include international experts on needlework as well as hands-on workshops in the needle arts. Click here for the conference brochure for more information.

Above: Sampler, by "M.S.", worked in the Delaware Valley, 1795. Winterthur Museum.

From the Archives: The Tale of a Teenaged Sailor (and Embroiderer), 1850

Isabella reporting:

Not all 19thc embroidery was done by ladies in parlors. This sailor's uniform and sea bag were featured in one of my favorite exhibitions at
Winterthur, now nearly five years ago.  With Cunning Needle: Four Centuries of Embroidery was filled with stunning needlework that ranged from schoolgirl samplers to masterpieces by professional embroiderers. While some of the pieces might have represent more skill or sophistication than the two pieces shown here, none had a better story behind them. (Click on the photos to enlarge them to see the details.)

Standardized uniforms for enlisted sailors in the United State Navy were still a relatively new notion in the 1840s-50s, when this uniform was created. While sailors were required to wear the Navy-issued uniforms while on board ship, there was more leeway in what they could wear on shore. The shore-going uniform could be proudly embellished and embroidered to suit a sailor's tastes, as well as to reflect his skill with a needle. (Here's part of another elaborately embroidered shore-going uniform, a dark wool blouse from c. 1862.)

This rare summer uniform and sea bar were owned, worn, and likely embroidered by Warren Opie, born in 1835. Growing up in a large family of comfortable means in Burlington, NJ, Warren's childhood effectively ended with his cordwainer (shoemaker) father's early death in 1848. Warren's mother struggled to support the family, and several of Warren's sisters were sent to live with other relatives. It's likely that Warren, too, felt the family's financial pressures, and in 1850, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy for a three-year tour of duty with the rating of a second-class boy. He was fifteen.

Warren served on the steam frigate Susquehanna, the flagship of the four-ship squadron commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry on his historic trip to Japan between 1850-1854. Warren would have had considerable time to make this sea bag and uniform on the long voyage between Norfolk, VA and Japan; it's possible that he learned to sew from his father, or perhaps from some of the other men in the crew. While the uniform shows the typical patriotic motifs – stars, eagles, anchors, and flags – popular among sailors, his bag features his parents, his two closest sisters, and landmarks from his hometown in New Jersey. Warren was visiting exotic countries on the far side of the world, but it's clear his heart still remained at home.

In Japan, Commodore Perry presented a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the ruler of Japan in an elaborate ceremony involving nearly all the American sailors in his squadron and thousands of Japanese officials, soldiers, and attendants. Records show that one of the American ship's boys carried the president's framed letter in the procession. It's tempting to imagine Warren, dressed in this splendidly embroidered summer-uniform, as the boy performing this important task.

Unfortunately, there's no documentation to tell what became of Warren after his three-year-tour was done; he last appears in navy records as having been promoted to "landsman," a full member of the crew. No one knows if he died at sea, or jumped ship in some foreign port, or returned to New Jersey to live a long and contented life, nor is there any record of how his uniform landed in the hands of the dealer who sold it to Mr. Du Pont for his collection. It's all another history-mystery – but what a wonderful legacy Warren Opie left in his embroidery!

Above: Summer uniform of an enlisted sailor, worn by Warren Opie, 1850-54, linen, silk, wool.
Sea Bag, owned by Warren Opie, 1850-54, linen, silk, wool, cotton.
From collection of Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library

Was the Perfect Desk Chair Made by the Shakers in 1860?

Isabella reporting,

Because so many of us writers spend so much of our time sitting at computers, finding the perfect office chair is often a popular topic of authorial conversations, and function always beats form in the pursuit of the most ergonomically perfect desk chair.

But apparently this quest is not new. The elegantly simple revolving armchair shown here, left, was designed and made by Shaker craftsmen c1860, and is now in the collection of Winterthur Museum. Here's the information from the placard:

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, also known as the Shakers, made seating furniture for sale to "outsiders" as well as a variety of forms for their own use. The purpose of this revolving armchair, one of only two known to survive, is unclear....A forerunner of the modern office chair, revolving armchairs such as this one may have been developed by a chairmaker at the Mount Lebanon Shaker community for commercial sale but was never put into production.

As innovators keenly interested in technological developments outside of their communities, the Shakers responded to patent rocking, tilting, and turning chairs that industrial designers were introducing for home and office use in the mid-19th century. The maker of this chair adapted Shaker practices to create a product that satisfied an aesthetic imperative for functional, mindful design; simplicity of form; and visual disclosure, rather than concealment, of structural elements. 

Although it's nearly 150 years old, this chair with its swivel base and refined woodwork of maple and cherry looks surprisingly modern: "functional, mindful design," indeed. I'm betting that the seat made of woven tapes was probably pretty comfortable, too - though perhaps not comfortable enough for hours at the keyboard.

Of course, I have to bow out of the perfect desk chair discussion entirely, since I don't even have a desk. I write on a laptop on the bed. However, if someone offered me a Shaker chair....

Revolving armchair, probably made in Mount Lebanon, NY, c1860, Winterthur Museum. 
Photograph ©2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

From the Archives: Tambour Work Embroidery, 1730-1840

Isabella reporting,

After my post on Monday featuring knotting as an 18thc lady's pastime, I thought I'd bring back this post featuring another once-popular form of handwork: tambour embroidery.

Although the origins of tambour embroidery are a bit hazy, it appeared in Europe in the 18th c. and quickly became a popular "accomplishment" for ladies. It was considered exotic stitchery, which contributed to its popularity, and many of the finest commercial examples were imported to Britain and France from India and Persia. The rather fanciful portrait of an 18th c. Turkish lady (or more likely a French lady in Turkish dress), left, shows her working tambour embroidery on a large hoop tambour frame.

There is only one stitch to master in tambour embroidery. Instead of a needle, very fine, sharp hook is punched through a tightly stretched fabric to catch a fine thread from beneath and draw it up, creating a linked, chain-like stitch. The name "tambour work" comes from the way the fabric is held taut between two round, fitted hoops, resembling the head of a small drum, or tambour. (Demonstrating tambour work, below left, is our friend Janea Whitacre, mantua-maker from Colonial Williamsburg.)

A pattern was usually marked on the fabric, to be followed by the embroiderer, and designs were commercially available. Because the thread is continuous, a practiced worker could stitch more rapidly than by other traditional embroidery methods. It also required less concentration, which made it perfect for being industrious while socializing with friends. The finished work could be almost lacy – a popular effect when working with white thread on a white fabric – or dense with shades of color. By working rows of chained stitches closely together, it was possible to achieve beautifully shaded colorwork with a great deal of depth and subtlety, such as in this fragment, upper right.

With its single rows of chained stitches, the Hedge House petticoat border was likely the work of an industrious amateur, a lady proudly enhancing her own clothing. Much more elaborate tambour work was produced by professional embroiderers, to be made up into fashionable garments by tailors and mantua-makers. Sometimes this embroidery was done to a specific size, like the front of a gentleman's waistcoat, while other examples show an entire length of cloth covered with embroidery to achieve an overall pattern. The detail of the petticoat, lower right, shows how two such lengths were stitched together.

While tambour work embroidery was wildly popular from the mid 18th c. through the early 19th c., needlework goes in and out of fashion like everything else. In 1834, a French machine was introduced that could reproduce tambour-style embroidery at a rate 140 times faster than a woman working by hand. The commercial embroiderers vanished, and the ladies who were the amateur tambour workers were developing other interests as well. Victorian tastes shifted away from delicate needlework to the less demanding Berlin work in wool on canvas, and by the 1840s, tambour work was relegated to something your grandmother used to do, and was virtually forgotten.

Top left: A Turkish Woman, by Angelica Kauffmann, 1773, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.
Top right: Fragment of Tambour Work, India, 1700-1800, silk on cotton. Winterthur Museum.
Lower right: Tambour Petticoat, France, 1700-1750, wool on linen. Winterthur Museum.
Bottom left: Photograph of Tambour Work,  by Susan Holloway Scott.

How Many Handsewn Stitches in an 18thc Man's Shirt?

Isabella reporting,

In the 18thc, a man's linen shirt was perhaps the most democratic of garments. Every male wore one, from the King of England to his lowest subjects in the almshouse, and though the quality of the linen and laundering varied widely, the construction was virtually the same.

Contrary to the modern belief that the people of the past were dirty slobs (a bugaboo we NHG are always trying to banish), Georgian men were fastidious about their shirts. Men were judged by the cleanliness of their linen. From laundry records of the time, it's clear that the majority of men changed their shirts daily, and in the hot summer months, it wasn't unusual to change twice a day. This wasn't just a habit of wealthy gentlemen, either. Tradesmen, shopkeepers, and others of the "middling sort" had a good supply of shirts in their wardrobes, a dozen or so on average.

While most of these shirts were purchased from tailors, shirts were one of the few garments that women could make at home for their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. Eighteenth century shirts were loose-fitting, geometric garments, all precise squares and rectangles with straight seams. They weren't difficult for the average seamstress to construct - keeping in mind that everything was being sewn by hand before the invention of the sewing machine. The precision of that seamstress's stitching would make them not only more attractive, but also more long-wearing through the rough-and-tumble laundering (no gentle cycle) of the time. But how long would it take to make such a shirt? And how many stitches must be taken in the process?

When I was visiting the Margaret Hunter millinery shop in Colonial Williamsburg last month, the mantua-makers (whose seamstresses can make men's shirts just as readily as the tailors) were pondering this exact question. A chart in the July, 1782 issue of The Lady's Magazine, right, calculated the "number of stitches in a plain-shirt", perhaps to provide the amateur seamstresses among their readers with a number to impress the home-stitched shirt's wearer. The Magazine's estimated total was an impressive 20,619 stitches for a man's shirt.

The Margaret Hunter seamstresses took these calculations a step further. Working an average of 30 stitches per minute at a gauge of 10 stitches per inch, it would take approximately eleven and a half hours to stitch a shirt. Of course that doesn't take into account the time for cutting threads, finishing a thread, or threading needles, nor for cutting out the pieces to be sewn, and it also doesn't make allowances for the individual seamstress's speed. While the needles in the Margaret Hunter shop seem to fly, the ladies freely admit that they'd probably be considered slow in comparison to their 18thc counterparts who sewed from childhood.

More about 18thc shirts here and here. Many thanks to Janea Whitacre, mistress of the mantua-making trade, Colonial Williamsburg, for her assistance with this post.

Left: Shirt, maker unknown, linen, probably made in America, c1790-1820. Winterthur Museum.
Photograph © 2014 by Susan Holloway Scott.
Below: Excerpt from The Lady's Magazine, July, 1782.

Beautiful Leaded Glass Lamps by Louis Comfort Tiffany, c. 1905-1910

Isabella reporting,

This afternoon I visited a vibrantly beautiful new exhibition at Winterthur Museum. Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light is exactly that - a glowing selection of some of the most iconic leaded glass works designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Organized by The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, the exhibition includes several large windows as well as the justly famous lamps, some anchored by bronze bases or suspended like brilliant lanterns in the air. Forget all those cheesy bad replicas in casual dining restaurants - the originals are breathtaking works of art, like jewels of light.

While I'd known that the Tiffany shades were leaded glass - small pieces of colored glass fitted together and held together with strips of copper and lead - I hadn't realized that the process was much like making a mosaic. There was no additional painting or tinting of the pieces of glass. Each piece of specially made opalescent glass was chosen individually to fit the design by skilled craftspeople. It must have been painstaking work, but the care and artistry showed in every item.

One of the things that really brought the lamps to life were the "jewels," molded pieces of colored glass in various shapes that were used as accents along with the pieces of flat glass. The jewels were a Tiffany speciality, and added texture as well as color. The jewels are particularly evident in the dragonfly shade, above left - they're the rounded bubbles of luminous blue glass. Magic!

I'm going to share more about the fascinating process of creating the shades in a future blog. The exhibition runs now through January 3, 2016; click here for more information.

Top left: Dragonfly hanging shade, c.1905. Tiffany Studios.
Right: Peony library lamp, c.1905. Tiffany Studios.
Bottom left: Poinsettia Border reading lamp, c. 1910. Tiffany Studios.
All lamps from The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass.
Photographs ©2015 Susan Holloway Scott.

From the Archives: Useful & Necessary: The Bourdaloue

Continuing our week of reposts....This post was one of my first (from 2010!) but it continues to be among the most popular as well. 

Isabella reporting:

Most modern museum-goers who spot these two porcelain vessels in a display case would assume they were serving pieces. They're certainly pretty enough for an elegant 18th c. table, especially the one with the family crest on the side.

But necessity has always been the mother of invention, and often of design that's both handsome and useful, too. Consider the spreading hoops of an 18th c. lady, draped with yards and yards of costly silk petticoats, and then consider maneuvering all that yardage each time nature called.

There was a solution. These are two examples of bourdaloues, chamber pots designed specifically for women. With the assistance of a lady's maid, they could be slipped beneath skirts and petticoats, employed while standing, and then discretely carried away. Other versions were more utilitarian and fashioned of tin or leather, and intended to make long journeys by carriages bearable. Even when skirts shrank in size towards the end of 18th c., the bourdaloue was deemed too practical an item to abandon, and they remained in use throughout the Victorian era.

Where did the name come from? Legend says the name was taken from a celebrated 17th c. French Jesuit priest named Louis Bourdaloue (1632-1704), whose sermons were so infamously long that ladies came to church prepared. Not many historians accept this explanation. Even given that people were more frank about bodily needs in the past than they are now, it's very doubtful a well-bred French lady would relieve herself in her pew. Though no one now seems to know for certain, it's likely to be either something garbled in translation, or one more sly English insult aimed at the French.

Top: Bourdaloue. Made by Andrew Stevenson Factory, Cobridge, Staffordshire, England; 1816-30.
Below: Bourdaloue with lid. Made in Jingdezhen, China; 1790-1820.
Both from the collections of Winterthur Museum & Country Estate

Guess the Purpose of These 19thc. Bags

Isabella reporting,

When I first spotted this assortment of simple little bags made from 19th c. printed cotton in A Colorful Folk: Pennsylvania Germans and the Art of Everyday Life, an exhibition currently on display at Winterthur Museum, I'd no idea what treasures they might once have held. Jewelry? Hairpins? Handkerchiefs? Or were they reticules, the small drawstring handbags popular at the time?

I should have guessed their purpose would be more prosaic, given the exhibition's theme. The Germans who settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th-19th c. had an exuberant design sense, and often decorated the most everyday items - from kitchen towels to bread boxes and even the bag that held rags in the outhouse - with fanciful colors and motifs. Scraps of fabric from clothing was transformed into patchwork quilts, or stitched into humble little bags like these.

A closer look at the bags tells their purpose. Two of them, right, have neatly stitched tags with inked labels: Radish says one in careful penmanship, while the other is marked Pink dbl. Hollyhock. They're bags for collecting seeds from the garden and storing them over the winter for planting in the spring, an annual ritual (and an important one) for gardeners.

I like to imagine the housewife who prized her hollyhocks, and perhaps shared the blossoms and seeds only with dearest friends or family members. Perhaps she'd brought the original seeds with her when she'd emigrated to America, or they'd been specially purchased from a seed merchant during a rare trip to Philadelphia. She didn't just write "hollyhocks" on the label. They were "Pink Double Hollyhocks", if you please, and well worth their own special bag, as well as her pride.

Above: Seed bags, cotton and linen, Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1820-80. Winterthur Museum.

Friday Video: Early Spring at Wintherthur

Isabella reporting,

Here on the blog, I've shared many of the treasures of Winterthur Museum, from embroidered silk mantles to a gilded tureen, unforgettable portraits to a porcelain bourdaloue. But in addition to being a world-class museum founded by American collector Henry Francis du Pont, Winterthur is also home to world-class grounds, sixty acres of naturalistic gardens and woodlands that were another passion of Mr. du Pont. Regardless of the season, the gardens are an endless joy to visit.

For those of you who live too far from Delaware for a visit, here's a short video featuring the early spring gardens - two minutes of beauty and serenity to begin your day.

St. Giles House: An English Country House Reborn

Isabella reporting,

The twentieth century was not kind to the great English country house. After flourishing for generations and (in some cases) hundreds of years, many such houses fell prey to two world wars, a economic depression, death duties, development, and a permanent cultural changes. Interest in British heritage sites fell, to be replaced with a post-war desire for the new and modern. The once-beautiful and imposing country seats became faded white elephants that were impossible to staff and maintain. Shuttered and empty, many became derelict, were burned by arsonists, or simply were torn down.

I've written other blog posts about one country house that is in melancholy ruin (Mavisbank), another saved by a TV show (Highclere Castle), and yet another that's begun a new life welcoming brides, hunting parties, and corporate retreats (Ugbrooke Park). Last week I learned about one more, St. Giles House, whose once-bleak future has been turned around by its enterprising young owner.

That owner is Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, left, who recently made the long trip to Winterthur Museum to share the story of his family's country house, and a bit of his own life, too. St. Giles House is both a legacy and a sizable responsibility, neither of which Lord Shaftesbury, as the younger son, expected to be his. After finishing his education, he followed his passion for music and relocated to New York, where he found success as a d.j. But a double tragedy changed everything: within a six-month span in 2005, his father was murdered (by his father's estranged wife and her brother), and his older brother died of a heart attack. At twenty-six, he was suddenly the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, a title that dates back to the 17th century.

Along with the earldom came St. Giles House and the surrounding 5,500 acre estate. The land had been in the family for over 400 years. The present house replaced an earlier manor house, and was built by the first earl beginning in 1650. Successive generations of Ashley-Coopers added on to the house and remodeled it to suit their times and tastes. The most aggressive improvements (and perhaps the least sensitive) came in the 19th c., right, when two pointed towers and outsized bay windows were added to the classically proportioned facade, and the warm red brick was covered with cement render, a damaging process that trapped water in the walls.

As with so many country houses, St. Giles began a slow decline throughout the 20th c., serving as a wartime hospital and a girl's school, each adding another layer of wear and tear. Death duties forced the gradual sale of parcels of the original 15,500 estate, reducing it by nearly two-thirds. By the time the 10th earl inherited the estate in 1961, the house itself was suffering from dry rot and an aging roof, and had become impractical for living. The earl moved his family to the dower house, and began to tackle the repair and restoration of the main house.

He began with enthusiasm, tearing down the Victorian towers and repairing the most obvious needs. But the challenges and expense of the project proved too great, and in frustration he finally abandoned it, sealing off exposed walls and leaving the house empty. Many of the original furnishings and works of art were sold to pay expenses. By the time the present earl inherited the house, lower left, the grounds were overgrown and the house had further deteriorated, and the recent deaths of his father and brother had mired the estate in further death duties.

He was faced with an obvious choice. He could sell the house and land, or he could finish the restoration that his father had begun. He decided, in his words, to "go for it."

In preparation for the financial battles the house would require, he attended the London Business School and earned a Masters in Business Administration. A serious riding accident that nearly left him paralyzed only served to increase his resolve. After marrying in 2010, he and his wife decided the best way to become truly part of the restoration was to live in St. Giles House. An architect managed to carve out a modest but livable space for them in the house, and the project began in earnest.

With funding from extensive loans and grants secured, a team of master craftspeople and artisans, construction specialists, architects, and historians worked first to stabilize the house, and then to restore the first floor rooms one by one. The library was the first room finished; in a major triumph, the first earl's books were discovered in long-ago storage, and returned to the newly restored shelves. Carved woodwork was reclaimed, elaborate plasterwork repaired, and custom woven silk damask hung on the walls. It's a painstaking, on-going process, and while the principal rooms are finished, the second floor of the house remains to be done, as well as other, smaller buildings on the grounds.

Working with Natural England, plans were also undertaken to restore the neglected grounds around the house. The goal is to return to the 18th c. parkland, including serpentine lakes and streams, grottoes, and follies, and to recreate the landscape in a way that's both beautiful and welcoming.

At the same time, the estate began to support itself in more modern ways. About half of the land is now commercially farmed. Systems to heat and cool the house are supplied through renewable energy solutions and other new technology, including solar panels and water source heat pumps from the estate's lake. There are sponsored events on the grounds as diverse as music festivals, a half-marathon, and a chili festival, as well as weddings and corporate events. The goal is not to isolate the estate, but to make the grounds and house a part of the community.

Yet for Lord Shaftesbury and his young family - which now includes a son and daughter - St. Giles House is home. While their ancestors would have maintained a sizable household, today there are no legions of footmen, parlor-maids, or gardeners. Instead there is only one "amazing" cleaner in charge of the principal rooms, one groundsman to mow the grass, and a part-time gardener.

"I want St. Giles House to be an inviting place," Lord Shaftesbury says proudly. "I want people to come here to take time out, to reflect, and to be inspired."

For more information and photographs of St. Giles House, see the website here.

Fit for a Winter Princess: An Embroidered Silk Mantle, c. 1880s

Isabella reporting,

With many of us in the Northern Hemisphere shivering with the January cold, this elegant mantle, or cloak, seems like a most stylish way to keep warm.

Included in the recent exhibition of embroidery, The Diligent Needle, at Winterthur Museum, this cloak is made of quilted, cream-colored silk and trimmed with white feathers (which have been replaced.) The silk is embroidered with a pattern of flowers and swirling plume-like leaves, and the embroidery in turn is embellished further with crystal beads. These are dimmed somewhat in the photograph, but in person they glitter like diamonds, or perhaps icy snow.

According to the exhibition label:

This mantle, which was embroidered by professionals, bears the label of the label of the Lewis & Allenby firm, one of the largest silk mercers in London. The firm had large premises on Regent Street and Conduit Street, both areas that catered to wealthy shoppers. Known for their high-quality goods, Lewis & Allenby sold garments to Queen Victoria, who granted them the right to state on their label: "Cloak Makers to the Queen."

This style mantle, with a tailored shoulder flaring out dramatically at the hem, was a popular shape in the 1880s; the fashion plate, left, shows similar fashions worn for day. Designed to accommodate the pronounced bustles in fashion in the 1880s, the mantle would have draped gracefully around the body, and at the same time provided a dramatic yet simple shape for the richly textured embroidery.

See the Winterthur page here for more photos and details.

Above: Mantle, probably made in London, 1880s, silk & beads on silk, reproduction feather edging. Winterthur Museum.
Below: Detail, Les Modes Parisiennes, "An Afternoon Musicale", Peterson's Magazine, December, 1888.

A Fashion Worth Reviving? A Bridegroom's Embroidered Wedding Waistcoat, 1842

Isabella reporting,

I've shared an 18th c. wedding dress embroidered by the bride (Elizabeth Bull's gown here and here), and now here's a waistcoat (vest) that a 19th c. bride likely made for her bridegroom. This handsome silk waistcoat, embroidered with silk, must have made a stylish statement coming down the aisle. I especially like the combination of stitches - all those French knots! - to bring texture to the monochrome silk, right.

The waistcoat is currently on display in Winterthur Museum's exhibition, The Diligent Needle, and here's the accompanying information card:

In the 1840s it was fashionable for men to wear embroidered waistcoats at their weddings. This example is embroidered with cornucopia, a symbol of plenty, and was worn by Robert S. Hone on November 30, 1842, when he married Eliza Rodman Russell. Eliza may well have worked the embroidery herself. Both she and Robert were from prominent and wealthy families, so the hope for plenty was more or less a foregone conclusion.

With many brides today looking for ways to personalize their wedding-wear by making their headpieces, veils, and shawls (if not their entire gowns), perhaps there might be someone out there inspired to make something special for her groom, too.

On the other hand, one of the speakers (I think it was Marla Miller - if anyone else who was there can correct me, please do!) at Winterthur's Diligent Needle conference  last month relayed an amusing story about one such modern creative bride.

A bride was proudly working on making her groom's vest into an elaborate personal statement, spending many hours on her embroidery. Showing the nearly-finished product to the groom, she happily declared, "When you wear this at our wedding, everyone will see how much I love you." To which her groom replied, "When I wear this at our wedding, everyone will see how much I love you, too."

Perhaps fancy waistcoats should be left to the past after all....

Embroidered waistcoat, worn by Robert S. Hone, Providence, RI or New York City; 1842. Silk. Winterthur Museum.