Maria Needlework

Artist Lydia Hosmer 1790 - 1860

Date1806

Terms

Samplers
Silk Fiber
Paint
Medford

Dimensions50.76 × 40.61 × 2.54 cm (20 × 16 × 1 in.)

Markingslabel at one time attached, see provenance.

Credit LineGift of Cummings E. Davis (1886)

Object numberT1101

DescriptionTextile. Silk embroidery and paint on silk ground; gilt pine, reverse-painted glass. The embroidery is worked in silk threads in long and short, satin stitches, and French knots, on plain weave silk. The painted details were added after the embroidery was done. The frame and glass are original; there are some losses to the gesso and gilt and crazing to the painted glass. Depicts a scene in Sterne's "Sentimental Journey": "Tristram Shandy's melancholy acquaintance is shown here sitting at the foot of a large tree, her elbow in her lap, and her head upon her hand, exactly as described by Mr. Yorick, who may be discovered at the coach window in the back-ground. 'At a little opening in the road leading to a thicket I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand; a small brook ran at the foot of the tree. She was dressed in white, and her hair hung loose. Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she kept tied by a string to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with a string. 'Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvo' said she."

Tolman Catalog, Tolman Number 37: "Maria. Framed embroidery by Lydia Hosmer, dated 1812 [...exhibited at the "Cattle Show" [with Tolman Number 38/Pi1200] in that year, and received a premium]."

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