On View
Not on viewTea Pot Stands
Artist
Sophia E. Thoreau
1819 - 1875
Dateca. 1840
Terms
- Tea Pot Stands
- Wool Fiber
- Wood
- Concord (Massachusetts)
Dimensions3.17 × 20.31 × 20.31 cm (1 1/4 × 8 × 8 in.)
MarkingsLabel: "No. 8 Thoreau. 1840."
Credit LineGift of Cummings E. Davis (1886)
Object numberTH10.14
DescriptionNeedlework (embroidery) teapot stand; square sampler of a floral bouquet, set within a wooden frame.
This teapot stand is an example of Berlin work, a simple cross-stitch embroidery worked on an open-weave ground specially made for the process and sometimes pre-printed with the design to be worked. Berlin-work designs were available in popular magazines like "Godey's" or "Harper's" or published in pamphlet form.
Unlike other women in her family, Sophia Thoreau did not attend a prestigious academy. The hand crafts that Sophia practiced were on quite a different order, as was the case almost universally among girls who grew up in the 1830s. The ambitious and expensive testimonials to gentility and education that girls of her mother's and grandmother's generations produced were a thing of the past, and even if she had gone to an academy, Sophia would not have been taught to make elaborate embroidered pictures. On the other hand, because she did not marry and raise a family, Sophia seems to have continued to make ornamental objects for most of her life.
This teapot stand is an example of Berlin work, a simple cross-stitch embroidery worked on an open-weave ground specially made for the process and sometimes pre-printed with the design to be worked. Berlin-work designs were available in popular magazines like "Godey's" or "Harper's" or published in pamphlet form.
Unlike other women in her family, Sophia Thoreau did not attend a prestigious academy. The hand crafts that Sophia practiced were on quite a different order, as was the case almost universally among girls who grew up in the 1830s. The ambitious and expensive testimonials to gentility and education that girls of her mother's and grandmother's generations produced were a thing of the past, and even if she had gone to an academy, Sophia would not have been taught to make elaborate embroidered pictures. On the other hand, because she did not marry and raise a family, Sophia seems to have continued to make ornamental objects for most of her life.
Collections
- Henry David Thoreau Collection
- Needlework
