Description:
One of two table mats (along with matching coverlet) decorated with white linen thread embroidery in a large design similar to 18th century crewel needlework and related Indian export, painted chintz. The linen embroidery dislays a variety of stitches including New England laid, buttonhole, stem, herring bone, honeycomb, fly, spider's wed, and French knots. A generous 4 1/4" hem was constructed on all four sides. According to the donor's grandaughter, the coverlet was worked by her grandmother Catherine Elizabeth Knight Freeman (1837-1896), the daughter of Nathaniel Knight and Sarah Davis Knight of Truro, Massachusetts. Examples of this kind of revival embroidery are more commonly documented in America from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially after the 1876 centennial. Published sources such as M.S. Lockwood and E. Glaisgter's Art Embroidery: A Treatise on thte Revivedf Practice of Decorative Needlework (1878) and Brainerd & Armstrong's Embroidery Lessons (1899, with later editions) provided textual and illustrative instructions for women who wished to engage in such work. The use of linen thread instead of worsted (two ply woolen) may be in part a reaction to the insect-damaged earlier (18th-century) originals on which examples like these were based. In 1860, Catherine became the second wife of Capt. Benjamin Fessenden Freeman (1827-1865 or 1868) of Providence, Massachusetts, the son of Nathan Freeman and Mary Brown Freeman (d.1854), who was a fishing captain and died in Cienfuegos, Cuba of yellow fever. His first wife was Louisa Russell Cook Freeman (1832-1859) of Provincetown whom he married in 1854; he had a daughter by each wife. Also see table mat and coverlet, HD 93.014.02, .01..
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+93.014.03 |
