Description:
Framed pictorial needlework of the goddess Fame done in polychrome embroidery and watercolor on a white plain weave silk ground in what is very likely its original frame, which was signed "Violet Forward Scott" in ink outside the oval picture. Inside a roundel placed in the center of the composition is a watercolor and needlework depiction of Fame, wearing neoclassically-inspired dress and blowing a trumpet while standing on a pedestal. The sky and figure of Fame (including her hair) are painted using watercolors; the pedestel, clothing, landscape and roundel edge are all embroidered in long filling stitches using silk floss in green, white, yellow and two shades of blue. Violet Forward Scott (1786-1853), the daughter of Dr. Amasa Scott (b.1753), a physican, and Ann Howe Scott (1756-1819) then of Belchertown, Massachusetts, who married in 1785, made this picture in the late 1790s at an as-yet unidentified school. Violet married John Emerson of Hardwick, Vermont, in 1806. While this kind of needlework is not covered in great detail in published accounts of schoolgirl needlework, it is likely a fairly standard type of first-time work and genre for beginning students. The composition's small size and primary use of one kind of embroidery stitch (filling) both kept the project manageable for Scott, who would have been 9-14 years of age. Examples like this transitioned students from needlework-only compositions to more ambitious pictorial needlework accomplishments that employed both ink drawing and watercolor and taught aesthetic skills of composition and arrangement. The painting of the sky was likely done by the teacher or an outside professional after the embroidery, as is seen by the blue that has migrated onto the trumpet's bell. Like many well-to-do young girls in the 18th and early 19th centuries, Violet Forward Scott attended an academy for one or more terms. There, she learned accomplishments such as sewing and needlework which prepared her for a future role as a wife and mother. Framed evidence of those accomplishments like this example also served as an advertisement to the family’s commitment (both financial and educational) to their child. While modest in scale and artistic ability, this silk and watercolor picture served an important purpose in the education of Scott. A nearly identical picture embroidered by Sally Fairchild (1790-1868) of nearby West Granville, Massachusett (now in a private collection), suggests that both girls attended the same school. While more elaborate, an embroidered, watercolor and paint needlework picture of Liberty made by Maria Williston (1793-1830) of Easthampton, Massachusetts, while a student at the Abby Wright School in South Hadley, Massachusetts, does bear some similarities to the examples by Scott and Fairchild, and raises the possibility Scott and Fairchild could have made their pieces at the South Hadley school as well.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2011.16 |
