Description:
Sewn or embroidered rug made by Adelaide Paige, featuring a central cartouche depicting a townscape with buildings and a bridge, birds, animals and water, surrounded by two flower-filled cornucopia. According to Jane Nylander, the scene depicted in the central cartouche was taken from a print of Cambridge, England. The rug's decorative side is created with a looped pile of both woolen yarns as well as fabric strips or braiding secured onto a plain weave undyed linen ground. Colors in the pile include brown, green, red, blue and off-white. The use of lighter and darker colors helps to create shading. The back of the rug is lined with a coarse burlap, added sometime after its initial creation. Knotted coarse threads tied in back every 4-5" secure the second and third layers. Black coarse thread secures the top two layers around all four sides. Rugs such as this example flourished during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Small is size, they were likely used as hearth rugs to prevent stray sparks from fireplaces staining floors or larger ingrain carpets. The vast majority of hearth rugs were embroidered or sewn (sometimes referred to as yarn sewn or worked), using a needle from the front (or right) side of the piece. Hooked rugs are usually later. It is possible that the maker was the Adelaide Paige (1811-1903) of Harwick, Massachusetts, Worcester County, who married Moses Smith of Boylston sometime before 1839. A similar rug is owned by the Wadsworth Atheneum, accession number 1977.29. Made by Jane Naomi Strong (Welles) in 1829, the Atheneum's rug also contains a pictorial cartouche surrounded by cornucopia and flowers.
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Linen; polychrome; Wool Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+R.144 |
