Description:
Needlework embroidery of a bouquet of flowers done in polychrome silk embroidery floral design on off-white silk satin ground and stretched around a wooden board and secured through attached lacing at the back. There is a later paper label, glued to the back, inscribed in ink: "Embroidered by Lydia Osgood of West Newbury while at school at Beadford Massachusetts in the summer of 1804. Presented to Rebecca Newell by her sister Sarah Osgood, 1862." The daughter of Deacon John Osgood and Lydia Newell Osgood, Lydia Osgood (b.1791) stitched this work probably around the age of 13 while attending an unidentified boarding school in Bedford, Massachusetts, 45 miles inland from her coastal home in Newbury. Before 1862, Lydia’s older sister, Sarah, acquired the embroidery and gave it as a gift to her probable cousin, Rebecca Newell (1827-1914), the daughter of Col. Moses Newell (1793-1858) and Sarah Moody Newll (1795-1884) of West Newbury. Lydia embroidered this sophisticated, botanically accurate image of an early summer bouquet, incorporating a rose in full bloom and rose buds, fringed double peony poppy, and English wood hyacinth, probably first having stitched a sampler to learn needlework. Either Lydia, or her teacher, drew the outline of the design on the silk ground, presumably copying a composition from an English print or an illustration from a book such as Robert Sayer’s drawing manual, "The Artist’s Vade-Mecum," published in London in 1776. In her choice of image and colors, and in her fine stitchery, Lydia expressed taste, patience, accuracy, neatness and attention to fine detail - attributes deemed appropriate and desireable in young women coming of age. The work survives with its original method of attachment to a wood board: linen strips with gusseted holes is whip-stitched to the edges of the silk ground and linen tapes are criss-crossed through the holes to evenly stretch and tighten the work on the mount. The size, subject matter and composition of the embroidery suggests that Lydia may have intended this work as a pole screen. Compare with HD F.360A.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2007.16 |
