Needlework picture (Silkwork picture)

Description

This is a needlework picture with silk threads and watercolors on a silk ground. It was worked about 1805 by Mary Sibyl Crafts of Bridgewater, Massachusetts while attending Mrs. Saunders' and Miss Beach's Academy in Dorchester, Massachusetts. After the turn of the century, most needlework pictures exhibit a gradual decline in workmanship and excellence, with telltale signs of shortcuts. Paint was used to execute the more difficult elements such as faces, skies, and water - an embellishment that also saved time. Unlike earlier pictures done in a wide variety of stitches, later silk embroideries were worked with the simple and quick whip stitch, lined up in tight rows to simulate rippling and shimmering folds of textile. Mrs. Saunders and Miss Beach patronized a local framer, John Doggett, of Roxbury. Gilt frames with a white glass mat and a chain-link border decoration are typical of his shop. as is naming the student embroiderer and the Academy in elegant gilt letters. The school operated for more than thirty years and a large number of needlework examples survive. Many of their students were from prominent families of New Hampshire and Maine.