Textile, woven

Description

This woven portrait of Abraham Lincoln, made from black and white rayon, was designed and woven by Henry Bauer in Lawrence, Massachusetts around 1940. Bauer was the owner and operator of a silk mill in Lawrence. He created this woven portrait using a loom with a Jacquard attachment, a machine able to weave complex designs by following instructions fed into the device on a series of punch cards. The machine is named after its inventor, French weaver Joseph Marie Jacquard, who patented it in 1804. The picture depicts a bust length portrait of Abraham Lincoln, who is sitting facing right and looking slightly left. Gradations of tone are achieved by varying the number of light or dark threads brought to the surface. This object is one of a large group transferred to Winterthur from the American Textile History Museum when it closed in 2017.