Esther Stoddard's Embroidered Picture

Esther Stoddard's Embroidered Picture. Esther Stoddard's Embroidered Picture. Courtesy Historic Northampton Museum, Mass.

This is an embroidered picture of a shepherdess worked by Esther Stoddard (1738-1816; Northampton, New England, USA) in c. 1750-1760. The image is of a reclining shepherdess in a wooded landscape with a spotted dog, woolly sheep, lambs, a leaping deer, blackbirds, a peasant and a small pond with ducks. In the background there is a two storey house with two chimneys.

The embroidery is worked in wool and silk thread with tent stitch and French knots.

The embroidery is regarded as typical of a group of needlework pictures with related designs embroidered in Boston in the mid-eighteenth century. They were worked by the daughters of prosperous New England families.

The embroidery was donated to the Historic Northampton Museum (acc. no. 71.120; Northampton, Massachusetts). This museum has two other embroidered items, (a) an embroidered silk apron and (b) a metal thread embroidery depicting the Stoddard family coat of arms (acc. no. 71.119), which may have been worked by Esther Stoddard or her sister, Prudence.

Also known as: Esther Stoddard's shepherdess embroidery.

See also: Boston fishing lady embroidery series

Sources:

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 5 June 2016).

GVE

Last modified on Tuesday, 24 January 2017 17:08