Winter 2016

Emelie Gevalt is a second-year Lois F. McNeil Fellow in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. Previously she was a Vice President and Senior Account Manager at Christie’s, New York, and has a B.A. from Yale. Her Winterthur thesis will undertake a study of Taunton chests, from their 18th-century origins to their early 20th-century interpretations through the eyes of pioneering Americana collectors. 1. The resemblance to seventeenth-century needlework, coupled with the similarities to significantly later works, as discussed in this article, make it particularly challenging to date this piece. A wide date range of 1690–1740 is appropriate until further research can be done on needlework in the early colonial period. 2. The piece descended in the family Harry M. Wilson of Cumberland County, New Jersey; Wilson’s great- grandfather was William Carlisle, who, according to a death record, was originally from Delaware. Although no definitive link has been established between William Carlisle and the Carlisles of Sussex County, Delaware, there are instances of both families using the surname Pemberton as a first name for their sons, suggesting a common ancestry. See the 1850 Maurice River, New Jersey, census record for William Carlisle, and Esther Littleford Woodworth-Barnes, “Captain Thomas Pemberton (ca. 1655–ca. 1717) of Maryland and Delaware,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly : 265–269. Photocopied record, Family History Folders, “Pemberton,” Delaware Historical Society Research Library. For additional documentation of these findings and for further genealogical research, see Emelie Gevalt, “From England to Philadelphia: Distinguishing Influences from Origins in a Silkwork Picture,” Winterthur registrar files, 2016. 3. I am indebted to Gloria Seaman Allen, Cynthia Steinhoff, and Amy Finkel for these suggestions, in email correspondence with the author, April, 2016. 4. Linda Eaton, in conversation with the author, March 2016. 5. Linda Eaton, “Needlework and their Frames: Multimedia Objects. Winterthur Primer,” Antiques & Fine Art magazine (14th Anniversary, vol. XIII, no. 1): 268–270. 6. Further research is needed to determine whether these types of mounts are indicative of a specifically Philadelphia origin or simply of a Mid-Atlantic one. 7. Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework 1650–1850 (New York: Knopf, 1993): 354. 8. See Ring, 355, for the Ann Marsh sconce; see Winterthur object number 1966.1391A for another example of this subject. 9. Amanda Isaac, “Ann Flower’s Sketchbook: Drawing, Needlework, and Women’s Artistry in Colonial Philadelphia,” Winterthur Portfolio 41 (Summer/ Autumn 2007): 152. 10. Ring, 332. 2016 Antiques & Fine Art 175 Fig. 4: Needlework picture, detail, Sarah Wistar, 1752. Philadelphia. Museum purchase (1964.0120.002 A). Courtesy Winterthur Museum. Fig. 3: Detail of figure 1. The five-pointed flower in the middle right section of the present picture is an additional motif that appears in the work of Ann Marsh and her students, and, as noted by Amanda Isaac, in Philadelphia silkwork in general. 9 Comparing details from the present picture and one of Sarah Wistar’s works at Winterthur, we find a particularly strong visual correspondence. In each of the buff-colored flowers shown in figures 3 and 4, the center is executed in French knots, and the smooth, single-lobed leaves are skillfully shaded using multiple hues of silk, suggesting yet another similarity between the piece under discussion and the needlework of Philadelphia. Despite a lack of genealogical or historical evidence to strengthen the proposed Philadelphia origin, these visual and technical points of comparison are compelling reasons to attribute the piece to the area. A connection to the Marsh school represents an even more tantalizing possibility: in the annals of American needlework history, Elizabeth Marsh is a major figure, credited with setting the course for the development of Philadelphia’s sophisticated style. 10 A confirmed connection to this teacher could strengthen our understanding of an important needlework school. Further, in this picture, we may have an unusual early survival of particularly elaborate work, challenging our assumptions about the level of accomplishment of women and girls of the era.