Object Details
- Loucks, Jane Elizabeth
- Description
- By the 1840s a new technique [in the field] of needlepoint known as Berlin wool work was the rage. It arose in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century. New dyes became available and brightly colored wools could be worked in tent stitch on canvas. The patterns were painted by hand on “point paper,” which today would be called graph paper. Jane’s piece is an example of this technique.
- This large rectangular canvas work piece depicts the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. The biblical account is found in Genesis 22:1-14. Abraham is standing clothed in flowing robes girded at the waist, with a dagger hanging at his left side. He gestures toward the sky with his left hand, and his right hand is over Isaac’s face. A lamb is in the bushes at the right side of the picture and smoke is coming from a brazier in the left corner. The picture is worked on penelope canvas ground, 9/18 threads per inch, with Berlin wool in cross stitch. The faces, hands, and feet are done in petit point.
- Jane Elizabeth Loucks was born in 1835 to John and Desdemonia Marsh Loucks in Sharon, New York. She married Joseph Warren Hastings on February 16, 1871, in Manhattan, New York. They moved to Illinois and had one daughter, Dena. See her other pieces; Mary Queen of Scots and The Ascension of Jesus.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- associated date
- 1961
- ID Number
- TE.T11105.01
- catalog number
- T11105
- accession number
- 238291
- Object Name
- embroidered picture
- Other Terms
- embroidered picture; Circa 1850
- Physical Description
- penelope canvas 9/18 (overall material)
- wool (overall material)
- reds (overall color)
- blues (overall color)
- greens (overall color)
- gold (overall color)
- brown (overall color)
- black (overall color)
- berlin woolwork (overall style)
- grospoint is cross stitched (joint piece production method or technique)
- petit point: half cross and cross stitch (joint piece production method or technique)
- petit point face, legs, hands, chest (joint piece production method or technique)
- embroidery (overall production method/technique)
- glass (frame material)
- Measurements
- average spatial: 24 in x 30 3/4 in; x 60.96 cm x 78.105 cm
- See more items in
- Home and Community Life: Textiles
- Embroidered Pictures
- Textiles
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_1148279
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a9-cdcf-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
