Object Details
- Baxter, Sally
- Description
- After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures.
- This rectangular piece features an oval picture entitled, "Plenty." A female figure, dressed in a Federal period gown, carries an upright cornucopia filled with flowers, cradled in her left arm and hand. Her right hand displays a bouquet of flowers. A reverse-painted black glass mat displays the word "Plenty” in a scroll at the bottom. In another scroll are the words "Done by Sally Baxter, Jan 1, 1802." The picture is worked on an ivory silk satin ground fabric with silk thread. The stitches used are encroaching satin, straight, French knots, laid, back, and split.
- A cornucopia is defined as a horn of plenty and thus the title “Plenty.”
- Sally Baxter was born March 26, 1789, to Taylor and Sarah Crowell Baxter of Yarmouth, Massachusetts. She married Obadiah Abbey on February 27, 1808. He died in 1822 and she died on February 5, 1872.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of Miss Elsie Quinby
- 1802
- ID Number
- TE.E392913
- catalog number
- E392913
- accession number
- 214358
- Object Name
- silk picture
- Physical Description
- silk (ground material)
- silk (thread material)
- Measurements
- overall: 19 in x 10 in; 48.26 cm x 25.4 cm
- place made
- United States: Massachusetts, Yarmouth
- See more items in
- Home and Community Life: Textiles
- Embroidered Pictures
- Textiles
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_1096468
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ab-fb04-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
