Hungarian-born immigrant Mariska Karasz, a designer of appliquéd and embroidered fashions and textiles, gained fame in the 1950s and 1960s for her painterly approach to embroidery. In Aroma, she has shown her tendency toward abstraction of subject matter in the depiction of spices, stacked in open bags with their scents wafting through the air. Her free stitching creates flowing lines, and her threads provide textures and variegated colors. Karasz was known for her use of uncommon materials for embroidery of that era, including coarsely processed and woven linen grounds, and handspun, vegetable-dyed embroidery threads intentionally uneven in twist and hue. The donor of this artwork, Gloria Katzenberg, was a personal friend of Karasz as well as a fiber artist and author herself. She brought Karasz to Baltimore to teach this new, freer style of embroidery to fellow enthusiasts. Aroma shows a far more curvilinear, somewhat less abstract design than Spring Game, a Karasz wall hanging that joined the Museum’s collection in 2001.