Print Work Mourning Embroidery Dedicated to Henry Hicks
1801
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Print Work Mourning Embroidery Dedicated to Henry Hicks
1801
Physical Qualities
Silk ground, silk embroidery threads, watercolor and ink, cotton backing with linen edging, 17 1/8 x 21 3/4 in. (43.5 X 55.3 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Harold G. Duckworth
Object Number
1973.27
A solitary woman dressed in black mourning clothes standing by a tombstone within a dramatic landscape sets the scene for the tragic tale revealed in this mourning embroidery. The written and embroidered inscription on the monument dedicates the work to Henry Hicks, who died in 1802 at the young age of 25 while on a passage from Guadeloupe to Baltimore. A ship in the background provides a visual clue as to the circumstances of Hick's demise, while the lines of a poem, "Thou hast no grave but in the stormy Sea, And no memorial but this broken heart," express the sorrow of those who have no actual burial place to mourn their loved one.
This embroidery is an example of "print work," a trompe l'oeil technique in which the design is first painted, printed, or drawn onto the ground and then embroidered in black silk threads (occasionally with small additions of human hair or beige thread) so as to simulate an uncolored engraving.
Inscribed:
SACRED to the Memory of Mr HENRY HICKS
who died on his passage from Guadaloupe [sic] to Baltimore Dec, 8. 1802 in the 25th year of his age.
Ah luckless youth no tomb is placed for thee
That can to strangers eyes thy worth impart.
Thou hast no grave but in the stormy Sea.
And no memorial but this broken heart.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 1973; Mrs. Harold G. Duckworth.
Mournful Maidens: Love and Loss in American Embroidery
William Voss Elder III, BMA, "American Folk Art From the Museum and Local Collections", April 4-June 18, 1978, cat. 121, p. 18.
Susan Cumins, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'Period Needlework in America 1739-1865,' 1978, cat. 13, illustrated.; traveling exhibition circulated to Annapolis, Elkton, Salisbury, Columbia, Leonardtown, Stevenson, and Chestertown, Maryland.
Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework 1650-1850, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, Vol. II, pp. 320-327.
Betty Ring, American Needlework Treasures: Samplers and Silk Embroideries from the Collection of Betty Ring, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1990, pp. 94-95, figs. 150-152.
Betty Ring, American Needlework Treasures: Samplers and Silk Embroideries from the Collection of Betty Ring, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1990, pp. 94-95, figs. 150-152.
Inscribed: Inscribed in pen and ink and embroidered on plinth of monument: 'SACRED/ to the Memory of/ Mr HENRY HICKS/ who died on his passage from Guadaloupe/ to Baltimore Dec, 8. 1802 in the/ 25th year of his age./ Ah luckless youth no tomb is placed for thee/ That can to strangers eyes thy worth impart./ Thou hast no grave but in the stormy Sea./ And no memorial but this broken heart.' [Note: there is a comma after Dec and a period after 8 as show above. "Guadeloupe" is misspelled as above.]
