Seated Mother with Children, Possibly “Charity”
1779-1819
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Seated Mother with Children, Possibly “Charity”
1779-1819
Physical Qualities
Silk ground, silk embroidery threads, watercolor, 12 7/8 x 11 1/2 x 1 1/8 in. (32.7 x 29.2 x 2.9 cm.)
Credit Line
Dorothy McIlvain Scott Collection
Object Number
2012.450
A silk on silk embroidery depicting woman dressed in lt blue/white gown seated in a landscape holding an infant with another small child standing beside her with outstretched arms. The faces, hair, and hands of the woman and children are drawn and painted in as is the sky in the background. Both children are in pale gold gowns and wear red shoes. The foreground consists of a variegated, but flat ground. In the background a sickly looking willow tree stands to the left and an evergreen bush to the right. The picture is worked in silk threads of various colors including pale gold,off white, lt blue, lt taupe, lt olive green, dark blue green, bright green, gold green, dark brown, a medium and dark golden brown, and rose red. The clothing is stitched in long and short stitches outlined and embellished with split stitches. Feather stitch is used for the willow and a bullion type of stitch for the evergreen bush. The picture is framed in a black eglomisé glass mat with a single thick gold strip around the oval opening. The neoclassical style frame is of wood covered in gesso and gold with beading just inside the coved outer edge, however, it may have been repainted in dull metallic over gilt.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 2012; Dorothy McIlvain Scott, Baltimore
Inscribed: Handwritten on reverse of paper covering back of frame: "BL" (upside down, probably indicating placement in Miss Scott's Bedroom on the bottom left side of the large case furniture piece in the corner, where this piece was displayed)
