Embroidered Picture

Samuel Folwell

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Folwell ran an embroidery school in Philadelphia that was unrivaled in popularity. This popularity may have been due to the talent of her husband, Samuel, who designed large dramatic memorials and other Neoclassical scenes for the girls to embroider. In addition to providing the basic designs, Samuel Folwell sketched the scene on silk, gave it to the student to embroider, and then completed the inscription, sky, and other painted details himself.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art