Embroidered Picture

Mary Wright

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At age fourteen, Mary Wright, the only child of a prosperous farmer and brickyard owner in Middletown, Connecticut, was sent to school in Newport, Rhode Island. In the mid-eighteenth century, few schools in Connecticut taught more than the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. In order to gain the necessary feminine accomplishments, well-to-do girls were usually sent to either Boston or Newport. Mary may have attended a school run by Mrs. Sarah Osborn, who, in 1758, advertised in the Newport Mercury, stating she provided instruction in "Reading, Writing, Plain Work, Embroidery, Tent Stitch, Samplers, &c, on reasonable Terms." Mary completed at least two pictures based on engravings depicting the four seasons; her needlework of Summer, which is closely allied with the design for Spring in Wencelaus Hollar's 1644 print series entitled "The Four Seasons," is in the collection of the Middlesex County Historical Society, Middletown, Connecticut.

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