Thistle textile

Tiffany & Wheeler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The firm Tiffany & Wheeler was hired in 1880 to design several interiors of the luxury steam yacht Namouna, owned by newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. These included the ship’s main “saloon,” or drawing room. Across the room’s portholes could be drawn—as described in a contemporary magazine article—“exquisite hangings, in which the interwoven thistle is wrought in silk and gold.” It is difficult to know whether the design of the Namouna’s damask is by Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) or Candace Wheeler (1827-1923). The highly regularized pattern relates to molded plaster wall paneling with thistle decorations that Tiffany designed for the saloon, while the unexpected combination of gold metallic thread and gray-blue silk points to Wheeler’s interest in color blending and effects of light in textile design.

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