Bell-pattern textile

Bell-pattern textile

Ida F. Clark

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ida F. Clark’s (1858-?) work was clearly distinguishable from Candace Wheeler’s(1827-1923) by motif and by approach. Clark chose more wide-ranging subjects than Wheeler—such as marine imagery, or the locomotive bells depicted here. Her designs were also smaller-scaled and more tightly composed than Wheeler’s. This is a fragment of a fabric that Clark created, on behalf of Associated Artists, to be used for seat upholstery in the railroad cars of the Pullman Palace Car Company. The piece may have come from an armrest in one such car. An engraving of the pattern published in 1884 shows that the fabric originally had a border design, a frieze of locomotive wheels partially obscured by wafting steam.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.