Chair seat cover

Anna Poor Parsons

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This chair seat cover is fully embroidered with multicolored crewel wools on a plainweave linen base fabric. The pattern is of serrated “flame stitch” lozenges in graduated shades (light to dark) of pinks, reds, yellows, blues, and purples. The background between the lozenges is in shades of green to brown. There few exactly repeated designs, either in shape or color, among the patterned lozenges. The embroidered area is bordered by an approximately 1 inch wide area where the linen base fabric remains unembroidered. Although currently unmounted, the chair seat was removed from a chair and was framed at some point in its history, likely in the first half of the 20th century.

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