Mount Vernon in Virginia / The seat of the late Lieutenant General George Washington
- Mount Vernon in Virginia / The seat of the late Lieutenant General George Washington
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By the late 1700s and early 1800s, schools for well-to-do young women flourished, and elaborate needleworks with decorative motifs such as verses, flowers, houses, religious, pastoral, and mourning scenes were being stitched. The parents of these young women proudly displayed their embroideries as showpieces of their work, talent, and status.
Miss Sarah Patten (1761–1843) opened the Misses Pattens’ School in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1785. Afterward, her younger sisters, Ruth (1764–1850) and Mary (1769–1850), joined her. People at the time described the school as being “well-supplied with excellent teachers in reading, writing, arithmetic, lessons in music and now and then some ornamental works,” the latter referring to needle skills.
Stitched at Misses Pattens’ School, this pictorial needlework shows George Washington’s Mount Vernon at the center. The image is taken from a drawing by Archibald Robertson and engraved by Francis Juke by 1800. Above the house is a raised, padded, and metallic eagle. In its beak, the eagle clasps a swagged, floral garland. The ends of the garlands join the fronds of a wreath and, when combined, they appear as a shield-shaped device surrounding the nation’s first president’s house.
ProvenanceMary Frances Bowles Couper (1914–2009), Houston, as of 2009; Estate of Mary Frances Bowles Couper; purchased by MFAH, 2013.
Exhibition History"American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 15, 2012–January 2, 2013.
Published References The Intelligencer, Spring 2010. This embroidery is unpublished (this was written in 2009); however, closely related examples, based on this same print source, are discussed and reproduced in: Suzanne L. Flynt, "Ornanental and Useful Accomplishments Schoolgirl Edcation and Deerfield Academy, 1800-1830" (Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1988) p. 20. David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff, "American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection" (Princeton, 1998) p. 261, T40. New York and Sotheby's, "Sinking Springs Farms: The Appell Family Collection", January 18, 2003, p.12, lot 910. In addition to embroidery, the view was also reproduced in watercolor by schoolgirls. One, by Susan Whitcomb of Brandon, Vermont is recorded by Nina Fletcher Little in "The Abby Aldrigh Rockefeller Folk Art Collection" (Boston, 1957) pp. 140-141, no. 70, as is another version by an unidentified artist, p. 363, no. 273. Aniother, signed by Catherine Elvira Thompson in 1830, was reproduced in the "Main Antique Digest", October, 1993, p. 39-F.
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