According to a contemporary source, Mrs. (Deborah) Snow “kept a finishing boarding school for young ladies where there were teachers of music, drawing . . . and fancy sewing” in Boston on  Green Street, Pemberton Hills. On the school's roster was Hannah Babcock, who was probably the daughter of Joseph and Hannah Howe Babcock of nearby Milton. As part of her education, she executed this embroidered hatchment.

Technical notes: Satin ground; silk embroidery thread. The original frame is black walnut with carved, gessoed, and gilded details.  The backboard is white pine. The hatchment has a black ground and is embroidered in a variety of colored silks in satin, Roumanian outline, couching, and chain stitches. Its layout follows the standard Gore pattern. John Gore and his son Samuel were heraldic painters in Boston. They probably used stencils to transfer the shield and surrounding foliate and helmet design onto the fabric and then added a crest and emblazonment within the shield.

Related examples: Isaiah Thomas Arms. MMA (acc. no. 36.28); Meers and Rivers Arms, SPNEA (acc. no. 1962.20); May and Williams Arms, private collection; Thomas Clap Arms, Yale University Library Manuscript and Archive Collection (Ring 1993, p. 267).

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.