Born in Suffolk, England, Mary Ann Tipple came to Bastrop, Texas, with assorted family members in about 1840. There she met her husband, Henry Crocheron, and became a member of the Methodist congregation. Mrs. Crocheron is known to have embroidered several pictures depicting religious subjects. Such needlework images united descriptions from the Old and New Testament with the iconography of popular religious prints. The rage for Berlin canvas work coincided with the interest in historical and Biblical subjects, here represented by the Holy Family's exodus to Egypt.

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.