M. Gorham
date: label: date made
content: ca 1805
name: label: maker
content: Gorham, Mary
label: maker
content: Gorham, Mary
notes: label: Description
content: After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures. The death of George Washington gave impetus to this new fad of the mourning picture. The genre included an assortment of plinths, urn, mourners, and trees in a garden setting.
label: Description
content: This mourning embroidery by Mary Gorham was dedicated to her father, Capt. Isaac Gorham. The pastoral image shows a woman approaching an urn on a plinth that rests beneath a three-branched weeping willow. The large gold urn, outlined in brown and garlanded with flowers, carries on its marble-simulated silk embroidered pedestal the inked inscription: "Cap.t Isaac / Gorham born / Feb.y 15 . 1747 . died / Aug.t. 13. 1795. aged / 48." The young woman, in a white Regency costume with a brown bow, stands to the right of the urn. Her bonnet is completed in black ink; her features and curls are inked in brown; one arm is outlined in graphite, and the other is barely visible behind a willow branch. The picture is in the original gold leaf frame, and the glass is reverse-painted in black, with gold leaf motifs in each corner and a 1/4" gold rim around the oval mourning picture with the maker's name, "M. GORHAM," at the bottom. It is stitched on a plain weave ivory silk ground with silk embroidery threads. The stitches are seed, lazy daisy, straight, satin, and outline.
label: Description
content: This example includes the typical objects found in mourning embroideries: a garden, weeping willow trees, a woman in mourning, and an urn on a plinth. The willow tree is a symbol of mourning and sorrow as well as a tree that drains the ground of water, thereby keeping the site dry. Capt. Isaac Gorham was a mariner and he died at sea.
label: Description
content: Mary Gorham was born December 10, 1791, to Isaac and Sarah Thomas Gorham in Bristol, Rhode Island. She married Rev. John P. K. Henshaw(1792-1852) on July 19, 1814. They had eleven children: John Kewley (1815-1843), Alexander (1817-1854), Mary Gorham (1819-1888), William Milnor (1820-1850), Rev. Daniel (1822-1908), Charles Henry (1825-1825), Elizabeth W. (1826-1826), I. Gorham (1828-1828), Charles Henry (1830-1910), Richmond (1833-1890), and Sarah (1831-1832). Mary died September 26, 1881, in Bristol, Rhode Island. See her older sister Jemina Gorham’s sampler.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Rhode Island, Bristol
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
label: See more items in
content: Embroidered Pictures
label: See more items in
content: Textiles
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2007.0156.01
label: accession number
content: 2007.0156
label: catalog number
content: 2007.0156.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: needlework, embroidery
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: silk (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: linen (embroidery material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (frame material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 in x 9 1/2 in; 38.1 cm x 24.13 cm