Parker and Bullard Memorial
name: label: maker
content: Parker, 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, which came to include an assortment of plinth, urn, mourners, and trees in a garden setting.
label: Description
content: This mourning picture was expertly embroidered by Mary Parker. In the center is a plinth with an urn on top. The inscription reads: "Sacred / To / The Memory of / Mrs. Hannah Parker. Obt / April 14th 1813. Aged 50. / Mrs. Sarah Bullard. Obt. / July 13th 1813. Aged 27."
label: Description
content: To the right side of the plinth is a weeping woman, leaning with her right elbow on the plinth. She is dressed in a gown of the period, and a braid encircles her softly curled hair. Two large willow trees overhang the plinth and the woman, and dominate the picture. The ground fabric is silk satin. The stitches are French knots, long and short, encroaching satin, split, lazy daisy, and chain.
label: Description
content: This embroidery includes the typical objects found in mourning embroideries: a garden, weeping willow trees, a mourning woman, 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.
label: Description
content: Hannah Gilson was born May 26, 1764, to Samuel and Elizabeth Shed Gilson in Pepperell, MA. She married Lemuel Parker November 13, 1783, and died April 13, 1813. Daughter Sarah (Sally) Parker, born 1786, married John Bullard in 1808 in Pepperell, Massachusetts. Daughter Mary (Polly) Parker was born March 18, 1792.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Pepperell
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
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content: Embroidered Pictures
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content: Textiles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur M. Greenwood
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TE.E388174
label: catalog number
content: E388174
label: accession number
content: 182022
objectType: label: Object Name
content: silk picture
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: silk (ground material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 17 3/4 in x 17 in; 45.085 cm x 43.18 cm