Embroidered coats of arms
Last updated: Jan 5, 2024
Not as widely known as the embroidered samplers and canvaswork pictures, schoolgirls in New England (especially at schools in Boston) embroidered heraldic panels that displayed their skill with a needle and the family's heraldry – or at least their family’s heraldic pretensions.
There’s a particularly good discussion of these embroideries in With Needle and Brush:
The most lustrous and elaborate of all the embroideries worked in the eighteenth century by schoolgirls were coats of arms. The lozenge-shaped coats of arms, unique to New England, were created in Boston, first as canvaswork in the 1740s and then in silk and metallic thread on a black silk background by the early 1750s. They were sophisticated accomplishments intended as decoration to demonstrate a family’s prestige in society. Though visually similar to funereal hatchments, which were painted on wood and hung over the door of the deceased, the social functions of the two objects were very different.
The Needle’s Eye has more on these embroideries:
One project that was particularly popular among young women of wealthy New England families finishing their education was the embroidering of a family coat of arms. These heraldic needleworks, generally worked in gold, silver, and colored silk threads on a black, diamond-shaped ground, are among the most impressive examples of needle art. Expensively framed and displayed in a home’s most public spaces, they signaled the owner’s wealth, education, leisure, and privilege, communicating a family’s ability to do without a daughter’s labor while she attended school and to select and enroll her in a school filled with well-heeled students. The working of the piece conveyed a family’s membership among the leaders of society, while the heraldic imagery signaled the supposed duration of that membership. At the same time, the products of these young women’s labor allowed select citizens of the colony and then early republic to assert their English heritage. As Betty Ring has observed, “undeterred by either republicanism or nationalism,” these objects represented a desire, among New England’s elite, “for purely English emblems of family pride and prestige.”
Historic Deerfield provides additional context:
By the mid 18th century, the rising merchant class wanted to display status symbols, and coats of arms became a popular subject for needlework pictures wrought in Boston. Embroideries depicting true or pseudo-coats of arms (few New England families were entitled to bear them) done in girls’ embroidery schools were probably some of the most costly done. The city was home to at least six school mistresses who taught this kind of embroidery, advertising in local papers during the 1750s, 1760s, and 1770s. By 1730, Boston heraldic painters had access to a number of publications that illustrated coats of arms from which to copy or combine elements. The schools were provided with patterns and stencils from shops operated by these heraldic painters, such as John Gore, the largest provider in Boston. Based on a 2010 article by Angela Duckwall, these kinds of embroidered coats of arms from Boston were marked on the fabric before being embroidered with color instructions. The threads were probably imported from England, and the girls’ choices were governed by what their families could afford. Heraldic embroidery provided the perfect forum for displaying needlework, education, leisure, status, elite heritage, and family allegiance. Nearly all the Boston coats of arms appear to be in basically the same form, but the earlier ones seem to be more lavishly embroidered in metallic material.
Following is a roughly chronological outline of these embroidered coats of arms. (A page on heraldic embroidery of the 13th-17th centuries appears elsewhere on this site.)
- Winterthur 1958.1524 A, Hall coat of arms, possibly made by Hannah Hall, 1730-1740
- Addison Gallery of American Art 1962.6, the arms of Foxcroft and Coney embroidered by Elizabeth or Mehetable Foxcroft, c. 1740-1750
- Winterthur 1953.0171.001 A, Penhallow/Kneeland family coat of arms, embroidered by Prudence Kneeland Penhallow, 1740-1760
- Winterthur 1957.1395, coat of arms labelled “Simpkins And Symmes,” 1740-1760
- MFA 39.243, Rufus Greene family coat of arms, embroidered by Katherine Greene Armory, 1745
- Winterthur 1994.0003 A, B, Cushing family coat of arms, 1750
- MFA 64.2045, Wendell and Oliver coat of arms, probably worked by a daughter of Jacob Wendell and Sarah Oliver, c. 1750
- MFA 39.244, Chandler coat of arms, embroidered by Catharine Chandler, c. 1750
- Northeast Auctions Aug 17-18 2013, Lot 254, coat of arms for the Peirce family
- Connecticut Historical Society 1935.10.1, unfinished Pitkin family coat of arms, attributed to Jerusha Pitkin, c. 1750-1755
- Winterthur 1959.2851 A, arms of Browne of Weald Hall, possibly embroidered by Jane Brown, 1758
- Historic Northampton 71.119, coat of arms of the Stoddard family, probably embroidered by Esther Stoddard or Prudence Stoddard, c. 1760
- Historic Deerfield 56.358.2, 1760-1775
- Coat of arms, erroneous heraldry of the Porter family, stitched by Elizabeth Porter Phelps starting when she was a young woman (around 1760) and continued in “the twilight of her life” (c. 1817)
- Winterthur 1958.2226 A, embroidered by Ann Flower of Philadelphia, 1763
- Christie’s Sale 1745, Lot 652, embroidered by Elizabeth Flower of Philadelphia, 1765
- Historic Deerfield 58.234, coat of arms of the Ross family, attributed to Elizabeth Ross, c. 1768
- Historic Deerfield 1391, Grant coat of arms, worked by Ann Grant, 1769
- Historic Deerfield 63.154, Lloyd coat of arms, c. 1770
- Bayou Bend collection, coat of arms with the names Howe and Babcock, embroidered by Hannah Babcock, 1785
- Met 36.28, embroidered by Mary Ann Thomas, c. 1786
- Met 2003.581, embroidered by Sarah Duncan, c. 1790
- Winterthur 1967.1393 A, King/Hodges coat of arms, embroidered by Hannah Hodges, 1790-1791
- Connecticut Historical Society 1992.68.1, Patten, Davenport and Wheelock coat of arms, embroidered by Ruth Patten of Hartford, c. 1790-1810
- Winterthur 1955.0083.003 A, made by Betsy Putnam, c. 1790-1810
- Winterthur 1964.0617 A, c. 1790-1820
- Dietrich American Foundation 4.5.1248, needlework hatchment of the Boyd and Brewster families of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, embroidered by Submit Boyd (daughter of Colonel George Boyd and Jane Brewster) c. 1795
- Met 1993.496, embroidered by H. Goodwin of Hartford, 1800-1810
- Connecticut Historical Soceity 1985.41.0, Frye family coat of arms, 1800-1820
- Connecticut Historical Society 1963.61.15, unfinished coat of arms, 1800-1820
- Historic Deerfield 2002.64, Moseley coat of arms, attributed to Mary Moseley, c. 1804
- Connecticut Historical Society 1939.8.1, Ripley family coat of arms, embroidered by Lucy Ripley, 1804-1805
- Connecticut Historical Society 1949.5.0, Perkins family coat of arms, attributed to Charlotte Perkins, 1810-1815