Coat of Arms
These diamond-shaped coats of arms represent the various kinds of intricate crafts practiced by young women in eighteenth-century New England. In demonstration of their accomplished domestic talents, female family members executed these decorative emblems at schools for young ladies where they copied an appealing coat of arms from a pattern book. Coats of arms were made either in embroidery or quillwork, a technique of tightly curled paper shaped into a design, frequently embellished with crushed glass, mica, and pearls. However, embroidered coats of arms with silk and precious metallic threads on a black silk background were more common. Although lacking the royal social hierarchy of Great Britain, many of Boston’s merchant class families adopted coats of arms to imply heraldic ancestry and reflect their wealth and social position.
Artwork Details
- Title: Coat of Arms
- Maker: Embroidered by Mary Ann Thomas (born 1772)
- Maker: Probably Mrs. Deborah Snow's School
- Designer: Pattern drawn by John and Samuel Gore
- Date: ca. 1786
- Geography: Made in Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Culture: American
- Medium: Black satin embroidered with silk thread
- Dimensions: 18 x 18 in. (45.7 x 45.7 cm)
- Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1936
- Object Number: 36.28
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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