Embroidered Picture

After the revered George Washington died in 1799, he attained almost saintlike esteem. Commemorative and memorial prints were released, which soon became sources for watercolors and needlework pictures created by young women studying at the fashionable female academies of the day. This example was made at a school run by Elizabeth Folwell (1772-1824) in Philadelphia, which was active from the 1790s to the 1820s. The renowned boarding school benefited from the talent of her artist husband, Samuel (1764-1813), who was an engraver and miniature painter (see also cut paper silhouette 38.145.348, mourning picture 56.66, and mourning miniature painting 1989.228a, b). Samuel designed large dramatic memorials and other Neoclassical scenes for the students at the school to complete. Some of his designs may have been inspired by existing prints, while others were his originals. In addition to providing the overall composition, Samuel Folwell sketched the scene on silk, gave it to the student to embroider, and then completed the inscription and other painted details himself.

This memorial, set within an oval, shows two women and a child around the central monument that is inscribed: SACRED/ TO THE MEMORY/ OF THE/ ILLUSTRIOUS/ WASHINGTON. The woman to the left, standing beneath the requisite weeping willows, wears a long veil and leans despondently on the monument, while the woman at right drapes a floral wreath over the urn at the top of the monument, and the child approaches with a laurel bough. There is another example of this exact design in the collection of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (256396), which implies it was one of the Folwell School’s most popular embroidery patterns in the years soon after the first president’s death.