Author: PHW

The music for this installment is “When Jesus Wept.”

Text from this installment has been adapted from “Textiles” by Tina Rabun and Theodora Rezba in the “Valley Pioneers and Those Who Continue” catalogue, and the “West of the Blue Ridge” promotional newspaper clipping collection and exhibit texts.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, many of the textile products used in the Colonies were imported from Britain. In the 1700s, the Industrial Revolution was transforming previously laborious hand-processes and increasing production speeds, so that British goods were relatively inexpensive and in steady supply. It was not until the Revolutionary War severed the supply that it became a patriotic duty to spin, dye, and weave textiles. (1)

One well-known example locally of imported textiles is that of Lord Fairfax (1693-1781) during his time in Greenway Court. Andrew Burnaby observed of Lord Fairfax: “His dress corresponded with his mode of life, and, notwithstanding, he had every year new suits of clothes, of the most fashionable and expensive kind, sent out to him from England, which he never put on, was plain in the extreme.” This formal jacket probably was among those Fairfax imported from England.

Locally-produced textiles exhibited in the “Valley Pioneers and Those Who Continue” show varied from a c. 1800 baby’s cap in cambric to sheets and pillow sham of flax c. 1870. Wool and cotton, however, provided the bulk of the material base for textile work. One of the county’s early woolen mills was located on the Opequon, and wool production remained a staple of Winchester’s employment until the closure of the Virginia Woolen Mill in 1958.

Handspun wool, not being very strong, was difficult to use as a warp; therefore not many blankets of all wool were woven until yarns could be spun commercially with the invention of the spinning jenny. Cotton was grown in Virginia prior to the Revolutionary War for domestic use, and many of the early surviving blankets use cotton threads for the warp. Flax, too, was grown in small quantities for personal use both for weaving linen and for producing linseed oil.

Almost every family in the Valley possessed a four-harness loom either brought from Europe or fashioned in America of hand-hewn logs. Both men and women did the weaving and the children were taught to card and spin the flax, cotton, and wool. Perhaps the most plentiful example of home weaving can be found in the family bedding. Three types of woven coverlets that were in common use in the Valley were the overshot, the double weave, and the jacquard.

The overshot coverlet dates from the early settlement period and could be woven on a simple four-harness loom requiring minimal skills. In this weave, the weft threads usually form the pattern and “overshoot” the warp threads, forming floats across the background weave. The double weave style (1725-1825) is constructed so that two warps are joined so that the reverse side of the coverlet is a mirror image of the front. Thus the front would show a dark design on a light ground, while the back shows a light design on a dark ground. The jacquard coverlet required a specialized loom invented by a French weaver, Joseph Jacquard. The complicated mechanism that activated the harnesses allowed for the creation of intricate patterns like brocade and damask. The loom required two people to operate and made coverlet weaving a profession after the 1830s. Many of the professional weavers also offered dyeing services.

Quilts, the other major form of bedding, were largely made by women. The quilts themselves reflect the history of textile production in America, including home-woven cloth, souvenir fabric to memorialize important events, stitching techniques, patterns, and symbolic motifs important to the makers. Quilts are often a communal effort as well, and numerous signatures on one quilt can document the makers who lent their talents to the finished piece. Whole-cloth quilts of wool were produced from the late 1700s to early 1800s, but the familiar image of a quilt is likely that of multicolor pieced cotton. Early patterns were often simple geometric designs in rectangles, squares, and triangles. More elaborate designs could have been traced from newspaper or magazine patterns. The exact quilts displayed at the Kurtz Cultural Center in conjunction with Belle Grove Plantation were not well-documented, except for the “Spring Dreams” quilt, used as a raffle item. An Amish-made queen sized quilt, it features a white background decorated with circles and sprigs of flowers and vines in pastel pink, yellow, blue, and green. For more examples of American quilts, visit the National Quilt Collection at the National Museum of American History.

For a quilt made in Winchester by Amelia Lauck, wife of Peter Lauck (both previously discussed in the Portraiture entry), see the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts for a ca. 1823 quilt of cotton with appliques of flowers and birds.

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While the bedding served daily needs, needlework could be used for education as well. The best example is that of a sampler. Known in Europe as early at the 16th century, the sampler reached its height of popularity in the 18th. Intended as a practical record of stitching patterns that could be added to and referred back to throughout a woman’s lifetime, it also came to serve a secondary use. Young girls were taught how to embroider at an early age, so their samplers were also used to practice letters, numbers, and more fanciful artistic expressions. A typical American sampler will contain various alphabetical forms, numerals, ornaments, and decorative borders. The stitcher may have included her name, the date, her school, figures like houses, pets, mottoes, and other personalized touches.

While the sampler was a relatively utilitarian piece that could be used as a reference guide, for some women the skills learned in stitching a sampler led to higher artistic expression. To explore the variety of needlework produced in early American history, you may wish to further explore the holdings of the Museum of Early South Decorative Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Join us next time for a look at furniture in the Valley on May 20.

The music for this installment is “The Butterfly.”

The text for this installment is adapted from “Fine Art and Fraktur” by Linda Crocker Simmons in the “Valley Pioneer Artists and Those Who Continue” exhibit catalog, with information from the “West of the Blue Ridge” exhibit. Most images of the portraits displayed at the “West of the Blue Ridge” exhibit are from digitized slides attributed to Elaine Rebman.

The 1790s to the 1840s was a period of great flowering for American folk art. Previously represented solely by painters in New England, folk painters active in the South have now been identified. At the time of the “Valley Pioneers and Those Who Continue” exhibit, seventy-five painters who worked in the Lower Shenandoah Valley from 1780-1880 had been identified. Only twelve of those were native to the region: Eleazer H. Miller, Elliot Daingerfield, William Leigh, Alexander R. Boteler, Richard Norris Brooke, Edward Caledon Bruce, Innes Randolph, Johannes Spitler, Jacob Strickler, David Hunter Strother (“Porte Crayon”), William de Hartburn Washington, and Eliza Kern.

Painting in the United States in this period underwent dramatic developments and changes in styles. Although the Lower Valley was not a center for innovation, the painters active here often reflected the changes that had occurred in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Boston, albeit a few decades later. Patronage determined much of what an artist painted, and in the Valley the demand for portraits was constant, followed in lesser degrees by landscapes, still-lifes, and genre scenes of everyday life.

A diversity of media was usual throughout this hundred-year period. Miniatures were much more common than is recognized. In the decades before the 1840s when photography was introduced, they were the preferred form for small, easily transported portraits. It is likely that many more miniatures were created than are known or have survived. In addition to having a miniature portrait painted in watercolor on ivory, Valley sitters could also commission their portrait in chalk, watercolor, or ink on paper.

In the Valley, as elsewhere, one of the easiest methods of locating a painter was through newspaper advertisements. The two earliest names uncovered are William Dering and L. M. Christophe. Others discovered through similar searches are Charles Peale Polk, Joshua Johnson, Frederick Kemmelmeyer, John Drinker, and [William Joseph] Aldridge. This group was likely the most influential on painters in this region during the “golden age” of folk painting. A significant level of activity was sustained from the 1790s through the 1820s by these itinerants seeking portrait commissions in the Lower Shenandoah Valley.

Orphaned as a small child, Charles Peale Polk (1767 – 1822) was raised in Philadelphia by his uncle, Charles Peale, who taught him to paint. In 1791 Polk moved with his wife and children from Philadelphia to Baltimore where he worked as a portrait painter and merchant. He left in 1796 for Frederick Co., Maryland, then traveled from there as an itinerant painter through western Maryland and Virginia. After the election of Thomas Jefferson, Polk, a political supporter, moved to Washington DC where he received an appointment as clerk, a position he held for 16 years. In 1820 after his third marriage, the family moved to a farm in Richmond Co., Va. where they resided until Polk’s death in 1822.

Jacob Frymire (1765 – 1822) was a portrait and miniature painter. Little is known of his training, but by 1791 he was active in New Jersey and Maryland painting portraits. From 1794-1807 he traveled in the South, especially Virginia and Kentucky. From 1817 until his death, he maintained residences first in Shippensburg, Pa. and later in Hamilton Township, Pa.

In the early 1800s, John Drinker (1760-1826) and Joshua Johnston (1763-1832) began working in Berkeley and Jefferson counties. Johnston is the earliest identified African-American painter in the United States. He has been linked to the Peale family – if not as master and student, at least through familiarity with and similarity of techniques. The only signed painting by him is of Sarah Ogden Gustin, painted in Berkeley Springs about 1800, and in it can be seen Johnston’s typical pallid complexion and linear treatment of details. Drinker was the only one of these early painters to settle in the region. He lived with his wife in Berkeley County until his death in 1826. Valley residents who sat for him included Dr. and Mrs. John Briscoe of Piedmont, Mr. and Mrs. George Steptoe Washington of Harewood, and Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Jones.

The Lauck family of Winchester became patrons of Frymire and Polk in 1799 when Peter Lauck, Revolutionary soldier and owner of the Red Lion Tavern, was painted by Polk. Peter’s wife, Amelia Heiskell Lauck, was painted two years later by Frymire. It is likely that Frymire knew the Polk portrait of Peter Lauck when he painted Amelia. The effect of Polk’s style on Frymire’s is clear in the loose brushstroke seen in Mrs. Lauck’s shawl and the heightened attention focused on her facial features. Amelia Lauck’s portrait by Frymire is one of his finest works as well as an example of the interchanges of influence between these painters.

As the second half of the nineteenth century approached, tastes began to move away from portraiture. Landscape images depicting the beauty of the Valley’s mountains, rivers, sky, and settlements became more common, along with genre scenes of everyday life. The Civil War seems to have drawn this local age of portrait folk painting to a close. If you would like to further explore works of some painters named in this brief exploration, we recommend visiting the online collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.

Join us on April 15 for our next installment on textiles and samplers!