2024-18-2

Made by Students

Silk and watercolor on silk

Ruth Atwater Cooke (1788-1877)

ca. 1803

Litchfield Historical Society

Litchfield, CT

Silk embroidery of a young girl, dressed in peasant clothing holding a sheath of wheat. She carries a basket in her right hand. The features of her face are drawn in ink. There is a cottage in the background on the right hand side. The remainder of the background is a country landscape. The body of the embroidery is done in a circular shape. There is a garland of flowers swagged above the image and a spray of flowers in each lower corner.

This piece has previously been dated to 1793. A handwritten note (removed from reverse of frame) states that it was worked by Ruth Atwater “while she was in boarding school in Litchfield, Conn. in 1793, when she was 14 or 15 years of age.” Given that the same note lists her birth year as 1788, the writer either misidentified her LFA attendance ...date or incorrectly assumed the embroidery was done while she attended the school. Ruth’s birth year of 1788 is confirmed by other genealogical sources.

It is possible that the 1793 date assigned to her attendance is based on a mistake made on the handwritten note. An attendance date of 1803 (based on the note indicating she was 14 of 15 years of age when she attended) not only makes sense given the typical age of students who completed embroideries at the Academy, but also means that Ruth would be completing her version around the same time as both Hale and Smith (and possibly have the aquatint available at the school for reference).


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