c. 1800-1805 Mourning Embroidery

c. 1800-1805 Mourning Embroidery
East Tennessee?
19"V x 16 1/4"H © TSS 216

We documented a mourning embroidery yesterday. The piece was found in the attic of a house in Knoxville. We hope, through land deed searches, to connect it to an East Tennessee family. The texts on the embroidery, which are rendered in ink, read:

In Death Remembered
As in life Beloved

NOT LOST BUT GONE BEFORE

In Memory of
MAB
Who Departed
1794

Mourning embroidery was extremely popular in the first quarter of the 19th century, from 1800 to 1825. A young woman would, if she were fortunate to attend a female academy, work a memorial as the culmination of her needlework eduction.


A professional artist or an artistically inclined teacher would draw the pattern on silk. The young woman could then tint the background with watercolor and embroider the main motifs.


The only date on this embroidery is "1794," but that is the date of the death of the individual being memorialized, not the date of creation. It was probably worked within ten years of 1794.