Winding Yarn (Interior of a Nantucket Kitchen) America, 19th century

Winding Yarn (Interior of a Nantucket Kitchen)

1872

Eastman Johnson

(American, 1824–1906)

America, 19th century

oil on board

Framed: 70.2 x 85.4 x 10.2 cm (27 5/8 x 33 5/8 x 4 in.); Unframed: 37.5 x 54.6 cm (14 3/4 x 21 1/2 in.)

Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection 1915.682

Location: not on view

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Did You Know?

Eastman Johnson was a cofounder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Description

Several of Eastman Johnson’s works were inspired by Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, where he summered after acquiring property during the early 1870s. Set in a rustic kitchen interior, this painting depicts a woman who winds a ball of yarn from a coil looped in the hands of a man sitting across from her at a respectable distance. At the time, winding yarn was a common symbol of courtship that carried humorous overtones of a woman ensnaring her suitor. The second woman in the composition is likely a chaperone. The suitor’s unrefined, open-legged pose, coupled with his uncouth action of placing his hat on the floor, adds further comic elements that audiences at the time would have appreciated.