Winterthur Museum Division of Conservation Textile Laboratory

Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation Winterthur Museum Division of Conservation Textile Laboratory Conservation Report Accession #/Call #: 2015.47.48 Object: Pillow, embroidered Object Date: 1960-1965 Description/Title: Poppy Round Box Pillow Artist/Author: Erica Wilson Materials: Cotton, linen, wool, stuffing material for pillow (unknown) Current Location: Textile Conservation Lab Reason for Treatment or Examination: WUDPAC Student Documentation Project Examined by: Melissa King Consulted: Joy Gardiner, director of conservation, Winterthur Museum Laura Mina, associate textile conservator, Winterthur Museum Linda Eaton, senior curator of textiles, Winterthur Museum (Figure 1) Before treatment photograph of pillow Anne Hilker, doctoral student at Bard College Dr. Joelle Wickins, preventive conservation team head, Winterthur Museum Report Date: 9-28-2017 Description: This is a round box pillow designed and created by the celebrity needle worker, designer, and entrepreneur, Erica Wilson. It was part of her private collection in her New York home (Hilker, pers. comm.). The top of the pillow is hand embroidered crewelwork1 flowers in a contemporary design. There are undulations along the seams of the pillow, and particularly within the larger embroidery motifs such as the flowers. The undulations in the embroidery is possibly a result of the tension of the thread and also the localized stiffness of the yarn. The embroidery is sewn directly to a coarse plain weave linen. The linen is backed by a weft faced twill cotton and the two circular pieces of fabric were machine sewn to the sides, piping, and base of the pillow, which is a plain-weave orange cut pile fabric. The top of the pillow is machine sewn to piping wrapped in bias strips of the pile fabric with one vertical seam and two diagonal seams, and a strip of pile fabric creating the 1 3/8” siding of the pillow. The side of the pillow has one vertical machine-stitched seam. The bottom of the pillow is sewn to another piping wrapped in bias strips with one diagonal seam and a circular base. This base and piping are machine-sewn with a 7 ½” hand-stitched section that served as an opening to insert the pillow after the embroidered ground and lining were attached to the base of the pillow. Prior to construction of the pillow, the embroidery was hand-stitched to the linen fabric. There is evidence that a stencil or transfer paper was used or the design was hand-drawn prior to embroidering as there is a blue line visible near the edge of some of the embroidery. The design was created from 16 different colors of wool yarn. There are seven concentric circular flower shapes with stems and leaves. The flowers were created with a Roumanian couching stitch (Wilson, 54) to create oblong concentric circular shapes of varying hues. The curved stems of the flowers were created using a stem stitch (Wilson, 34). A fishbone stick was used to create the leaves and the veins that bisect their centers. Historical Context: Background on the Pillow This pillow came to the collection as a gift from Erica Wilson’s personal collection in her Park Avenue New York City home (Hilker, pers. comm.). Because it remained within her home as opposed to other storage facilities it is believed to have great sentimental value to Erica (Hilker, pers. comm.) The pillow was likely designed and photographed for Woman’s Day magazine as there is a photograph of a physical transfer pattern of the specific design that says, “Woman’s Day Crewel (Figure 2) Photograph of transfer pattern for pillow supplied by Embroidery Pillow” (Hilker, Anne Hilker person. comm.). There was a 1 2-ply worsted wool yarn question as to whether it may have been a design for one of Erica’s embroidery kits, but this has not been confirmed. It is typical of Erica Wilson’s pillow embroidery kits to include a zipper on the pillow, however, this particular pillow does not have a zipper, which may mean it was created as a prototype, photo model, or it precedes her kits. Erica Wilson Erica Wilson is a needlework artist, designer, and an entrepreneur who was very influential in the craft’s revival starting in the 1960’s. Erica Wilson was born in 1928 in Tidworth England, and Died in 2011 in New York City (Sikarskie 2015). She was trained at the Royal School of Needlework in London2. In American needlework, there is a history of looking to English traditions in the craft (Land and Swan 1970, 26). In 1954 Erica was recruited to teach in a needlework school in Millbrook New York and later worked at the Cooper Hewitt School in New York City (Fox 2011). She (Figure 3) The late Erica Wilson posing in front of was married to the famous furniture some her pillow designs (photo credit: Andrea Mohin, designer, Vladimir Kagan (Wadler 2005). New York Times) She is often considered the “Julia Child” of embroidery and even shared the same recording studio as Julia Child for her WGBH series on embroidery, “Erica” (Sikarksie 2015). Aside from her television series, she also published 16 books and produced and sold embroidery kits in her five retail stores (Fox 2011). Embroidery arts had waned in the 20th century with the advent of machine sewing, and post-war women without careers were prosperous and idle, which was a perfect combination for the growth of hand stitched embroidery (Fox 2011). Erica was very much inspired by traditional techniques and often used museum objects, particularly 17th, 18th, and 19th century American or British works, as a point of reference and inspiration in her teaching (Sikarskie 2015). She was known for her ability to adapt traditional needle working techniques to a more contemporary aesthetic with color palettes and motifs of her time (Eaton 2017). Crewel Embroidery Crewelwork is likely as old as spinning yarn, however, there are few surviving samples prior to the17th century and none prior to the early 18th century within America (Landon and Swan 1970, 25). Crewelwork is often defined as slackly twisted, two-ply, worsted yarn (Landon and Swan 1970, 18). American crewelwork was typically done in the Roumainian stitch, which gives the effect of a herringbone stitch, which covers a large area on the surface and was used out of a necessity to remain economical with their wool (Wilson 1962, 27). Crewel Work diminished during the Industrial Revolution with the advent of roller printing and 2 The Royal School of Needlework was founded in 1872 with an aim to preserve hand embroidery as an art form in response to the growth of machine-made textiles (Saunders 1998, 6) cheaper woven fabrics (Wilson 1962, 27), but experienced a great revival in the mid-20th century which can arguably be contributed to by public figures such as Erica Wilson. Dimensions: 13 3/8” (diameter) 4 5/8” (total height). Materials – Fiber ID & Structure: Fibers were identified by visible inspection unless otherwise noted. Embroidered flowers Colors: red (3), yellow (3), orange (2), peach/pink (4), cream (1) Fiber: wool Twist/Ply: z2S Structure: Roumanian stitch (Wilson, 54), roumanian couching stitch (Swan, 232) Embroidered leaves Colors: green (2), dark red Fiber: wool Twist/Ply: z2S Structure: fishbone stitch (Wilson, 70) or fern stitch (Swan, 227) Embroidered stems Color: dark red Fiber: wool Twist/Ply: z2S Structure: stem stitch (Wilson, 34) Linen ground Color: natural linen Fiber: both warp and weft are flax* Twist/Ply: 1Z (warp)/1Z (weft) Thread count: 20 yarns per inch (weft)/ 30 yarns per inch (warp) Structure: Plain weave Ground lining Color: off-white Fiber: both warp and weft are cotton Twist/Ply: 1Z (warp)/1Z (weft) Thread count: 24 yarns per inch (weft)/ 36 yarns per inch (warp) Structure: 4/1 weft faced twill Pile siding, piping, and base Colors: orange Fiber: both warp and weft are cotton Twist/Ply: undiscernible Thread count: 56 yarns per inch (both) Structure: plain weave with supplementary pile that may be in the weft direction.3 *Fiber identified by microscopic examination. 3 Determined to be velveteen after consulting with Joy Gardiner and referencing “A Pile Fabric Primer” (Gaddis 1970) Condition: The object is in poor to fair condition. It is fairly stable structurally, but should be handled with care around the edges and loose fibers surrounding the holes. The pillow has been divided into quadrants for ease of description (See: Naming Conventions Appendix I). For a visual documentation of the object please refer to the condition diagrams in Appendix II. Face of pillow (ground fabric, lining, and embroidery): On the linen ground on the face of the pillow there are many holes, the largest of which is 6.5 cm long. The damage to the linen ground is exclusive to the edges of the face of the pillow, where it was handled the most. The exposed lining on the face of the pillow appears to have some surface dirt as well as some yellowing from cellulosic degradation. There is some non-planar undulation on the face of the pillow that is particularly emphasized around the holes due to the lack of tension in these areas. On the visible lining in the fourth quadrant there is one loose float weave in the weft faced twill, but it is in overall good to fair condition. Many of the holes seem to have originated from the pressure of the finishing knots from the embroidery. There are several places on the pillow where the knots in the embroidery thread underneath the ground are creating a bulge in the linen. Some areas on the pillow have loss of thread in one direction of the weave and is still attached over the losses, and most of the remaining thread is in the weft direction.

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