Reading Visual Art: 184 Just sewing

In the first of these two articles considering the reading of sewing in paintings, I looked at sewing for a purpose. More commonly, sewing is seen in its own right, as an activity performed almost exclusively by women of every age and class.

Anna Ancher (1859–1935), Two Little Girls Being Taught How to Sew (1910), media not known, 64 x 54.4 cm, Skagens Museum, Skagen, Denmark. Wikimedia Commons.

In Anna Ancher’s Two Little Girls Being Taught How to Sew from 1910, the girls’ mother/teacher stands sewing in the rich light from a window to the right. Cast shadows on the plain pale lemon wall behind are complex: the sun is low in the sky, and those shadows fall from a large houseplant at the right, and external branches too.

Hans Andersen Brendekilde (1857–1942), Two Girls with Needlework Sitting in a Farmyard (1902), oil on canvas, 49 x 60 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Hans Andersen Brendekilde’s sentimental rustic scene of Two Girls with Needlework Sitting in a Farmyard (1902) shows two young girls who are clean, well-dressed, and engaged in this light domestic task typical of the middle class. In the distance is a farmyard cat, and a woman is kneeling on a doorstep giving it a good scrub.

Eugene de Blaas (1843–1932), The Friendly Gossips (1901), oil on canvas, 97.8 × 121.9 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Sewing could also be a social activity, as seen in Eugene de Blaas’ Friendly Gossips from 1901. These three young women chat and joke together while they work through their sewing and repair baskets. They’re most probably unmarried daughter(s) and friend(s) within a middle class home, and the young man peering cautiously round the door looks as if he has come to woo one of them.

Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), Portraits in the Countryside (1876), oil on canvas, 95 × 111 cm, Musée Baron Gérard, Bayeux, France. Wikimedia Commons.

Women of wealthy families appear to have spent much of their time engaged in activities intended to pass the time. Gustave Caillebotte’s Portraits in the Countryside (1876) shows, from left to right, the artist’s cousin Marie, his aunt, a family friend Madame Hue, and the artist’s mother.

Three of the four are engaged in needlework, although it isn’t clear precisely what. Caillebotte’s mother is the exception: sitting in the distance, she is reading a book. Not only are these women sewing their lives away, waiting for the next event on their social calendar, but they sit apart, and concentrate on their work, without talking to one another. Their sewing provides them with a small world of their own, whose only hurt could be the infrequent prick of a needle.

For others, sewing is their profession.

Hans Best (1874–1942), Sewing Women in the Room (date not known), oil on canvas, 54 × 73.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Judging by the sheer volume of garments in Hans Best’s undated Sewing Women in the Room, these two women are professional seamstresses working at home, sharing the single sewing machine.

Anna Ancher (1859–1935), Sewing a Dress for a Costume Party (1920), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Anna Ancher makes the most of the light in her Sewing a Dress for a Costume Party of 1920. These three women look rather older than the average seamstress, and they’re working with the materials for a single dress. One of them performs the larger-scale sewing at the machine, while the others progress the manual work.

Karl Armbrust (1867-1928), Interior of a Sewing Mill with Seamstresses at Work (1927), media and dimensions not known, Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

With sewing machines, clothing could also be made on a more industrial scale. When sewing by hand, homeworking had been the order of the day, and there’s no value in pooling those workers into a factory. Once seamstresses were working with sewing machines, the situation was reversed, and many came to be employed in factories or sewing mills. Karl Armbrust’s Interior of a Sewing Mill with Seamstresses at Work from 1927 shows what became commonplace in garment manufacture. These women didn’t need the skills of those sewing by hand, and were consequently paid a pittance.

I conclude with two oddities.

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), Study of a Nude (Suzanne Sewing) (1880), oil on canvas, 114.5 cm x 79.5 cm, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark. Wikimedia Commons.

Paul Gauguin’s Study of a Nude (Suzanne Sewing) from 1880 is thoroughly odd: the model is undeniably sewing, with a thimble on the middle finger of her right hand, so why is she not clothed? It’s perhaps understandable that the artist’s wife is recorded as refusing to allow this painting to be hung on the wall of their home.

Félix Vallotton (1865–1925), Interior, Bedroom with Two Figures (1904), oil on cardboard, 61.5 × 56 cm, Hermitage Museum Государственный Эрмитаж, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Wikimedia Commons.

Félix Vallotton’s Interior, Bedroom with Two Figures from 1904 is one of his series of disturbing domestic interiors, with an incomplete narrative. The lady of the house is standing over her maid as the latter is sewing up her evening gown, in her bedroom. The mistress stands with her back to the viewer, and her face is only revealed in her reflection in the large mirror on the wardrobe at the back of the room, where the maid is all but invisible. These three figures appear in perspective recession, and to the right of the wardrobe is a doorway, presumably leading through to the master’s bedroom. Are these just running repairs made before or after a night out, or is there something else going on?