Winding Yarn (Interior of a Nantucket Kitchen)

1872

Eastman Johnson

(American, 1824–1906)

America

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

Set in a rustic kitchen on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, 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 rude action of placing his hat on the floor, adds further comic elements that contemporary audiences would have appreciated.