OPEN TODAY: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.

Tickets

Decorative arts

Ives Family Coat of Arms

Type
Decorative arts(Opens in new tab)
Date
1763
Accession number
2016.11.11
Maker
Rebecca Ives Gilman(Opens in new tab) (American, 1746–1823)
Dimensions
frame: 21 × 20 in. (53.3 × 50.8 cm.) object: 17 × 16 in. (43.2 × 40.6 cm.) 21 × 20 × 1 1/4 in. (53.3 × 50.8 × 3.2 cm.)
Medium
silk, gold and silver thread on black silk
Description
coat of arms with the inscription “By the Name of Ives”
Credit
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gail-Oxford Collection
Department
American Art
Find out more
View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)
Throughout the 18th and well into the 19th centuries, young girls between the ages of 8 and 18 were taught fancy needle working skills as part of their preparation for marriage and later life. Embroidered coats of arms such as this were produced in female academies in Boston as symbols of social status and family pride.

This coat of arms with the inscription “By the name of Ives 1763” was one of two stitched by Rebecca Ives in 1763 when she was 17 years old. In the year she stitched this piece, she married Joseph Gilman and moved to his family home in New Hampshire. Rebecca maintained an especially close relationship with her older brother Robert Hale Ives. She most likely stitched the first coat of arms as a gift for her beloved brother.

You might also be interested in