The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

Winding Yarn (Interior of a Nantucket Kitchen)

Winding Yarn (Interior of a Nantucket Kitchen)

1872
(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

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.
  • H. B. Hurlbut, Cleveland (1878).
  • Strahan, Edward, ed. The Art Treasures of America: Being the Choicest Works of Art in the Public and Private Collections of North America. vol. 8. Philadelphia: Gebbie & Barrie, 1879. Mentioned: p. 74
    Crosby, Everett Uberto. Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes. Nantucket, MA: 1944. Mentioned: p. 19, fig. C.51; Reproduced: p. 58, fig. C.51
    Cleveland Museum of Art. "A Check List: American Paintings and Water Colors of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries in The Cleveland Museum of Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 60:1 (January, 1973). Mentioned: p. 30, cat. 116
    Turner, Evan H. Prologue in Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Mentioned: p. 14-15; Reproduced: p. 15
    Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: p. 117
    National Museum of American History. Smithsonian's America: An Interactive Exhibition of American History and Culture. 1994; Salinas, CA: Creative Multimedia, 1994. Multimedia CD-ROM.
    Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. New York: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Reproduced: p. 79, fig. 43; Mentioned: p. 79
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 535 archive.org
  • Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum (6 June-8 September 1991).
    Oxford, Ohio, Miami University, Sesquicentennial Celebration (15 May-15 June 1959).
    Nantucket, MA, Kenneth Taylor Gallery, Eastman Johnson at Nantucket (July, 1945).
    Santa Barbara, Painting Today and Yesterday in the United States (5 June-1 September 1941), cat. no. 65.
    Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916).
    Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Inaugural Exhibition of The Cleveland Museum of Art (6 June-20 September 1916), listed p. 128, no. 28.
    New York, American Art Association, Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the late Eastman Johnson, N.A. (26-27 February 1907).
  • {{cite web|title=Winding Yarn (Interior of a Nantucket Kitchen)|url=false|author=Eastman Johnson|year=1872|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1915.682