SACRIFICE OF ISSAC EMBROIDERY

In March of 1766 Norfolk, Virginia schoolmistress Elizabeth Gardner (active in Norfolk before 1766 to at least 1772) notified the parents of prospective students that she was continuing her boarding school in that city where the most fashionable embellishments would be taught: “Embroidery, tent work, nuns do. Queenstitch, Irish do. And all kinds of shading; also point, Dresden lace work, catgut, &c.” Three years later, in 1769, teenager Elizabeth Boush, a native of Norfolk, completed this elaborate tent stitch picture under Gardner’s direction. Reminiscent of the Old Testament embroideries worked by English schoolgirls in the second half of the previous century, its religious subject, the sacrifice of Isaac, is rare for a colonial embroidery. Also unusual is the original source from which composition was adapted, an engraved illustration from Gerard de Jode’s Thesaurus Sacrarum Historiarum Veteris Testamenti, published in Antwerp in 1585.  While the subject matter and model could be dismissed as antiquated, given the political and economic climate of the period in which the embroidery was completed and the fact that Elizabeth Boush’s father, Samuel (died 1784), supported the patriots’ cause, the theme of sacrifice may have found a particular resonance with the Boush family.