Tuesday 20 May 2014

Knitting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has just released 400,000 images into the public domain so I have done what any knitter would do - gone to look at the knitting images, below are a few of my favourite finds.

Shepherdess Knitting by Jean-François Millet (1862) - similar to the pictures of Shetland women knitting while going about their work.


German knitted rug (1751) - according to Richard Rutt's History of Handknitting these were sometimes made as 'masterpieces' as part of qualifying for craft guilds and sometimes for customers.  I cannot imagine knitting anything so intricate!

Sampler, German (nineteenth century) There are more here, incredibly beautiful items.  The V&A in London has a good collection of them too

Sweater, American (1895) I could see something like this working today, a very dramatic silhouette

There is vastly more to look through, so much detail of the history of knitting

2 comments:

  1. Wow that is amazing! I really like the sweater from 1895, though the waist does look unrealistic. I suppose they had to wear corsets back then.

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  2. Yes I think the waist does reflect corsets, although by 1895 there was a movement against them for health reasons and general feminism etc.

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