Pomegranate Head cloth

Twenty-two large, stylized pomegranates spring forth in a celebration of vitality and abundance, from the branches of a tree rooted in a delicately woven basket. Over five feet wide and six feet high, Pomegranates is the largest of some half dozen Blue and White Society works featuring this symbol of fecundity and well being. The pomegranate was a popular motif with both colonial needleworkers and Arts and Crafts artisans. This head curtain is part of a set of bed hangings created for Gertrude Metcalf of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Stitched with hand-dyed indigo blue and fustic golden yellow thread on a linen ground, tradition suggests that Pomegranates garnered the silver medal for color and design at the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915.

In Their Words

Comparisons

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© Memorial Hall Museum, Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association

Creator: Deerfield Society of Blue & White Needlework
Date: 1911
Dimensions: H. 76.5" x W. 62"
Materials: Linen

Connections

Treasures: Pomegranate Square; Pomegranate Square; Hoopoo Bird; Photograph of Shoes, Stockings and Pocket; Colonial Bed curtain; Colonial embroidery sketch; Door Curtain; Acanthus Leaf Bag

People: Margaret C. Whiting; Ellen Miller; Blue and White's 'Virtuous Sweatshop'; Deerfield Society of Blue & White Needlework

Places: Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework Shop; Memorial Hall; Ye Stockade Shop & Tea Room; Old Deerfield Historical Pageants

Ideas: The Pomegranate Motif; Hand Dyed Colors; That "band of industrious and brainy women"; Old Houses: Summer Projects and Craft Shops; Blue and White Society Salesroom; Miller and Whiting, Wild Flowers of the North-Eastern States

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