Original: Embroidered Pocket, 18th Century

Pocket, English, mid-18th century. LACMA.

 

I've been reading a lot of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives, and selected this month's antique beauty in honor of this passage at the end of chapter 1:

"Much better than a spinning wheel, this homely object [the pocket] symbolizes the obscurity, the versatility, the personal nature of the housekeeping role. A woman sat at her wheel, but she carried her pocket with her from room to room, from house to yard, from yard to street...Whether it contained cellar keys or a paper of pins, a packet of seeds or a baby's bib, a hank of yarn or a Testament, it characterized the social complexity as well as the demanding diversity of women's work."

Also, I really like the embroidery.