Rural Courtship

Mike and I went to the Flea Market (that's Swap Meet for my CA friends) and I found a reprint of a painting with knitting in it! I'd seen this before in an article in Interweave Knits (Spring '08). The painting is called "Rural Courtship" and is by Daniel Ridgeway Knight. He's an American painter who lived in France beginning in the early 1870s. The article in IK had this to say:

"In European courtship rituals of the nineteenth century, knitting played a major role. More often than not, marriage was an economic contract rather than a love match, and knitting factored into the marriage economy. A wife needed to be able to oversee an efficient, frugal household, and knitting socks and stockings (locally, virtually the only items commonly knitted at the time) was proof of a woman's ability. However the young woman in the painting might respond to her suitor, she displays her proficiency in this crucial realm."



This size is quite nice 24" x 30" and has a nice aged olive green frame. It needs a little work on the back where the painting has become lose from the frame and a little clean up, too. Other than that it's a beauty!