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Winding Yarn (Interior of a Nantucket Kitchen)
About the Artwork
Set in a rustic kitchen on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, this painting depicts a woman who winds a ball of yarn from a coil looped in the hands of a man sitting across from her at a respectable distance. At the time, winding yarn was a common symbol of courtship that carried humorous overtones of a woman ensnaring her suitor. The second woman in the composition is likely a chaperone. The suitor’s unrefined, open-legged pose, coupled with his rude action of placing his hat on the floor, adds further comic elements that contemporary audiences would have appreciated.
Inscriptions
signed lower right: E. Johnson 1872
Provenance
H. B. Hurlbut, Cleveland (1878).
Exhibition history
Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916). Painting Today and Yesterday in the United States. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (organizer) (June 5-September 1, 1941). Art, A Means to World Understanding. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 16-April 10, 1949).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Eastman Johnson (American, 1824–1906)
- Date
- 1872
- Medium
- oil on board
- Dimensions
- Framed: 70.2 x 85.4 x 10.2 cm (27 5/8 x 33 5/8 x 4 in.); Unframed: 37.5 x 54.6 cm (14 3/4 x 21 1/2 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection
- Accession no.
- 1915.682
More by Eastman Johnson in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009241
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