The nine works on view in A Stitch in Time depict women who are engaged in various facets of needlework, such as knitting, sewing, and embroidering. These artworks from the Museum's collection demonstrate a pronounced interest in the production of handmade crafts during the mid-19th century's rise of industrial manufacturing in Europe and America.

Artists who depicted needleworking as an occupation for the working classes imbued their scenes with a reverence and quiet dignity. The artist Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–75) is well known for his sympathetic images of rural workers in the French countryside.

One of his favorite subjects in the 1850s was the young shepherdess who concentrates on her knitting while her flock grazes nearby. This scene is rendered in rich pastel in The Knitting Shepherdess.

By the late 19th century, needleworking was portrayed nostalgically as a rustic form of labor that was fast disappearing, but it was also promoted as a craft pastime for the middle and upper classes. Women were encouraged to give direction to their artistic talents, and the domestic interiors that they occupied were often represented as spaces of peacefulness and harmony. Many artists used their wives and immediate family members as models for their artwork, showing the women intently absorbed in their activities.

A Stitch in Time: Images of Needleworking, 1850–1920, is curated by Eric Lutz, assistant curator of prints, drawings, and photographs and is on view March 21 through June 8, 2008, in Gallery 321. It complements Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection on view March 2 through May 26, 2008, in the Main Exhibition Galleries.