Quillwork hatchment of Dering coat of arms

Quillwork hatchment of Dering coat of arms

Mary Dering

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Throughout the eighteenth century, members of Boston’s newly prosperous merchant class decorated silver, bookplates, coaches, and tombstones with coats of arms to display their heraldic ancestry. Between 1720 and 1740, quillwork coats of arms were popular schoolgirl accomplishments. This lozenge-shaped hatchment was likely created for Henry E. Dering (1684–1750) by one of his daughters, Elizabeth or Mary. It features the Dering coat of arms, granted to a British ancestor of the girls’ grandfather Henry Dering, who emigrated to Boston in the 1660s.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Quillwork hatchment of Dering coat of armsQuillwork hatchment of Dering coat of armsQuillwork hatchment of Dering coat of armsQuillwork hatchment of Dering coat of armsQuillwork hatchment of Dering coat of arms

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.