The School of Needlework. A Woman Teaches Young Women

Art Historical Context

This engraving by Battista Angolo del Moro depicts a woman instructing a group of young women in the art of needlework, a subject that reflects the everyday domestic education and skilled labor traditionally associated with women in earlier centuries. As a print, the work belongs to the accessible medium of reproductive graphics, allowing such scenes of instruction and community to reach wider audiences beyond the confines of private homes or elite circles. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Drawings and Prints, the piece entered the collection through the Harris Brisbane Dick Fund in 1927. Its classification as a print underscores the importance of this technique in disseminating images of women’s roles and activities during the period. Though the exact date remains unknown, the composition invites viewers to consider the quiet dignity of teaching and learning practical crafts, themes that continue to resonate in discussions of women’s history and artistic representation.