“A Type of Mother Hanna's Pocket Handkerchief” (1851, ink and watercolor on paper), by Polly Jane Reed, in the show “Anything but Simple: Shaker Gift Drawings and the Women Who Made Them,’’ at the New Britain (Conn.) Museum of American Art through Jan. 10.
The show presents rare "gift" or "spirit" drawings made by members of the Hancock Shaker Village religious community, based in Hancock, Mass., in 1843-1857. Women created all these drawings, both the 25 in the exhibit and 175 others that still exist, making them a unique piece of American history. It is thought that there were once hundreds more of these drawings, but that the Shakers destroyed them when their creators died. “Anything but Simple’’ displays among the finest of these drawings, and explores how they relate to women’s spiritual and other roles in the mid-19th Century Shaker communities, most of which were in New England.
Shakers dancing
The Round Barn at Hancock Shaker Village
