Knitting & Fine Art: Rural Courtship, Daniel Ridgway Knight

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A young man and a young woman meet at a wooden gate in a stone wall in the countryside, perhaps the gate to the young woman’s home. The young man’s wooden shoes (sabots) indicate that the setting is northern France. The two stand in intense, wordless communication. Although the title of the painting, “Rural Courtship” by Daniel Ridgway Knight, tells the story, the title isn’t necessary. The young man looks down at the young woman, whose watches her knitting, not him. Perhaps the time of year depicted, early autumn, hints at her response to him. The melancholy associated with fall may suggest she would say no to an offer of marriage.

Above: Daniel Ridgway Knight (1840-1924), Rural Courtship. 26 x 22 in. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In European courtship rituals of the nineteenth century, knitting played a major role. More often than not, marriage was an economic contract rather than a love match. Knitting necessarily factored into the marriage economy. A wife had to oversee an efficient, frugal household. Knitting socks and stockings (locally, virtually the only items commonly knitted at the time) was proof of a woman’s ability. However the young woman in the painting might respond to her suitor, she displays her proficiency in this crucial realm.

Daniel Ridgway Knight (1839–1924), the painter of this evocative scene, was an American who lived in France beginning in the early 1870s. In 1875, he started to depict peasant subjects in paintings that proved to be extremely popular. His comely and picturesque figures are set in carefully observed landscapes, the scenes often filled with a pearly light. He chose his models not from the peasant classes but from among his neighbors in Poissy, a town northwest of Paris. Knight presented a distinctly rose-colored view of the French countryside to his audience, making his pictures more appealing and therefore more salable.

—Fronia E. Wissman

Originally published in Interweave Knits Spring 2008.