A Transparent Tapestry with Mysteries

Updated with more research from the owner, 4/13/2024

A California artist, Robin Weinert, sent me a photo of a wool transparent tapestry woven by his Norwegian immigrant grandmother, Ann Eliza Nielsen. He found out about me and my interest in this weaving technique pioneered by Frida Hansen in an unusual way. He used a Google reverse image search with the added word “Norwegian.”

Robin knows little about the tapestry and about his great-grandmother. Here’s what he does know.

Ann Eliza Nielsen was born in 1868 1867.and immigrated to the US in 1889 through San Francisco. She married my great great grandfather Albert Weinert shortly after. He was a sculptor so they were definitely traveling in the artistic social circles of that time but I didn’t know anything about her artistic practice until I saw this weaving. They lived in NY most of their lives and she died at the age of 96 in the Bronx in 1964.

She was the eldest of 9 children, from Oslo (Christiania). her father was Olaus (sometimes Oliver?) Nielsen, and her mother was Henriette Marie Halvorsdatter. I found one reference to her father being a ship captain, but I figure this was not an uncommon profession in Norway. Strangely, my father has photos of Ann-Eliza’s parents, but none of Ann-Eliza that i know of. This is almost all I know about their side of the family…Albert and Ann Eliza had the first of their two sons in San Francisco before moving to Chicago where he worked to decorate the grounds for the world’s fair. While there he produced a bronze monument for labor activists who were executed by Chicago police (Haymarket Martyrs monument). They then moved to DC where he worked on interior decorations in the Library of Congess building. After this, they settled in NY (by 1910). I know from census records that they lived in Queens, and Long Island,  and then the Bronx.

I have known about the loom for years but have never seen any work she produced on it until now. My father says this tapestry was hanging in my grandparents house after my grandmother died in 2016. One of my uncles took it and it has been under his bed until I heard about it. My father also says that he remembers the piece hanging above the piano in the house where he grew up. I see no indication on the weaving itself of how it was hung. No rings, loops, or pockets. Also no weights on the bottom border. Only about two inches of fringe on both ends.

Robin continued his research and found a passport application for Ann Eliza in 1916. He wrote:

I continued more research into Ann Eliza and uncovered some documents that add a little more detail to the story. I have attached a passport application from 1916, signed by Ann Eliza that states that she was traveling to Norway to see her mother and “bring her back”. I found records of at least one other trip back to Norway in 1913.

In this document she also states that she immigrated to the US at the same time as her husband (in 1885), and that she was born one year earlier than I thought (1867). Other than making her only 18 at the time of her immigration, if she came with my grandfather, that means that they likely met in Europe. I know that he studied sculpture in Belgium at L’ecole des Beaux-Arts. Perhaps she was also a student there?

In any case, it seems likely that the tapestry and the loom may have returned with her from one of her trips to Oslo to visit her mother in the 1910’s.

I also found a death record in NY for her mother in 1927. So it appears she was successful in her mission for this 1916 trip!

According to family lore, Ann-Eliza brought this loom with her when she came to the U.S. But she might have purchased it on a later trip to Norway.

This definitively looks like a wool open-warp transparent tapestry woven in Frida Hansen’s technique. It raises so many interesting questions about the life of Ann-Eliza Nielsen. She emigrated when she was 21 18. If she brought the loom at that time, she had probably attended weaving school in Norway before that. Where?

She wove the transparent tapestry of birds throughout a sheaf of wheat at an unknown date, but where did she learn the technique? She left Norway in 1889 1885, and Frida Hansen did not patent the technique until 1897. Did she see examples of Frida Hansen’s work in the U.S.?

The family believed the transparency was woven by Ann Eliza Weinert, but perhaps she purchased it when she traveled to Norway in 1916, to bring her elderly mother to the U.S.? Or perhaps she purchased the cartoon at that time?

You never know – someone reading this might know more about this tapestry image or about her loom. For now, I wanted to share the images. I’m happy that Robin’s uncle kept the tapestry under his bed and that it has now gone to someone who truly appreciates it.

Updated with more research from the owner, 4/13/2024