Needle Case Physical Object


Accession Number
1986.008.0003b
Creation Date
circa 1600
Materials
Description
See also needle 1986.008.0003a.
Dimensions

1.5 by 1.8 by 0.5 cm. 8.12 grams

Exhibition Label
Case Caption (2023):

A COLONIST— DOÑA MARÍA DE AYALA

Doña María de Ayala had traveled from Spain to Potosí with her husband, Martin Salgado de Rivera, in 1615. High in the Andes, Potosí has cool, wet summers, icy winters, and sits on a barren plain. Everything the couple needed had to be carried up the mountains by llamas. María’s day would have been spent working with her servants to stretch household supplies, haggling with local traders for food and fuel, and mending linens and clothes that could not be readily replaced. Occasionally, floods and earthquakes would add to María’s troubles.

But her husband’s appointments had made them wealthy. When they sailed for Spain, they were accompanied by María’s maid, Catalina, and two very young, possibly Indigenous, servant girls. They all drowned aboard the Nuestra Señora de Atocha.
Object Caption (2023):

Needle Case
Bronze (c.1600)
Gift of Jamestown Inc
1986.008.0003a-b