VISUAL ACTIVITYBoston Common in Needlework Hannah Otis embroidered this portrait of Boston Common in 1750 when she was eighteen years old. The house belonged to the Hancock family. John Hancock, who later signed the Declaration of Independence, is shown on horseback. The needlework reveals that eighteenth-century Bostonians owned slaves.READING THE IMAGE: What features of the portrait would communicate to an eighteenth-century viewer that it portrays a city?CONNECTIONS: How did life in Boston differ from that on rural farms in New England?

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA/Gift of a Friend of the Department of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture and 15 other funds/Bridgeman Images.