A portrait of two unidentified women holding strands of yarn. They are wearing distinctive uniforms of thick gathered skirt over a second, stiff, horizontally pleated skirt; a tunic over a blouse, and a flat cloth head covering that seems to tie in a large bow around their necks. On the.....

First Edition. A well-known example of the popular 18th century British genre of collective biographies of women, with more than a hundred short entries on women dating back to ancient times. The subjects include Cleopatra; Sappho; the poet Anne Killigrew, described as "a great genius"; the painter and calligrapher Esther.....