The Society's Bingham collection includes:

The Thread of Life!

Detail of The Thread of Life by G.C. Bingham
The Thread of Life (detail)

Paintings by George Caleb Bingham form the foundation of the art collection at The State Historical Society of Missouri. With the acquisition in 2006 of The Thread of Life, the Society is at last able to augment its collection of Bingham genre paintings and portraits with a personal picture painted for the artist’s family.

The Thread of Life was probably made for Bingham’s second wife, Eliza Thomas Bingham, and was owned by descendants of her family until 1980. It represents a female figure sitting on a cloud and holding an infant. Beside the woman is a spindle from which the child draws a thread. This thread dangles below the baby and disappears behind the legs of the adult figure. In 1917, Fern Helen Rusk proposed that the painting commemorated the birth of James Rollins Bingham, the artist’s only child by Eliza.

Letters held at The State Historical Society indicate that Bingham and his second wife were plagued by recurring miscarriages, and this picture of an allegorical figure (Fate?) supporting a child clutching “the thread of life” may not only celebrate James Rollins’s birth, but also recognize, acknowledge and honor all the pregnancies Eliza lost.