Summer Knitting in Art

Leisure Moments (1874)

James Lawton Wingate

(1846-1924)

Scottish

Oil on canvas

Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling, Scotland

This painting has the hazy light of a bright summer day although I wonder if the colours are brighter in person.  In this image, from Wikigallery.org, there is so much brown, in the clothing, boots, and knitting, that it makes me think of late summer with a suggestion of the golds and browns that are to come with the next season.  The version found here, http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/leisure-moments-127814, is sharper, and has more of the green of summer.

Of great curiosity is, of course, the knitting. It looks like – well, a stocking with rather odd shaping and a white toe section? A sleeve, perhaps an undersleeve with a white cuff, then a wide lower arm section, followed by an elbow section and then the narrow, tighter top section which is on the needle section? There seems, however, to be a brown/grey section under the white one. So is that a toe section or a brown cuff on the lower part of the white?

Or is just more fanciful, artistic knitting?