At the time a new-old attitude to marriage was popular, as the idea of the patriarch in the family gained ground with the idea of the Fatherland. The knitted stocking conquered the marriage chamber, but also many a portrait, for example this portrait by Heinrich Hess. The painter used this motif in the picture of the sister-in-law of his brother, the painter Peter Hess. [https://www.wga.hu/html_m/h/hess/heinrich/fanny_ga.html]