Women Only: Folk Art by Female Hands

April 6 - September 12, 2010

 




Checklist from the exhibition

Height precedes width precedes depth
 
Sultana
Attributed to the workshop of Samuel Anderson Robb (act. 1876-1903)
New York City
c. 1880
Paint on wood with iron
86 x 26 1/2 x 28"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.349
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Pictorial Table Rug
Artist unidentified
New England
Late nineteenth century
Wool felt on wool
24 1/2 x 71"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Altria Group, Inc.
2008.9.4
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
 
Dividing of the Ways
Anna Mary Robertson "Grandma" Moses (1860-1961)
Eagle Bridge, New York
1947
Oil and tempera on Masonite
16 x 20"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Galerie St. Etienne, New York, in memory of Otto Kallir, 1983.10.1
Copyright ©1969 (renewed 1997), Grandma Moses Properties Co., New York
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Anna Mary Robertson was born in rural upstate New York. She led a spare life, with little schooling and hard farm work. After her marriage to Thomas Moses the couple moved briefly to Staunton, Virginia, but were settled in Eagle Bridge, New York, by 1905. She began her artistic career when she was in her 60s. Initially, and as befitting her nineteenth-century childhood, she used embroidery as a pictorial medium. When arthritis made it difficult for her to hold a needle she turned to paint. Like many self-taught artists, Moses invented strategies that enabled her to bring her artistic vision to fruition. She collected illustrations and other printed imagery that became resources for her compositions of landscapes, which often are filled with people at various activities associated with rural life. Her paintings were first exhibited locally but soon came to the attention of the New York art world. Moses's old-fashioned presence captured and soothed the public imagination at a time of national distress, in the years following the Great Depression and the onset of World War II. She earned the affectionate moniker "Grandma Moses" and became one of the most popular self-taught memory painters of the twentieth century. Beneath the grandmotherly aura of her person and the surface nostalgia of her painting lay a toughness and a gift for detailed observation that has made her work of enduring interest.
 
 
Grandma Weaver: Portrait of the Artist's Grandmother
Nan Phelps (1904-1990)
Hamilton, Ohio
1940
Oil on canvas
43 1/4 x 37"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Robert Phelps in loving memory of his wife, Nan Phelps
1992.18.3
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
In this affectionate portrait of the artist's grandmother Vina Weaver (1861-1942), Phelps re-created an archetype that feels true to the imagination, regardless of whether it is an accurate portrayal of the sitter. A similar iconic image was propagated by Grandma Moses and contributed to her artistic success with the public. It is interesting that Phelps retained the frontality and attention to details of clothing associated with folk portraiture. The inclusion of a vase of flowers is a convention associated with portraits of women and speaks to a long tradition of flower and urn imagery in female arts.
 
 
Papercut for Benj. S. Farret
Artist unidentified
United States
1848
Paint and ink on cut and pasted paper
14 7/8 x 12"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Cyril Irwin Nelson in loving memory of Jean Lipman
2004.14.2
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
Aspects of memory have often played a role in early women's arts: quilts incorporate remnants of fabric associated with specific occasions, forming a textile scrapbook or album, and mourning pieces document loss through image and statistical information. This unusual paper assemblage uses the "language of flowers" to construct a memory of Benjamin S. Farret. In this symbolic language, each botanical specimen carries its own significance. The flowers comprising the bouquet would thus communicate a depth of meaning understood only by those able to interpret the selection of blossoms. In its precisely cut leaves and petals and its layered assembly, the papercut recalls the work of Mrs. Delany (1700-1788), a genteel Englishwoman with an avid interest in the natural sciences who was renowned for her skills in embroidery and paper arts. At the age of 72, she started a series of one thousand botanical collages in a technique of her own devising that she called "paper mosaics." This project may have been inspired by the profusion of botanical works based on the system of classification set forth by the Swedish scientist Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae (1735).
 
 
Tinsel Painting: Vase of Flowers
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1855­1865
Reverse painting and foil on glass
17 3/8 x 14 x _" (framed)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Day Krolik Jr.
1979.3.3
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Tinsel paintings follow in a long tradition of still-life painting associated with female artistry. Taking their cues from earlier forms, tinsel paintings are a hybrid expression that combine the still life of theorem painting, the reflective materials used in many neoclassical decorative arts, and the reverse-painting-on-glass ormolu mats that framed much Federal needlework. Technically, they are reverse paintings on glass, with metallic foil crumpled and applied behind unpainted areas to provide shimmering highlights when caught in the reflection of candle- or gaslight. American Victorian tinsel paintings flourished between the mid-1830s and the end of the century, but their heyday occurred during the 1860s with the publication of Art Recreations, which gave instructions for thirty decorative techniques. Tinsel painting was taught in schools for young women, and it was also practiced at home. Many are original designs, while others were available as kits or instructions found in ladies' magazines. Tinsel painting has also been called Oriental, Crystal, or Pearl painting because of the use of additional reflective materials such as mica and mother-of-pearl.
 
 
Finishing the Quilt
Nan Phelps (1904-1990)
Hamilton, Ohio
1980
Oil on canvas
28 1/2 x 44 1/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Robert Phelps in loving memory of his wife, Nan Phelps
1992.18.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
Nan Phelps might be considered a second-generation Grandma Moses in her exploration of memory as a filter for artistic expression. Unlike Moses, Phelps was born in the twentieth century, but she had a similarly tough life until her second marriage, to Robert Phelps, in Ohio. She gained recognition in the 1940s for her detailed portraits of family members engaged in domestic activities. This painting invites the viewer to share in the calm intimacy of generations of women gathered around a quilting frame. A sense of community pervades the scene, while continuity is ensured by the presence of a young pregnant woman.
 
 
Stars and Pentagons Quilt
Artist unidentified
United States
1880-1900
Silk
81 x 44" (framed)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler
1981.2.1
 
This quilt is similar to the one being made in the painting by Nan Phelps. It is likely that Phelps was depicting a cotton quilt, which evoked an old-fashioned and comforting association consistent with the tenor of the painting. This late-nineteenth-century example, however, is made entirely of silk. By midcentury, domestically produced silk had become available to a broader cross-section of women. Popular ladies' magazines such as Godey's Lady's Book published patterns for all-silk patchwork, and the silk show quilt became an expression of taste and status. The Crazy pieced impression of this quilt is deceptive. It is actually a highly organized construction of pieced pentagons and five-pointed stars. The quiltmaker created the sensation of an irregular appearance by substituting wavy rather than straight lines in the sashing and rotating the orientation of the small and large pentagons within the blocks and along the sashing. The piecework inside the large pentagons is fairly consistent, but the use of various light and dark fabrics contributes to the general Crazy feel of the decorative quilt top. This may be an original design, as no similar example or published pattern has yet been discovered.
 
 
Richard Inksons Double Pocketbook
Artist unidentified
Possibly Pennsylvania
1776
Wool on linen with silk lining and wool twill tape binding
10 1/2 x 8 1/4" (open)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.289
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Pocket
Artist unidentified
Pennsylvania
c. 1740-1770
Crewel on linen with cotton and linen binding
10 1/4 x 8 1/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.290
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Pocketbook with Basket of Flowers
Artist unidentified
Pennsylvania, possibly Chester County
c. 1720-1750
Silk and metallic thread on silk over linen with spangles
4 1/2 x 5 1/2" (closed)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.292
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Reticule with Still Life
Possibly Ruth Brown (dates unknown)
Brattleboro, Vermont
c. 1825
Watercolor and ink on velvet with silk lining and woven ribbon tie
9 x 8 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.291
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Crewel Bedcover
Artist unidentified
New England or New York State
1815-1825
Wool with wool embroidery
100 x 84"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Virginia Esmerian
1995.32.1
 
This richly embellished bedcover belongs to a small group of early American textiles made primarily in Massachusetts and New York State and ascribed to a period from about 1760 to 1830. Most are worked on a black or, occasionally, brown twill-woven woolen foundation, and they share a similar composition of a basket of flowers against a field of vines and flowers. The dense surface embroidery is worked in crewel, a worsted yarn of loosely twisted two-ply colored threads. In spirit, it draws inspiration from seventeenth-century English crewelwork, which was influenced by the lush colors and complex foliate and flower designs of imported hand-painted Indian textiles, such as palampores. The border further evokes the flamepoint embroidery popular for use in eighteenth-century men's wallets, such as the example in this exhibition made for Richard Inksons. The individual motifs may have been derived from English pattern books such as Richard Shorleyker's A Schole House for the Needle (1632). In America, the designs received a more naturalistic interpretation and were worked in a smaller variety of stitches than their English precedents, mainly self-couching Roumanian, flat, outline, and stem, though other stitches were occasionally used as well.
 
 
Hannah Carter Canvaswork Picture
Hannah Carter (dates unknown)
Boston
c. 1748
Silk and wool on fine linen
21 1/16 x 18 7/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.279
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Hannah Carter's elegant lady in a pastoral setting belongs to pre-Revolutionary Boston's most famous group of needleworks known collectively as "fishing lady" pictures. It features some of the classic motifs of seventeenth-century English needlework, such as birds, insects, berries, oversize flowers, and verdant hillocks, combined with figures based on English and French prints of the period. It is one of a group of related pastoral embroideries worked by young girls from some of the wealthiest colonial families while attending Boston boarding schools. Today, seventeen within a group of fifty-eight related pieces actually depict the fishing lady, but only six makers have been identified, and the schools they attended have defied discovery. The patterns, based on English prototypes, may have been drawn and distributed by a Boston schoolmistress such as Mrs. Susanna Condy, who advertised her patterns as early as 1738. The canvasworks range in size from ten by twelve inches to monumental chimney pieces four feet wide and are worked in crewels and some silk threads on finely woven linen.
 
 
Crewelwork Picture
Artist unidentified
New England, probably Massachusetts
c. 1750-1760
Wool on linen
9 x 7 3/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.52
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
To date, only one clearly related group of colonial crewelwork pictures is known, featuring a seated shepherdess who is usually accompanied by a shepherd in a large black hat. The school where the girls stitched these pictures has not been identified. The earliest teacher to advertise such work in Boston was Susanna Condy, who offered "All sorts of beautiful figures on Canvas for Tent Stick [sic]," as well as "Cruels of all sorts," in the Boston News-Letter (April 27/May 4, 1738). The small size of this enchanting crewelwork, with its unusual flowering tree and lively red horse, suggests that the unidentified maker was quite young.
 
 
Rebecca Carter Sampler
Rebecca Carter (1778-1837)
Providence, Rhode Island
1788
Silk, metallic thread, and human hair on linen
19 1/4 x 13 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.286
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
The artistic success of a sampler is due to the maker's skill, but it is also largely dependent on the talents of the schoolmistress who supplied the pattern and instruction. This sampler testifies to the strengths of Mary Balch (1762-1831), whose forty-five years of teaching in Providence produced perhaps the largest quantity of recognizable needlework known to survive from an early New England school. Among the most prized samplers from the Balch school are renditions of prominent Providence buildings.
 
The lustrous silk needlework by Rebecca Carter is one of the most significant samplers to survive from the eighteenth century. It portrays the 1762 State House in Providence, though it shows only three rather than five bays. Seven elegant figures, with human hair, sport among an abstract pastoral landscape of rolling pastures and oversize flowers. The work is initialed at the bottom and, contained within a two-handled urn, are the maker's full name and the year she made the sampler. A letter written in adulthood by Rebecca Carter Jenckes reveals that the needlework was begun by her sister Ann at the school of Abigail Wilkinson in Newport and completed by Rebecca at the age of 10 in Miss Balch's school in Providence. This notation led to the rediscovery of Abigail Wilkinson's school, one of the most respected Newport schools of the Revolutionary period. It further reveals that the frame was provided by Providence cabinetmaker John Carlile, thus making it a rare eighteenth-century Rhode Island sampler frame of known provenance.
 
 
Newburyport Needlework Picture
Artist unidentified
Newburyport, Massachusetts
c. 1805­1810
Silk on linen
16 1/4 x 17 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.287
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
This unusual needlework is solidly worked in silk embroidery. It features a grand three-story Federal mansion whose carefully depicted details include mullioned windows, double-end chimneys, a widow's walk, and a fanlight over the impressive doorway. The front garden is filled with beautiful flowering vines protected by a white fence from animals grazing in the pastoral landscape. This elegant scene is peopled with similarly refined figures who ramble along the paths in fashionable slim cream- and rose-striped dresses for the women and cream- and rose-colored suits for the men.
 
There is no evidence to indicate who embroidered this picturesque vision; it descended in the family of Nancy Todd Morrison (1836­1935), but how she acquired it is not known. She was born in Ripley, Maine, and educated at the Sanbornton Bridge Conference Seminary and Female College in New Hampshire, and was later a teacher and artist in Rowley, Massachusetts. She died in Braintree, Massachusetts, and the embroidery became the property of her niece.
 
 
Mary Coffin Sampler
Mary Coffin (1790-1864)
Newburyport, Massachusetts
1801
Silk on linen
15 x 20 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.283
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
Mary (1753-1815), Elizabeth (1760-1853), and Martha (1764-1827) Emerson were among the most important teachers working in Newburyport, Massachusetts, during the Federal period. Their father, a bookbinder and stationer, served as Newburyport's first postmaster, from May 13, 1775, until his death. Connections with important families contributed to the long success of their school, beginning in the 1780s. Some of Newburyport's most significant samplers were worked under the guidance of the Emerson sisters, including one of the most famous group of samplers, dated between 1799 and 1806 and known as the "shady bower" needleworks because of the verse that appears on ten out of eleven extant examples:
 
Here in this green and shady bower
Delicious fruits and fragrant flowers
Virtue shall dwell within this seat
Virtue alone can make it sweet
 
This sampler was worked by10-year-old Mary Coffin in 1801. It features a grape arbor, a pond, flowering trees, a butterfly, and five figures, including a gentleman fishing in a pond and a young woman holding a bunch of grapes. The woman is shaded from the sun by a silk umbrella held over her head by a black figure standing behind, although slavery had been legally abolished in Massachusetts for some years by the time this sampler was stitched. Nine other schoolgirl embroideries share Mary Coffin's basic pattern, with minor variations.
 
 
River Townscape with Figures
Prudence Perkins (dates unknown)
Possibly Rhode Island
c. 1810
Watercolor on paper
18 1/4 x 22 1/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.48
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
Among the classical ideas promulgated at the turn of the nineteenth century was the pastoral landscape, discovered on the walls of some domiciles unearthed in archaeological sites. The Arcadian idyll, removed from the corruption and complication of the city, was introduced into schoolgirl arts in various guises. This idea was not confined to landscape views, such as this river townscape by Prudence Perkins, in which the "shepherdesses" view the material world from a safe distance across a cleansing river. Mourning needleworks and watercolors also drew upon this association between nature and grace and housed the funerary elements in a natural setting, removed from the earthbound aspects of the town. The influence of the needlework aesthetic and of mourning pieces is clearly at play in this watercolor, both in composition and technique. The town seen in the distance, the trees delineated in stitchlike strokes, and the combination of willows, oaks, and evergreens recall the visual iconography and religious symbolism of mourning art.
 
 
Woman in Veil
Attributed to Emily Eastman (1804-c. 1841)
Loudon, New Hampshire
c. 1825
Watercolor and ink on paper
14 9/16 x 10 5/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.7
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
The feminine expression of the neoclassical ideal is beautifully embodied in this watercolor. The pale sculptural face, delicate gesture, Grecian hairstyle, and voluminous netted scarf speak to a fashionable response to classicism introduced toward the end of the eighteenth century. It is one in a group of related watercolors attributed to Emily Eastman, about whom little is known. Highly decorative, each features a woman with her head tilted slightly to the side in a pose reminiscent of European fashion plates. Publications such as Ackerman's Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions and Politics, printed in London by 1809, were influential in determining American taste in clothes. The types of classical-inspired dress pictured in Eastman's watercolors were parodied in periodicals such as The Lady's Magazine: "Manners of the Parisian Ladies. . . . Our fair females are covered with transparent shawls, which float and flutter over their shoulders and upon their bosoms, which are seen through them. With gauze veils, which conceal half of the face to pique our curiosity."
 
 
Ogden Family Mourning Piece
Ellen Ogden (1795-1870)
Probably Litchfield, Connecticut
1813
Watercolor and ink on silk, with original reverse-painted eglomisé mat in original gilded wood frame
22 7/8 x 29" (sight)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.270
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
The heyday of the neoclassical period, from the late eighteenth century through the first decades of the nineteenth, coincided with the post-Revolutionary era in the newly formed United States. During this exciting period, numbers of female academies and seminaries were formed in the spirit of what has come to be termed Republican Motherhood. Literacy became an essential tool for young women in preparation for motherhood and their ability to instill proper goals and values in sons who would soon be leading the country. Mourning pieces that combined Christian values and classical motifs were the perfect metaphor for the day. As a result, thousands were produced by girls in schools throughout the new nation, and worked or painted mourning pieces have come to be considered a specifically female expression. This is one of ten similar memorials that are believed to have been painted at Sarah Pierce's Female Academy in Litchfield, Connecticut. It is the only one with the date of execution inscribed on the glass mat of its original frame. Ellen Ogden pictured only herself and her parents in this mourning piece, as it commemorates the deaths of her six siblings-one older sister and five younger brothers. Watercolors were introduced into the Hartford area in Connecticut by the early 1790s. As evidenced by this watercolor, which from a distance is indistinguishable from a silk needlework, the two mediums overlapped for some time.
 
 
Four Pages from a Sketchbook
Betsy Lewis (1786-1818)
Dorchester, Massachusetts
1801
Ink and watercolor on paper
7 5/8 x 6 1/4"; 7 1/2 x 6 1/8"; 7 5/8 x 6 1/4"; 7 1/2 x 6 1/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
1993.10.3­6
Photos by John Parnell, New York
 
These illustrated texts document the way in which lessons were taught to young women at private academies, seminaries, and finishing schools at the turn of the nineteenth century. To practice writing and spelling, students copied verses and then embellished the pages with decorative drawings and paintings, enabling them to also refine those skills. The verses additionally served broader didactic purposes by offering moral and spiritual instruction. Works by the English poets Thomas Gray and Alexander Pope and the English hymnist Isaac Watts have been identified as the sources for three of the verses in these pages; the texts for The Eagle derive from writings by David Mallet, Scottish poet and dramatist, and a musical air written by Joseph Mazzinghi that gained fame when it was performed by Mrs. Billington, an eighteenth-century British-born opera singer.
 
In 1801, Betsy Lewis was attending a school in Dorchester identified as the Ladies Academy. Most likely it was the institution headed by Judith Foster Saunders and Clementina Beach. This prestigious academy is renowned for the exceptional silk needleworks produced by its students. The rare ink-and-watercolor pages penned by Lewis offer a glimpse at other aspects of the school's curriculum and methodology.
 
 
Memorial to Washington
Artist unidentified
Eastern United States
Early nineteenth century
Ink, mica flakes, and mezzotint engravings on paper with applied gold paper, pasted on wood form
4 3/4 x 1 3/4 x 1 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Nancy Karlins and Mark Thoman in honor of Robert Evans Green
2001.15.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
George Washington's death, in 1799, was the first cataclysmic emotional loss suffered by the new American nation. Mourning was a personal act for America's new citizens, whether demonstrated in public memorial services or by fashioning commemorative objects to place in their homes. This small handmade memorial is in the form of an urn with finial placed on a plinth. The urn became one of the basic building blocks of mourning iconography, whether painted, stitched, or, as in this example, built in sculptural form. Its symbolic association with the spirit of the deceased dates back to its origin as the vessel for the ashes and vital organs of the departed, a neoclassical motif widely disseminated in European decorative arts by designers such as Josiah Wedgwood and Robert and James Adam.
 
 
Hurlburt Family Mourning Piece
Probably Sarah Hurlburt (1787-1866)
Connecticut
c. 1808
Watercolor and ink on paper
17 x 20" oval (sight)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.271
 
The discovery of archaeological sites such as Herculaneum and Pompeii during the 1740s excited an interest in the classical world that was felt throughout intellectual and cultural circles in Europe and the United States. Ancient Greek and Roman funerary forms, in particular, captured the popular imagination and infused the decorative arts with a neoclassical vocabulary. Among the new forms that emerged in response to classical attitudes of mourning was the memorial painting, devised and championed by such European artists as Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807). By the end of the eighteenth century, neoclassical ideas and designs had struck a responsive chord in the recently formed American republic, especially after the death of George Washington, in 1799. European artists had memorialized historical and literary heroes; in America, mourning art was democratized to recognize personal loss. Classical elements were combined with Christian symbols, such as cleansing waters, houses that represented the material world left behind, and trees with specific religious meaning, all set in a Christian garden.
 
 
Perez, Mabel, and Rebecka White Mourning Piece
Orra White (1796-1863)
South Hadley, Massachusetts
1810
Watercolor and pin work on paper
23 1/4 x 27 1/2" (framed)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Cyril Irwin Nelson in loving memory of his grandmother Elinor Irwin (Chase) Holden and of his mother, Elise Hastings Macy Nelson
1997.16.4
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Orra White grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, but her pencil signature indicates that she was a student in South Hadley, at the school operated by Abby Wright, when she painted this austere watercolor mourning piece. The work is dedicated to the memory of her three deceased siblings, the children of Jarib and Ruth White. It demonstrates an artistic sensitivity to botanical forms that Orra White was to develop as an adult. At the age of 17, three years after she painted the watercolor, she became a teacher at the Deerfield Academy and an assistant to the eminent educator and geologist Edward Hitchcock. From 1813 to 1818, she taught astronomy, painting, drawing, and cartography. In 1821, she married Hitchcock and rose to prominence as one of the first female illustrators of the natural sciences, illustrating her husband's books and often painting backdrops for his lectures. Edward Hitchcock became president of Amherst College, while his wife continued to employ her talents as a scientific illustrator. Her plates of fossils and scenes showing geological features were included in a state survey celebrating the New England landscape. At her death, she was remembered as a talented and pious woman. According to one schoolmate who survived her, even as a youngster Orra White was looked up to "as an oracle of wisdom, and a model of propriety. . . . If the girls were all like Orra White, how much better and happier our circle would be!"
 
 
Mourning Piece for Mrs. Ebenezer Collins
Probably Lovice Collins (c. 1793-1847)
South Hadley, Massachusetts
1807
Watercolor, pencil, ink, silk thread, metallic thread, and chenille thread on silk and velvet with printed paper label
17" diam. (sight)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Eva and Morris Feld Folk Art Acquisition Fund
1981.12.8
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Abby Wright (1774-1842) operated a female academy on the site of what is now the Mount Holyoke Observatory, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, from 1803 until 1811. Her letters and memoirs, in the collection of the Mount Holyoke College Library, illuminate Wright's educational goal to lead young women "in the paths of rectitude and virtue, that they may establish an unblemished reputation and become ornaments to society." This mourning piece for Azubah Collins was pivotal in identifying Abby Wright's school because of the inscription that names South Hadley. Stylistic hallmarks include beautiful workmanship, the use of a variety of materials (including velvet, chenille and metallic threads, and spangles), and minute seed stitches that define small plants and shrubs.
 
Lovice Collins is the most likely of Azubah Collins's seven children to have stitched this embroidery two years after her mother's death. She would have been around 14 years old at the time it was made, and she depicted each of her six siblings in the needlework. Shortly after the death of his wife, Mr. Collins moved his family from Warehouse Point, Connecticut, to South Hadley. Here he set up a partnership with Peter Allen, a successful merchant and brewer who married schoolmistress Abby Wright in 1809.
 
 
Charles Stephen Morgan and Alcinda Gibson Morgan
Martha M. Graham (dates unknown)
Virginia
1830
Watercolor on velvet
16 x 22 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.49
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
This is one of two similar paintings on velvet that depict Virginian Charles Stephen Morgan (1799-1859) standing at a podium, probably in the act of addressing a crowd. Morgan achieved fame at a young age as a talented politician and gifted orator. He represented Monongalia County in the Virginia House of Delegates before he was 21, in 1820, served as state senator from 1824 until 1832, and distinguished himself at the Virginia Convention of 1829-1830. In 1832, Morgan abandoned politics to pursue a cause in which he deeply believed: prison reform. He became superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary and devoted himself to improving conditions for prisoners over the next twenty-seven years. He was also an early preservationist and was instrumental in preserving historic locales such as Jamestown Island, the site of the first permanent English settlement.
 
The pictorial narrative is unusual in a painting on velvet, as is the combination of freehand painting and theorem painting with stencils. Morgan stands beside a woman, probably Alcinda Gibson Moss, whom he married in 1833, and holds a book that bears the date 1830, the year that ended his delegation to the Virginia convention.
 
 
Theorem Painting: Fruit, Bird, and Butterfly
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1825-1840
Watercolor on velvet
15 3/8 x 18 3/4" (sight)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Mrs. William P. Schweitzer
1984.13.1
Photo by Helga Photo Studio, New York
 
Theorem paintings on velvet were introduced early in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The technique became a popular part of the schoolgirl ornamental curriculum through midcentury, and instructions were also available in art books and manuals. Still-life imagery of fruit, flowers, baskets, and vases was a design set that had been the mainstay of needlework from at least the early Renaissance. The sources for the patterns ranged from published herbals with botanical engravings to eighteenth-century botanical and flower prints. Theorem paintings were yet another iteration of this visual language that appeared in every variety of women's arts. The name derives from the term for mathematical formulas, and the paintings were executed with the use of hollowcut stencils, producing a sharp delineation of each separate element. The final image was a composite. Complex designs were created by using multiple stencils, a technique similarly employed to make elaborate ornamentation in bronze-powder stenciling on Empire furniture and decorative arts of the period. Light-color velvet was a favorite support for theorem paintings, though paper and fabric supports were used as well. Three-dimensionality was achieved through the modulation of color within each of the motifs, shading from dark to light. Similar compositions that do not exhibit the defined edge of theorem paintings were more likely done freehand.
 
 
Trinket Box
Artist unidentified
New England
c. 1820-1830
Watercolor on paper on pasteboard
3 1/2 x 5 7/16 x 4 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.75
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
Unusual shapes were a feature of some Federal decorative arts, appearing as inlaid reserves on furniture or in the form of small boxes. Octagons were especially popular for small trinket boxes fashioned by young women after around 1820, perhaps in response to the famous Octagon House erected in Washington, D.C., by Dr. William Thornton, the architect of the United States Capitol, or Thomas Jefferson's octagonal house built for his retreat in Virginia. The typical decoration on such schoolgirl boxes featured floral sprays, bucolic pastoral scenes, picturesque ruins, and other romantic landscapes. These were painted on pieces of paper applied to the top and sides of a box made of wood or pasteboard, or painted directly on the box after it was covered with paper. This box was made by hand-stitching stiff paper to form the top, bottom, and sides. It was then covered with paper painted with decorative motifs and bordered with paper strips of a contrasting color.
 
 
Violin
Artist unidentified
Probably New England
c. 1830
Watercolor, pencil, and ink on wood
23 1/2 x 8 1/8 x 2 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.276
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Sarah D. Kellogg Center Table
Sarah D. Kellogg (1822-1854)
Amherst, Massachusetts
c. 1841
Watercolor, ink, and pencil on maple
27 1/2 x 35 1/4" diam.
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.51
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
Painting on wood was one of the artistic accomplishments taught in nineteenth-century girls' schools. Typically the projects were small pieces, such as sewing tables. This large Empire-style, pillar-and-scroll center table must have represented a greater challenge for Sarah D. Kellogg, who never finished her work. Around the perimeter of the decorative top, penciled outlines indicate where Kellogg intended to fill in the border with more flowers and leaves.
 
The table is decorated with musical motifs, baskets of fruit, shells, wreaths of flowers, leaves, and pastoral landscapes. Such designs were traced or drawn from various sources, such as engravings or drawing books, or were provided by an instructor. Typically, the furniture was purchased unpainted from a professional cabinetmaker. The student would make a preliminary drawing for each surface to be decorated and transfer the designs onto the wood with pencil. The outlines were retraced in India ink and then filled in, one color at a time, with paints in a water or gum medium. When it was finished and entirely dry, the surface would be varnished for protection.
 
 
Map of the Animal Kingdom
Artist unidentified
Probably New England
1835
Watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper
26 x 34 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.269
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
Quaker schools were among the first to include geography and "working maps" as part of the regular curriculum. At the Litchfield Female Academy in Connecticut, geography was also integrated into the ornamental arts, where students drew maps in ink and shaded the boundaries with watercolor in a manner similar to this example. In their stewardship of the Litchfield Academy, Sarah Pierce and her nephew John Pierce Brace considered the study of geography and history important in expanding the minds of their charges, improving their memories and giving them a wider perspective on the world and a clear understanding of their places in it. But this perspective was filtered through four major themes: the greatness of God's plan, the global superiority of Christendom, the glory of the United States, and the especial superiority of New England.
This unusual map of the animal kingdom is framed with delicate theorem painting of roses with thorny stems and leaves. The map itself was probably based on a published source-possibly a French or English prototype-and relied on cartographic conventions that included small ink drawings.
 
 
Watercolor Studies
Mary Nettleton (1818-?)
Wilbraham, Massachusetts
c. 1834
Watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper
Bill for tuition: 7 3/4 x 4"
Bill for paint supplies: 3 1/4 x 7 5/8"
Apple in oval: 8 5/8 x 10 5/16"
Trophy in oval: 8 5/8 x 10 5/16"
Strawberries: 2 1/2 x 7 7/8"
Shells: 2 1/2 x 7 7/8"
Cut-out theorem: 4 1/2 x 6 3/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
1996.26.1
 
The decorative vignettes in these five watercolors were intended as studies for painting on small pieces of furniture, such as worktables and boxes. This type of painting was a popular demonstration of the artistic skills acquired by young women in their ornamental classes at seminary schools. The fruits, flowers, shells, and classical motifs were painted by Mary Nettleton when she attended Wesleyan Academy. The school was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1817 in New Market, New Hampshire, and moved to Wilbraham, Massachusetts, in 1825. It later merged with Monson Academy and operates today as the Wilbraham & Monson Academy.
 
 
Hairwork Wreath in Shadow Box
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1860-1880
Human hair and pencil on pasteboard mat in shadowbox
10 3/4 x 8 3/4 x 2 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Kendra and Allan Daniel
2009.10.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
Tinsel Painting: Wreath, Birds, and Daguerreotype
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1855-1865
Reverse painting and foil on glass and hand-colored photograph in stamped-brass mat
11 7/8 x 14"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Day Krolik Jr.
1979.3.1
 
 
Tinsel Painting: Jenny Lind
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1850
Reverse painting and foil on glass and paper collage
28 1/2 x 24 1/2" framed
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Susan and Laurence Lerner
2009.13.3
Photo © 2006 Andy Duback
The wreath is an ancient symbol that in classical times was associated with both mourning and achievement. These three artworks illustrate the symbolic use of the floral wreath as interpreted through the techniques of hairwork and tinsel painting. The meaning is personalized through the strategic inclusion of portrait collages: printed, photographed, and hand drawn.
 
Traditions of commemoration, whether in mourning or appreciation, have long used human hair as a conduit to the spirit of a loved one. In eighteenth-century mourning use, locks of hair were encased under glass in lockets or rings and even used as "paint" in miniatures on ivory. During the Victorian era, hairwork became a popular parlor pastime; instructions were readily available for elaborate creations of jewelry and household items. Hair might be gathered from loved ones, or even from groups, for a community project. This hairwork wreath is probably associated with mourning rather than celebration. It is composed of several sets of hair, indicating donors of various ages, surrounding a pencil portrait of an older woman, likely the deceased.
 
The tinsel painting wreath with daguerreotype is more ambiguous. It may be a mourning piece, but it is just as likely that the birds and flowers surrounding the photographic portrait are simply a further adornment to frame the lovely child. The tinsel painting collaged with a printed image of Jenny Lind, on the other hand, is clearly a tribute to the "Swedish Nightingale," who made a sensation in New York when she performed in Castle Garden in 1850. The impresario P.T. Barnum brought Lind to New York and drummed up so much anticipation that forty thousand people arrived to greet her ship in New York harbor. The ensuing "Lindomania" made Lind a celebrity and a wealthy woman. Her partnership with Barnum lasted only through 1852, but her fame endured throughout a life devoted to philanthropy and music.
 
 
Cleveland-Hendricks Crazy Quilt
Artist unidentified; initialed "J.F.R."
United States
1885-1890
Lithographed silk ribbons, silk, and wool with cotton fringe and silk and metallic embroidery
75 x 77"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Margaret Cavigga
1985.23.3
 
When Louisa May Alcott envisioned the ballot box at the feet of her ideal woman, she was anticipating a day that was yet to arrive for another half century; the Nineteenth Amendment giving the right to vote to American women was not ratified until 1920. The unidentified maker of this textile used the fashionable format of the Crazy quilt to make her political sentiments known. The scrapbook quality of the idiom, with its accretion of collage-like elements, lent itself perfectly to the incorporation of political ribbons and other ephemera that the quiltmaker saved until the success of a democratic presidential candidate. The strutting rooster featured in the center was an emblem often used by the Democratic Party during the 1880s and 1890s, particularly in Grover Cleveland's presidential campaign. Below are portraits of Samuel J. Tilden and Winfield S. Hancock, who ran unsuccessful campaigns in 1876 and 1880, respectively. Cleveland and his running mate, Thomas A. Hendricks, are shown in the upper corners of the central block. Additional references include a Cleveland-Hendricks inaugural ribbon, dated March 4, 1885. Grover Cleveland's successful bid in the 1884 campaign finally gave this woman the opportunity to construct a strong statement of Democratic sympathies in a socially sanctioned format.
 
 
Degree of Pocahontas Hooked Rug
Artist unidentified
Probably New York State
Early twentieth century
Wool and cotton on burlap
27 x 48"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler
2002.25.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
The benevolent work advocated by the early girls' academies engendered a tradition of charity that took many guises over time, from small sewing societies to sanitary commission fairs. These activities could also be pursued under the auspices of fraternal organizations. The Degree of Pocahontas was founded in 1885 as the female counterpart of the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization that traces its origins to several secret groups founded before the American Revolution to promote freedom in the colonies. The ladies' auxiliary, whose motto is "Freedom, Friendship, and Charity," took its name from the storied daughter of the chief of the Algonquin Indians who was held hostage by English settlers at Jamestown. Pocahontas became a pivotal figure in reestablishing peaceful relations between the settlement and the Indian nation after a period of hostility. This hooked rug is replete with symbols relating to the nomenclature, implements, and tenets of the organization. The inscription GSD. 410 (or AD 1902) commemorates the date that the "forty-fifth Great Sun Council Fire of the Great Council of the United States" convened at Bon Ton Hall in New York.
 
 
Crazy Trousseau Robe
Emma Rebecca Cummins Blacklock Snively Crosier Pauling (1848-1924)
Possibly McCammon, Idaho
1882-1900
Silk and lace with silk cording and metallic and silk embroidery
55 1/4" high
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of the family of Emma K. Lentz
1990.8.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
The westward expansion during and following the Gold Rush years stranded multitudes of women who were left behind to fend for themselves and their families while their husbands, fathers, and brothers adventured in quest of financial opportunity. The maker of this colorful garment was not one of these "waiting women," as they came to be called, but one of the few who traveled into the Western frontier, leading a life as colorful as this garment. Born in Pennsylvania, Emma Cummins was married at a young age to an abusive French Canadian husband, whose family paid her way back home. She remarried and went to Utah with her second husband, who was killed in a barroom brawl after making uncomplimentary comments about her; she subsequently married the gentleman who had defended her reputation. In 1872, Emma Rebecca Cummins Blacklock Snively Crosier Pauling became one of the first women railroad telegraphers in the West. Her diary provides fascinating glimpses of her life in the 1880s and 1890s, when she worked for the railroad in a variety of often lonely and isolated outposts in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. This robe has been foundation pieced, and it is made of the same types of fabrics as the Crazy quilts of the period.
 
 
Diamond in the Square Quilt
Artist unidentified
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
1910-1930
Wool
83 5/16 x 82 9/16"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Altria Group Inc.
2008.9.2
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
The Amish, an Anabaptist sect with Swiss Germanic roots, first came to Pennsylvania in the early eighteenth century seeking religious freedom. The Amish had no quiltmaking tradition when they arrived in America but learned the art from their "English," or non-Amish, neighbors. Amish quilts, adapted in form to their makers' plain religious beliefs, became a reflection of faith in their renouncement of fashionable trends and nonfunctional naturalistic motifs. Instead, these quilts are generally characterized by large geometric patterns in single-color fabrics of saturated earth and jewel tones. The very desire of the Amish to distinguish their quilts from natural motifs and ephemeral trends led to a distinctive aesthetic that seems timeless and modern. Diamond in the Square is the first pattern that emerged from early Amish settlements in Lancaster County. It is an adaptation of the center-medallion style that was fashionable in the early nineteenth century. The square format, with four large corner blocks, wide outside border, and center diamond, has also been related by some scholars to the tooled leather designs found on covers of the Ausbund, the early Anabaptist hymnal.
 
 
Pictorial Table Rug
Artist unidentified
Possibly Otisfield, Maine
c. 1840
Wool appliqué, gauze, and embroidery on wool
29 x 53"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.293
Photo by Stephen Donelian, New York
 
The imagery on this table rug concisely and powerfully illustrates the strong connection between church and home. These two centers of community life are visually linked by the white picket fence. A willow tree-an essential symbolic element in mourning pieces-is placed beside the church, while the oak by the house evokes strength and fertility. In America, the term rug has variously referred to a table cover, an early type of warm bedcover, and a woven or knotted floor cover. By the early nineteenth century, a new type of rug was in vogue. Although referred to as table rugs, they were probably intended for placement in front of the hearth to protect floors or expensive carpets from soot and flying cinders.
 
 
The Prodigal Son
Attributed to Ruby Devol Finch (1804-1866)
Probably Westport, Massachusetts
c. 1830-1835
Watercolor, gouache, ink, and pencil on paper
12 3/8 x 14"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.262
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
Ruby Devol Finch was active as an artist between 1831 and 1843, but it is not known where she received instruction, if any. Watercolor was a medium frequently recommended for arts in female academies, and Finch may have continued to produce artwork in this medium after her own education was completed. Finch does not seem to have painted professionally; she is known today for an appealing group of watercolors that includes portraits of friends and neighbors in the community of Westport and Westport Point, Massachusetts, family records, and two versions of the Prodigal Son. This is almost certainly the later of her two versions of the parable, based on the greater clarity of the organization. Unlike the earlier version, the verses are not the traditional words of Luke 15:11­32 but possibly Finch's original rhyming scheme.
 
 
Pieties Quilt
Maria Cadman Hubbard (possibly 1769-?)
Probably Austerlitz, New York
Dated 1848
Cotton
88 1/2 x 81"
Gift of Cyril Irwin Nelson in loving memory of his parents, Cyril Arthur and Elise Macy Nelson
1984.27.1
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
The "marking" of letters on textiles was an important basic skill taught to young girls in early America. This was primarily to indicate ownership at a time when textiles were rare and costly, and activities such as washing linens might be communal. Not surprisingly, the words that appear on the earliest quilts most frequently included the quiltmaker's or recipient's name or initials and sometimes an important date, such as a birth or marriage. The subtext of even these simple markings was a declaration of self: in a society where women held few legal rights, her name was often prominently displayed within the household over which she presided.
 
Maria Cadman paid homage to such early counted-thread traditions in her quilt, which she made at the age of 79. Each letter is pieced from seven small stacked blocks similar to alphabets stitched into needlework samplers, and her name and age are prominent. She combined this pieced-letter device with religious texts, thus creating an emotional link to the long history of female skill in the needle arts, the preparation from childhood to assume adult responsibility for providing domestic textiles, and a woman's role as her family's moral and religious center.
 
 
Elizabeth Sheffield Sampler
Elizabeth Sheffield (1771-?)
Newport, Rhode Island
1784
Silk on linen
13 x 11"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.282
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
Rhode Island's history of independence and religious tolerance fostered a creative freedom that was felt throughout the decorative arts, including needlework. Rhode Island samplers were among the first American schoolgirl embroideries to be recognized as a distinctive group with strong visual appeal. Newport, in particular, was pivotal in the development of samplers as a major artistic medium for women. The earliest Newport samplers were essentially English in design. It was not until the 1750s that two recognizable groups in a more naturalistic style were forming: the "frolicking people," to which this example belongs, with bands of beasts, birds, fruit, flowers, and gaily dressed figures, and the "elegant house" samplers, which are more formal. Although the two groups probably originated at different schools, the influence of Newport needlework endured for generations and spread into the farther reaches of Rhode Island, as young women trained as teachers in Newport schools, settled in other areas, and perpetuated the Newport styles.
 
 
Lucy Low Sampler
Lucy Low (1764-1842)
Danvers, Massachusetts
1776
Silk on linen
14 1/2 x 11 3/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.285
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Essex County, Massachusetts, gave rise to some of the most interesting groups of eighteenth-century samplers. Those worked in Salem can often be recognized by the presence of uncouched satin stitches of unusual length, executed in silk threads. Salem needleworks feature elegant pictorials based on sources such as engravings on sheet music and related prints. Similar, though less sophisticated, is a group of samplers that might have originated in a Danvers school.
 
The pious inscription stitched into Lucy Low's work is a slight variation on the sixth verse of A Midnight Hymn by the English theologian Thomas Ken (1637-1711). The words do not refer to earthly marriage but to the acceptance of death and the joy of heaven in Christ. Lucy Low and three older first cousins worked similar needleworks against the gathering storm of Revolution in the year 1776. They may have been attending the same as-yet unidentified school, as the samplers share similar compositions of alphabets and a religious sentiment at the top, over a pastoral scene with figures and a rose tree flanked by stubby trees at the bottom. In Low's sampler, the female figure wears a striped dress, a fabric pattern that was popular from the 1770s through the 1790s.
 
 
Gift Drawing for Ursula Bishop (doublesided)
Polly Ann (Jane) Reed (1818-1881)
New Lebanon, New York
Probably 1844
Ink on cut paper
4 x 4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.301a
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Gift Drawing for Eleanor Potter (doublesided)
Polly Ann (Jane) Reed (1818-1881)
New Lebanon, New York
1844
Ink on cut paper
4 x 4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.301b
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Gift Drawing for Jane Smith (doublesided)
Polly Ann (Jane) Reed (1818-1881)
New Lebanon, New York
Probably 1844
Ink on cut paper
4 x 4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.301c
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
Beginning in 1837, an intense religious revival swept through the Shaker villages. Over a period of twenty or more years known as the Era of Manifestations, or Mother's Work, Believers accepted visionary experiences as a part of daily life. These phenomena, "received by inspiration," were recognized as "gifts" by the Shaker leadership and included messages, songs, and drawings.
 
Polly Reed's heart-shaped drawings were intended as gifts for the members of the First Order of the Church at New Lebanon, New York, the Shaker family in which the artist lived. She may have created 148 of these meticulous drawings, equaling the number of Shakers residing in the First Order in 1844. A manuscript journal documents that on Sunday morning, June 2, 1844, these "Hearts of Blessing" were placed on a table covered by a white cloth to be received by each member of the family.
 
 
Gift Drawing from Holy Mother Wisdom to Sally Lomise
Attributed to Sarah Bates (1792-1881)
New Lebanon, New York
1847
Ink on cut paper
6 3/4" diameter
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.301d
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
Both Sarah Bates and Polly Reed were members of the First Order of the Church in New Lebanon, New York, so perhaps it is not surprising that Bates's gift drawing is similar in style and use of symbolic elements to those created by Polly Reed. Distinctive motifs associated with Sarah Bates are the bulb-shaped head and out-thrust arm of the hovering dove and cross-hatching on the tree trunks and tables. In addition to symbols that appear on several larger, more complex works produced in the First Order there are two feathers, one from the wings of the "Heavenly Father" and the other from the wings of "Mother Wisdom." This speaks directly to the duality of the Shaker concept of deity in paternal and maternal terms. Unlike Polly Reed's heart-shaped tokens, this gift drawing is inscribed to a member of the ministry of the Shaker villages at Harvard and Shirley, Massachusetts.
 
 
Gift Drawing: 1st My Children Dear, Whom I Do Love
Polly Collins (1801-1884)
Hancock, Massachusetts
1854
Ink, pencil, and watercolor on paper
19 x 12"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P2.1997.2
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
A little more than two hundred gift drawings survive, all but a few the work of women at the Shaker villages in New Lebanon, New York, and Hancock, Massachusetts. This is one of sixteen gift drawings attributed to Polly Collins. They were made between 1841 and 1859, during the twenty-year period of religious revival known as the Era of Manifestations, or Mother's Work. This visionary message of love was received by Polly Collins directly from Mother Ann Lee herself, and, according to the inscription, was intended for the City of Union, the spiritual designation for the Shaker community in Enfield, Connecticut. The overall composition of this gift drawing is filled with arboreal imagery. Its neatly gridded layout evokes an image of a beautiful and serene garden, but it is also closely related to the structure of an album quilt, a form popular in the outside world at this time.
 
 
Gift Drawing: A Reward of True Faithfulness From Mother Lucy To Eleanor Potter
Polly Ann (Jane) Reed (1818-1881)
New Lebanon, New York
1848
Watercolor and ink on paper
11 3/8 x 10 1/2" (sight)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.302
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
Many communal societies have been established in the United States, but none survived as long or had as great an impact as the Shakers, or members of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing. Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784) led the Þrst Shakers from England to America in 1774. By the middle of the nineteenth century, nineteen principal Shaker communities had been founded from New England to Indiana, with about Þve thousand members-a remarkable accomplishment, as the Shakers practice celibacy.
 
Polly Reed, the "instrument" who recorded this gift, also transcribed visions into heart- and leaf-shaped cutouts, a spiritual map, and other works in watercolor. In its striking graphic simplicity, this gift drawing is unlike Reed's other major watercolors. Four almost identical flowers "plucked from Mother Lucy's Tree of Increase" surround a large eight-pointed star. Mother Lucy was Lucy Wright (1760­1821), a principal leader of the United Society of Believers during its formative years.
 
 
Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Day and Daughter Cornelia
Deborah Goldsmith (1808-1836)
Sangerfield, New York
c. 1823-1824
Watercolor and pencil on paper
9 x 8 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.17
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
Deborah Goldsmith is one of a few early-nineteenth-century women documented as painting professionally. According to family lore, the specter of poverty drove the young artist. She probably knew many of the people she portrayed, enabling her to provide an intimate snapshot of the faces of upstate New York. This family portrait was probably painted within a year or so of the birth of daughter Cornelia to Lyman and Maria Preston Day. At the time, Goldsmith was only 15 or 16 years old. The work demonstrates her early interest in decorative interior details and offers a glimpse of the highly patterned but sparsely furnished Day home in the farming community of Sangerfield, New York.
 
Goldsmith's family migrated from Guilford, Connecticut, to Brookfield, New York, between 1805 and 1808, though much of her adolescence was spent in nearby Hamilton, at the home of her sister and brother-in-law. She was introduced to her fiancé, George Throop, while painting portraits of his family. A devout Baptist, her correspondence with Throop, a Universalist, illuminates their struggle in resolving their different religious beliefs. Goldsmith died just a few years after they were married, after having a premonition of her own death.
 
 
Young Man Holding a Bible
Mary B. Tucker (1784-1853)
Massachusetts
1844
Watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper
21 3/4 x 16 5/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.44a
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Young Woman Holding a Letter and Rose
Attributed to Mary B. Tucker (1784-1853)
Massachusetts
c. 1844
Watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper
22 x 16 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.44b
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Learning the ABCs
Attributed to Mary B. Tucker (1784-1853)
Massachusetts
c. 1840­1844
Watercolor and pencil on paper
19 1/4 x 23"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.45
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
To date, nine watercolor portraits can confidently be attributed to the elusive artist Mary B. Tucker, and eight more are signed with her name and dated between 1840 and 1844. The severe watercolors are primarily bust- or waist-length, with the sitters shown in profile or slightly turned; all are executed on large-format sheets of paper, and none has a room setting or landscape view. A heavy black shading around the heads and necks of the subjects is used in the artist's earlier efforts. Later portraits show a more diffused shading over larger areas of the paper. The portraits continued a tradition of large-scale, half-length watercolor portraits that pictured a modest segment of society. Past conjecture about the identity of the artist placed her in Boston and the Concord-Sudbury area of Massachusetts. Recent research suggests she is Meribah Mowry of Douglas, Massachusetts, who married Chilon Tucker of Uxbridge in 1816. No evidence has yet been discovered to describe her relationship to the sitters, though it is possible that she taught painting, as Uxbridge was the site of a prestigious preparatory school. The inclusion of an illustrated primer in two double portraits of children tends to support this thesis.
 
 
Fruit in Glass Compote
Emma Jane Cady (1854-1933)
East Chatham, New York
c. 1895
Watercolor, gouache, pencil, and mica flakes on paper
14 3/4 x 18 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.260
 
This is one of about five theorem paintings identified as works by Emma Jane Cady of East Chatham, New York. Created with the aid of cut stencils, the paintings are remarkable for their technical control, balanced composition, and pristine clarity. By using both watercolors and gouache, Cady achieved an interesting interplay between light and shadow. The application of mica flakes to the glass compote further enhances the sense of transparency and emphasizes the comparative solidity of the fruit. It is not known when Cady mastered the technique, or for whom most of the still-lifes were made. By the end of the nineteenth century, the taste for theorem painting had long since passed from favor. But as Cady's work demonstrates, the technique could still be successfully employed to produce visually stunning results. Cady never married, and after her death, in 1933, she was remembered by acquaintances as having loved outdoor work, though her occupation in census records is listed as "housework."
 
 
Masonic Mourning Piece for Reverend Ambrose Todd
Eunice Pinney (1770-1849)
Windsor or Simsbury, Connecticut
1809
Watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper
13 7/8 x 11 3/4"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Museum purchase
1981.12.7
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Eunice Pinney was born into the influential Griswold family of Simsbury, Connecticut. She received a rather remarkable education for the day and was known as "a woman of uncommonly extensive reading." Pinney's first marriage was an abusive one and ended in divorce. Her second marriage, in 1797 to Butler Pinney, proved more stable, and it was at this time-as a mature woman rather than a schoolgirl-that she began to paint the remarkable watercolors for which she is remembered today.
 
This unusual mourning piece commemorates Reverend Ambrose Todd (1764-1809), rector of St. Andrew's Church in Simsbury from 1787 to 1799. During his tenure he married fifty-eight couples, the Pinneys among them. Reverend Todd was made a Mason on April 4, 1798, in Morning Star No. 28 Lodge in East Windsor, Connecticut. His Masonic affiliation apparently was important to him, as Pinney chose to replace the standard plinth, urn, and other mourning symbols with Masonic iconography. The inscription in the spandrel expresses great sorrow at Todd's passing, not in a stock inscription but in Pinney's own hand and original language: "The Tribut [sic] of a friend who loved the living and laments the dead."
 
 
And the Angel of God Called to Hagar Out of Heaven
Abigail Gardner (dates unknown)
Probably Rochester, New York
1853
Chalk over lampblack pigment on marbledust on board
17 1/2 x 25 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Leighton G. Roberts
1984.20.1
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Although never a prolific subject, the biblical narrative of Hagar and Ishmael appeared in a number of Federal-era schoolgirl needleworks. It was still deemed an appropriate story for women to illustrate after such elaborate pictorial projects had largely passed out of fashion. Here it is interpreted through the esoteric medium of drawing on marbledust. This innovative technique was a late response to neoclassicism in the decorative arts. Introduced in 1835 and originally touted as Grecian painting because of its resemblance to murals discovered in classical archaeological sites, it involved using powdered lampblack pigment on a board covered in marbledust to produce a rough-textured surface. The general composition was created by pouncing the powdered pigment across the board and modulating the tones by the heaviness of the application, or partially erasing areas of pigment. Fine-line work could be produced by scratching through the pigment to reveal the glittery marbledust beneath, and highlights could be added in white chalk. The result was dramatic and moody, with an overall iridescent quality in step with the taste for sublime landscapes, architectural views, and moonlit scenes.
 
 
Mary H. Huntington
Attributed to Elizabeth Way Champlain (1771-1825)
Brockton, Massachusetts
c. 1814
Watercolor and gouache on paper, in embossed wallpaper­covered pasteboard box with silk lining and cotton padding
3 x 2 1/2 x 2 3/4" oval
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.4
Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
 
As opposed to the public nature of full-size portraiture, miniatures-made to be nestled in the palm of a hand or in a locket worn around the neck-represented an intimate, private act of viewing. This enchanting miniature depicts Mary Hallam Huntington (1813-1820) at the age of about 1 year. The handmade pasteboard box, covered with a single motif from a piece of embossed wallpaper, protects the precious image from harm and provides an element of surprise when the tiny box is opened to reveal the delicate likeness of the child. One pale blue slipper is held in her hand, a compositional device used in paintings of young children. It has been conjectured that the "one shoe off" motif indicates a postmortem portrait. Mary Huntington, however, died in 1820, around age 7 and after the date this portrait was painted.
 
The miniature is attributed to Elizabeth Way Champlain, who was born in New London, Connecticut. She and her sister, Mary, were both artists. Mary went to New York City to study, but Betsey, who remained in New London, married and raised a daughter, Eliza, who also became an artist. The three women corresponded about painting for many years, referring to themselves as "The Sisters of the Brush."
 
 
Trinket Box with Portraits
Artist unidentified
New England
1825-1835
Watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper under glass on wood box with brass hardware
4 1/2 x 8 x 5 1/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Museum purchase
1981.12.17
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
Throughout the nineteenth century, boxes served as receptacles for documents, linens, candles, knives, clothing, jewelry, and other sundry items. Although small in scale, boxes reflected prevailing decorative trends and often received the same attention to ornamentation as that seen on larger pieces of furniture. This box was probably made by a young woman, either as part of a school project or perhaps from a set of instructions. The use of a pattern-whether published or provided by a schoolmistress-is suggested by the existence of at least two additional boxes similar in both construction and painted decoration.
 
Each of these related boxes is divided into ten compartments by strips of wood applied to the surface. A small watercolor portrait on paper is placed behind glass within each resulting section. The portraits are contained in circular medallions, surrounded by flowers or otherwise adorned. In this example, the portraits may hold personal meaning, as the male and female portraits are repeated separately and in touching circles.
 
 
Portrait of a Gentleman Seated between Two Tables
Jane Anthony Davis (1821-1855)
Probably Rhode Island
c. 1848
Watercolor and pencil on wove paper
7 7/8 x 7 7/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Eva and Morris Feld
1981.12.14
Photo by Helga Photo Studio, New York
 
For a number of years, the watercolors signed "J.A. Davis" were assumed to be the work of a male artist. It was not until the 1980s that research by Arthur and Sybil Kern identified the artist as Jane Anthony Davis, born in Warwick, Rhode Island. Davis followed a typical pattern in the portraits she painted for friends, neighbors, and relatives. She knew most or all of the sitters, whom she captured in intimate, small-format works on paper. There is no indication that she received payment for these portraits, and she worked in a medium-watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper-that she would have studied in her school days. The first evidence of her artistic activity is a portrait dated 1838. In that year, 17-year-old Jane Anthony received letters addressed to her at the Warren Ladies Seminary in Warren, Rhode Island. In 1841, she was married to Edward Davis of Norwich, Connecticut, by his uncle, who was the pastor of the Old Baptist Church of the Warwick circuit. Her watercolors from 1842 and later depict families associated with the churches within this circuit in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Lulls within her creative output seem to coincide with the births of her children. The artist died of consumption at the age of 33.
 
 
PORTRAITS OF WOMEN
 
Mary Kimberly Thomas Reynolds
Attributed to Reuben Moulthrop (1763-1814)
West Haven, Connecticut
c. 1788
Oil on canvas
45 1/4 x 36"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P3.1995.1
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
 
Catherine Wilt
Jacob Maentel (1778-?)
York, Pennsylvania
c. 1830-1832
Watercolor, gouache, ink, and pencil on paper mounted on printed cotton
14 x 8"; 23 9/16 x 14 1/2" with cotton ground
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
P1.2001.11
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Amelia and Eliza Danner
Jacob Maentel (1778-?)
Hanover, Pennsylvania
c. 1815
Watercolor, gouache, ink, and pencil on paper
10 1/2 x 8 3/8" (sight)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.4
 
 
Mary Antoinette Lorania Pike and Sarah Adeline Pike
Joseph H. Davis (act. 1832-1837)
Probably Maine or New Hampshire
1835
Watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper
8 1/2 x 11" (sight)
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.8
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Young Woman of the Folsom Family (possibly Anna Gilman Folsom)
Henry Folsom (1792-1814)
Exeter, New Hampshire, or Boston
c. 1812­1814
Oil on canvas
21 1/2 x 17 5/8"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.3
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Woman in Rose Dress
Artist unidentified
Vermont
c. 1805-1815
Oil on pine panel
26 5/8 x 24 5/8 x 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Ralph Esmerian
2005.8.2
Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
 
 
Fay Wray as Diane Templeton in Below the Sea (1933)
Stephen Warde Anderson (b. 1953)
Rockford, Illinois
1990
Pastel over tempera on shade cloth on hardboard
14 x 11"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler
1995.11.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
 
Mary Beth Steward
Attributed to John S. Blunt (1798-1835)
Probably New Hampshire
1830-1835
Oil on canvas
39 1/2 x 34 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Jerry Grossman in memory of Lillian Grossman
1994.11.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
 
 
Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas
William Matthew Prior (1806-1873)
East Boston, Massachusetts
c. 1850
Oil on academy board
17 x 13"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr.
1964.1.1
Photo by John Parnell, New York
 
 
Woman in Pink
Attributed to John Usher Parsons (1806-1874)
Maine
c. 1835-1840
Oil on canvas
26 x 21 1/2"
Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
Gift of Joan and Victor Johnson
1999.13.1
Photo by John Parnell, New York



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