#1951

SOLD

Three Views of the House of Dr. Whitredge (1748-1846) in Tiverton, Rhode Island as it was in 1814-15.

By Joseph Shoemaker Russell (1795-1860).

This grouping, delicately rendered and spare yet highly detailed, too, includes the only known exterior view, along with two interiors, of the Whitridge home. These works add to our knowledge of what a house of this period looked like as a complete entity: furninshed and often peopled by those engaged with their lives within the rooms.

Other rooms from this house are in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum and have some of the same furniture and the same map on the wall. The known examples of the Whitridge house have "Old Tiverton" written on them in pencil, as does one of these examples, but these are not signed. They have folds on them consistent with having been sent as a letter, and one is addressed to Dr. Whitridge's daughter Nancy. The exterior view is marked in ink on the front lower margin "Dr W".

A grouping of Russell's works were in the Little Sale at Sotheby's in 1994, where Mrs. Little was quoted saying, "Seldom does one see the domestic scene of a hundred years ago depicted in such complete and charming detail". None have been publicly offered since, and these were unknown outside the family who owned them until recently. All of the Russell watercolors are reminiscences and are considered to have been painted between 1848 and 1854.

For other examples see: " Our Own Snug Fireside", Jane Nylander, cover and pg 129; "The Bertram K Little and Nina Flethcher Little Collection, Part II", Sotheby's October 1994, front and back covers and lots 669-673 and 866-870; "Harbor & Home: Furniture of Southern Massachusetts, 1710-1850", Jobe, Sullivan and O'Brien, p. 19: "The Magazine Antiques", May 1978, pgs 1108- 1109; "At Home: The American Family, 1750-1870", Elizabeth Garrett, pgs 48, 53, 79, 86, 121, 210, and 214.

Watercolor, pencil and ink on paper. Unframed measuring 7 1/4 x 9 inches, 7 13/16 x 9 inches, and 7 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches (folded- full sheet 15 1/4 x 8 3/4 inches). Modern frames and conservation mounted.

#1920

A Memorial for Isaac Dillingham
by Lucretia Winslow (1787-1864).

Isaac Dillingham was born on March 27, 1777 in Harwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts, married Abigail Winslow there, and died there on December 30, 1807, leaving a grieving twenty-eight year old widow and five children.

Lucretia, who according to her inscription on Isaac's memorial plinth was twenty-two years old in 1810 when she made this work, would have been a third cousin of Abigail and not her older sister, also named Lucretia.

One presumes that it is Abigail who is portrayed, her long hair undone and flowing down her back, and her face white and untouched by any blush of color. The place where she stands is a blue field of colorless flowers, and above her are the sheltering branches of a willow, its trunk seeming to grow from her body, replicating the lines of her hair, and standing as a symbol for her sorrow. The sunset hues of the sky signify the coming dark night.

The props here are relatively standard: the plinth and urns, a willow tree, a mourner. Unusual is the poetic statement created by the way these elements are drawn and how they are placed together. The horizon is empty, Abigail is alone with her thoughts, even the flowers at her feet are losing color as the sun sets. Herein is the distinction between a formulaic exercise, the production of a memorial for a member of the family, and the creation of a work of art which transcends time allowing us to share the feelings projected by the work.

15 1/4 by 18 inches framed and 1 2 1/4 by 15 inches sight.

#1954

The Isanna Smith Paint-Decorated Document Box

This box is bold in design, dramatic in its musterd yellow coloration, and retains its original undisturbed painted surface with great craquelure. It is graphically creative and visually unusual: the artist has surrounded her painted name on the lid with a sunburst-like floral patera and has like-wise painted a family crest-styled lock escucheon that is surmounted by a six-pointed rayed star and has painted large green oval flowers on the side panels. Black painted banding and corner leafage further unify the design and focus the eye on the central decorative element of each decorated panel of the box.

The box descended in the Connecticut family home of Sarah Upson Goodrich (born 1879) who was a descendent of the Reverend Charles Chauncey, the second President of Harvard College.

Signed inside in pencil "Isanna Smith". Made of poplar and with originl hinges. Missing interior divider panel. Probably Maine circa 1820. 6 inches high x 14 1/4 inches long x 9 1/2 inches deep.

#1944

"When true hearts are withered and fond ones are flown Ah! who could inhabit this cold"

This, passage accompanies a wreath-enclosed signature panel inside the lid. It identifies the maker of this schoolgirl-painted box, embellished with scenic panels and still lifes, as Nancy B. Green of Hartford, Vermont. The work is dated June 7, 1827.

Other boxes with similar oval-enclosed scenes and corners decorated with floral elements have been identified as from Northfield, Vermont and are also from the mid 1820's. It seems likely there was an academy in this area where this type of work was taught or an itinerant painter who may have briefly taught his techniques in the area at this time. Some of the scenes probably are of places known to the artist, although the large castle-like building with domes and turrets was probaly drawn from a print source. A similarly decorated box was made by Emily C. Emerson of Northfield, Vermont in 1826. (illustrated in "Women's Painted Furniture, 1790-1830 by Betsy Keig Salm, pg 149).

Maple or cherry with pine bottom board. Painted with watercolor and ink in a sealing vehicle. 5 x 8 x 3 inches with sliding lid. Please see DOCUMENTATION for full condition report.

#1966

An Early Hat Box or Bandbox Depicting the Buildings and Grounds of Wesleyan University

A large colorful example of a storage box made of paper-covered pasteboard, its surface hand-printed from wood engraved blocks and hand-painted in gouache in blues and reds with white and dark green accents.

The front of the box features the main school building with its four-chimnied four-storied facade and its surrounding grounds and walls. This design is repeated on the box lid. Both are labeled "Wesleyan University at Middletown Con Palestine Garden".

Probably Connecticut circa 1830. Of oval shape and 15 1/2 inches wide and 12 1/4 inches high and 13 inches deep.

#1943

A Cornucopia of Flowers
JW

Painted in watercolor on muslin, this theorem is distinguished by its use of bright primary colors, the symmetrical arrangement of elements in its design, and its absolute reduction to a single spatial plane for its entire pictorial space. Colorful and abstract, it is a small but outstanding example of the genre.

Signed in ink top center, "JM". Circa 1830, mounted on mat board and in a black-painted period frame.

#1309

A rare family group of six folk art watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper portraits from the Wright-Gleason family of Concord, Massusetts.

These wonderfully detailed portraits by an unidentified artist are contained within painted ovals and are vibrantly colored, have great charm and naivete, and are highly decorative in aspect with simplified drawing technique.

The family were the owners of the Wright tavern in Concord, MA, the place where the Minutemen met.

Painted circa 1810-1815. In reproduction frames in the style of the period and conservation mounted floating above a rag mat. Ovals vary between 3 and 4 inches in diameter and 4 to 4 1/4 inches in height. They are all framed to 6 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches.

#1942

Jane Fletcher Coppedge

A pair of watercolor on paper still life paintings with theorem elements. One example is a basket filled with flowers which include two large free-hand-painted yellow tulips outlined in red, and the other features fruit and leaves which are seen through the open lattice-work of their basket.
Both works are naive in drawing, colorful, and abstract in their approach to the basket form itself.
The floral piece is 16 1/2 x 13 3/4 inches sight and 19 1/2 x 17 inches framed, and the other is 12 1/2 x 18 inches sight and 15 1/2 x 21 inches framed.
Also included is a small unframed sampler by the artist, which includes her name, 'Jane F. Coppedge', 'Centre July 20, 1804', and 'age 11 years'.
Both are signed and dated 1830 in pencil to the right of the basket base. In black painted modern frames in the style of the period. Found in Maine.

#1924

Drawings from an extraordinary decorated copy book by Dolle Green of Weare, New Hampshire, circa 1794.

The images are decorated in the style of the illuminated manuscript: capital letters are exaggerated in size and their form transformed into figural designs executed in polychrome. These letters are drawn as human figures, including what is most probably a self portrait of the artist on the title image, as well as others decorated with flowers, strange animals, birds and butterflies, and a snake. Page subjects are those of a student: coins, money, addition, subtractions, time, apothecaric, and others. Additional calligraphic flourishes decorate the pages.

Twelve of these drawings are framed, and they are accompanied by their original leather copy book which has the artist's name on its cover and on a later receipt bearing the address of its maker, Weare, New Hampshire, included within it. The leather covers are lined with an Exeter, New Hampshire newspaper dated 1794.

Dolle Green was born in Weare, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire on October 8, 1770. She was the youngest of ten children of Isaiah Green of Kensington, New Hampshire and Mary Purington of Amesbury, Massachusett s. Dolle never married and lived at the end of her life in Weare with Thomas and Mary Breed and their children. She died on May 25, 1853 at age 83.

#1899

E M S

A fine and rare example of an embroidered idigo and ivory colored wool bed cover from the early nineteenth century. The floral and flower/sunburst designs echo the motifs of earlier bed rugs, while at the same time showing the organization and pattern variations of an album quilt. The ground is woven with a grid-like pattern of 64 squares in two tones of ivory, and the squares are themselves placed within emboidered circles. The designs vary between squares but all maintain an abstracted flower motif. Its heavy original fringe borders the piece on three sides, and the artist's initials EMS adorn the upper or head edge of the blanket.
Mounted on a neutral fabric gound over a folding stretcher. 84 1/2 inches wide by 88 1/2 inches high.
Descended in the family which is from Middletown Springs, Vermont.

Paint decorated bamboo-turned thumb back windsor side chair. Original paint. New England circa 1825-1830.

#1838

A Rare Pictorial Trove of Family History: The Caldwell-Woods Family Record and Memorials

Attributed to Sally Caldwell Woods (1796-1839)

The Woods and Caldwell families were linked in many ways. Major Seth Caldwell married Mary "Polly" Jones in 1782, and Deacon James Woods married Catharine Bowman in 1787. The couples were neighbors in Barre, a farming community in central Massachusetts, where each had ten children. Their ties were secured by the marriage of a Woods son to a Caldwell daughter (Harding to Sally in 1817) and a Caldwell son to a Woods daughter (Seth to Catherine in 1818). It is likely that the daughter of one of these marriages created the record and memorials. Family ties cannot be found within the parental generation and the record itself offers no clues to a link between them, but research into the lives of their twenty children uncovers the two marriages that connect them as families.

Two of the memorials are complete. The third leaves the death date open for Catherine, the wife of James Woods, indicating that she died after the artist could have entered her death date on the piece. Catherine Woods died in 1853, predeceased by her daughter-in-law Sally. Therefore, as all four works are drawn by the same hand, it may be assumed that Sally Caldwell Woods was the artist, as she was not alive to enter the date of her mother-in-laws death on her memorial. Her sister-in-law Catherine died in 1866.

The family record pictures two couples, their images framed like portrait miniatures in painted oval frames, marriage dates joining each couple, and heart and vine decoration connecting the two pairs. Doubled columns topped by potted roses support the flower-decorated arch above them.

The memorials commemorate deaths of Woods and Caldwells. Each memorial has a central two-stage plinth and a mourning woman standing beneath a willow tree, and each includes a village with a church with a tiered spire and houses each bearing double chimneys and green doors.

In reproduction frames. Conservation records available. Circa 1820's.

The Schoolgirl Copy Books of Zilpha Shepard (1827-1894)

In 1840 thirteen year old Zilpha Shepard from Canton, Massachusetts created a copy book containing twelve painted illustrations and dozens of highly romanticized poems that are fairly typical of the work of her generation's female students, but also prophetic of the talent that would later allow her to become a professional artist. Its frontispiece, a complex floral still life, is followed by a brief poem that refers to the joy she finds in the natural world and in portraying it in her art.

Four years later she made another book. This not only has her name and the year but specifically states, "Painted by Zilpha Shepard 1844". It contains twelve remarkable watercolors and numerous unfinished pencil and pen and ink drawings.

In the early nineteenth century artists in Canton, China made books of paintings on pith paper for export. Sets of these, each in brilliant color and minutely detailed, and each with a particular subject category- flowers, court ladies, fish and vegetables, landscapes- could be ordered. Zilpha's watercolors in her 1844 book are clearly based on those found in a set of these books.

Zilpha never married and lived with her parents and then her widowed mother. Zilpha, the prodigiously talented girl who made these beautiful watercolors almost four decades earlier, chose art as her life's work. She is listed in the 1880 United States Federal Census, still living in Canton, Massachusetts, as an "Oil, Water (Color) and Crayon Painter".

Deep hues of blue grapes and green leaves add drama, and small branches of strawberries with tiny leaves and calligraphic flourishes add charm to a theorem painting of fruit in a woven, lattice-form straw basket. Maine circa 1840. Watercolor on paper, 10 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches sight.

A folky and abstracted dog-form door knocker, worked in iron, and mounted on its door spike to a small pedestal base.
Probably Spanish, 18th century.

Small early sheet iron bird, probably made as part of a hanging rack or lighting fixture, now sculpturally mounted on a pedestal base.
Spain or Portugal, probably 18th century.

A beadwork picture featuring a central house with a flowering branch overhanging it and on which a bird is perched. The design includes other birds, butterflies and a bird house, all composed of strips of beads sewed to cloth and mounted on a blue wool flannel background. Beneath the house, in beadwork, is the date 1874.

The picture descended in the family of Elijah Vanness, born in 1848 in Butler, Ohio, and his wife Mary Eleanor Jacobs, who he married in August 1868 in Bath, Indiana. It is a representation of their homestead in Ohio. A family letter accompanies the piece, which was made by Mary.

Conservation mounted with minor damage to the supporting fabric and in its original frame.

A small bowl constructed of heavy paper and decorated with painted watercolors of fruit, leaves and calligraphic flourishes. Probably the work of a schoolgirl, this fragile work is an amazing survivor and a beautiful piece of sculpture. It has canted curving sides and has curved edges to its four sides which are stitcthed together and to its square base. Gilded paper covers its seams and edges.
New England. First quarter nineteenth century.

Heart and Hand Artist

A small but rare treasure- a birth record made for twins

Mary, Michel
Born
Feb 23th 1840

Containing the symbols that give this artist his name, a heart on one side and an extended hand on the other, and decorative block letters, surrounded here with bands of blue and yellow and colored lines.
Matted and in a superb leaf-carved period frame. Maine or New Hampshire. The artist is thought to be Samuel Lawhead.

A minutely rendered and finely detailed drawing of a house in Hudson, New York., named 'Glen Marie'. Signed Henry S. Snow and dated 1876.

A number of artists flourished in New York State during the second half of the nineteenth century, drawing townscapes and residences. They include acknowledged masters like Walton and Vogt and lesser known figures such as Snow. His work is new to me, but he fits into the genre and has given us a beautiful drawing and a memento from an age largely past, although this house is said to still stand there.

"Album"

A beautifully detailed and symbol-filled title page for a school girl's album, drawn by a professional ornamental painter,

Kinsley C. Gladding (1802-1866).

The piece is dated 1826 and inscribed as from Providence, Rhode Island.
Portrayed is a school girl in classical garb, standing beneath a domed temple, and holding a liberty pole and a cornucopia, from which she spills the fruits of knowledge. A flag-draped eagle with outstretched wings surmounts the dome. Similar symbols appear in schoolgirl samplers and embroideries of the period in RI, particularly the pillars and arches of the temple drawn here.
Gladdiing was Boston trained, and from 1824-1858 he was listed in the Providence city directories as a landscape, sign, or ornamental painter, as well as a grocer and a jeweler.

A child's apron emboidered in wool on cotton with flowering vine decoration and a blue scalloped edge. Made circa 1830. Found in Maine. Now mounted on a dark natural streched linen to dimensions of 25 1/4 x 26 1/4 inches.

Another small gem by the same maker as the piece above (inventory # 1775). This theorem on velvet is composed of many of the same visual elements which are similarly arranged within the piece. Their abstract treatment makes the works function both as sophisticated handling of surface design and conversely as naive and charming pieces that are notable for their purity and unusual spatial arrangment.

Sight size 9 1/2 x 7 3/4, 11 1/2 x 9 3/4 in its period molded black frame. Probably New England circa 1830's.

SOLD

An incredible memorial with huge symbolic impact. A single female figure in a white dress is painted leaning against a large urn-topped plinth. In a scene surrounded by a brown-painted undecorated oval mat and with the areas that would traditionally be inscribed also painted in brown, there is a sense that her mourning cannot be described or embellished. Her face is opaguely painted in stark white and it appears so extrememly flattened that she seems devoid of physical properties. The garland of roses she drapes over the tomb is her expression of love against this backdrop of loss. The scene around her shows a willow totally painted in blue leaves, overlapping hills topped with flowers, and rows of trees and fence that separate a single house on one side from majestic churches within an unknown great city on the other.
New England circa 1815.

A rare highly decorative example of a family record by Samuel Lawhead, the Heart and Hand Artist. Done in Dixfield, ME on September 30, 1853. This example includes images of a church and a willow tree and urn-topped tomb, as well as the signature heart and hand symbols.
Watercolor and ink on paper and in what is probably its original grain painted frame.