Displaying items by tag: samplers

By today’s academic standards, the schoolwork stitched onto the 151 samplers that comprise the “Hail Specimen of Female Art! New Jersey Schoolgirl Needlework, 1726-1860” exhibition at Morven Museum and Garden here might not be A-plus-worthy.

“One girl spelled Hanover ‘Hanovah,’ with an ‘ah’ on the end, like she had a New England accent,” said Elizabeth Allan, the museum’s curator of collections and exhibitions, during a recent tour. “There’s another girl named Joanna who spelled her name with three ‘n’s.”

Gertrude Townsend, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s, first curator of textiles, focused much of her energy during the late 1930s and early 1940s on building the country’s finest collection of early American embroidery, curating the exhibition New England Colonial Embroidery, in 1941, the first to focus exclusively on the subject. With the opening of the museum’s new American Wing in November 2010, three consecutive exhibitions will further Townsend’s work and will be the basis for a forthcoming publication exploring the embroideries of colonial Boston, the lives of the girls and women who made them, and the economic role of embroidery in this urban center (Fig. 1).

Christie’s announced that Americana Week 2013 will be held from January 24-25 and on the 28^th in New York. The week will include a series of public viewings and auctions focusing on American craftsmanship and artistry. An Important American Silver sale will be held on the 24^th, an Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints auction will take place on January 25^th, and on the 28^th, Christie’s will hold English Pottery and Chinese Export Art sales. The Americana Week auctions will present over 400 lots, many of which are from the 18^th and 19^th centuries and have never been offered at auction until now.

Highlights from the American Silver auction include a drum-form teapot by Paul Revere (1734-1818), a Japanesesque mixed-metal and hardstone style tea service by Tiffany & Co., and a set of silver casters by Simeon Soumaine (circa 1685-circa 1750) from 1740.

Leading the American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints sale is a Chippendale carved mahogany block-and-shell bureau table signed by John Townsend (1733-1809). The bureau table will be offered alongside a Queen Anne carved maple armchair attributed to John Gaines III (1704-1743), an Edward Hicks (1780-1849) painting depicting William Penn’s treaty with Delaware tribal chiefs, a number of early needlework samplers from The Stonington Collection, and much more.

The English Pottery auction presents over 50 lots including early salt glazed stoneware, redware and creamware formed by William Burton Goodwin, and a London delft polychrome dish, which is painted with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

Highlighting the Chinese Export Art sale are a Chinese export ‘orange Fitzhugh’ armorial dinner service from the early 19^th century, a pair of Chinese export famille rose fishbowls, and a Chinese export ‘Lady Washington States China’ dish, which was presented to Martha Washington by Andreas van Braam (1739-1801), the director of the Dutch East India Company, in 1796. Van Braam designed the dish as an introductory gift for the First Lady.