Sold for $4,725

Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium

Lot Description

American School, 19th Century

Portrait of Columbia "Miss Liberty"
circa 1805
watercolor on silk
unsigned, but likely attributed to the Abby Wright School, South Hadley Massachusetts
set in original frame with eglomise glass
21 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches.

This painting closely resembles examples of needlework pictures wrought in silk threads by students of Abby Wright's (1774-1842) school in South Hadley, 1803-1811. Five compositionally similar pictures from this school featuring the "Liberty and Cornucopia" motif are discussed in Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework, 1650-1850, vol. I (New York City, New York: A. A. Kopf, 1993), p. 161.

A similar example also executed in watercolor on silk is held by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (accession number 256396) and also attributed to the Abby Wright School in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

This lot is located in Cincinnati.

Provenance:
Samuel Herrup, Sheffield, Massachusetts, October 18, 1997;
Skinner, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, The Arthur & Sybil Kern Collection of American Folk Art, Sale 3121M, Lot 297, August 12-13, 2018.

Condition Report

Framed: 24 1/2 x 20 5/8 inches.

Painting in overall good and stable condition, with silk ground mounted to linen-mounted paperboard and hinged to black foam-core mat. Light spotting throughout ground, primarily to edge beyond floral border. Two stabilized tears visible to ground, one outside of floral border and one inside. Few minor areas of paint loss throughout. Age cracks and losses throughout frame. Significant flaking and losses to eglomise mat, with several loose flakes held between silk and glass within frame; would benefit from stabilization.

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