It's a Small World

Here's the second in my series of posts relating to finds I made at this year's Winter Antiques Show in New York City. This one was a sweet little piece, and a rare one too. As I discussed in my post from last March regarding a large watercolor and ink map sampler that I bought for the museum, these particular forms of schoolgirl work are much more difficult to find than the more common Biblical scene or print-derived landscape. That's why this small map sampler in the booth of Stephen and Carol Huber caught my eye.

This piece is only about 10" wide, much smaller than our large piece from last year. The workmanship is quite good for the scale, as you can tell from the detail photos. And it's signed, by an Anna Gill, and dated 1804. This is important because, like to many pieces that I have blogged about in these pages, there is a good story behind this piece that we would not know if it wasn't signed.

According to the dealer offering this sampler, Anna Gill lived in Pleasant Valley, New York and was eleven years old when she did this piece. Her mother, Wilhemina Anthony Gill, had a private nurse from childhood, a slave purchased in 1761 and named Dina. During the American Revolution, when the British troops invaded the Hudson Valley and destroyed numerous homes (including nearly all of Kingston, NY), Dina stayed behind after the family fled into the woods, as she was determined to protect the family home. The story goes that when she encountered the British troops she offered them a meal in return for sparing the house. Surprisingly, they agreed, but burned the mill.

Records indicate that when Dina died in 1823 she was a free person. The Gill family had such respect and gratitude for her that they arranged to have her buried in the family plot in Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery. Anna, the maker of this sampler, died unmarried in 1844 and is buried in the same plot.

These map samplers were meant to demonstrate a schoolgirl's knowledge of world geography. It just seemed fascinating to me that behind this small demonstration of one's awareness of the world there was a family history that stood squarely at the intersection of Africa, Europe, and North America. Some things can't be taught in school.

Washington Crossing the Delaware

It was, of course, the greatest comeback in American history. Had it not succeeded, there might not be much if any American history to study.  On Christmas night in 1776, after a string of losses and with much of his army demoralized and ready to opt out as their terms of service expired, George Washington mounted a bold offensive by crossing the Delaware River at night and surprising the Hessian mercenaries fighting for England at dawn.

It took nearly 75 years for an artist to adequately capture this historical moment. Emmanuel Leutze, a German immigrant who grew up in Philadelphia but was working in Dusseldorf, Germany in the late  1840s, wanted to create an image that would inspire democratic revolutionaries throughout Europe. He thought the example of American independence would do the trick, and chose Washington’s surprise victory as the subject.

No one can dispute the magnificence and power of the massive painting he created (now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and measuring a full 149” x 255”!!!), and it was a huge success, at least in the United States. The painting was copied by a number of engravers and made widely available through print media.

Where it somehow found its way into the hands of an unknown folk artist from New England in the 1880s. The result was an inspired embroidery in the Fenimore Art Museum collection based on the Leutze painting. Though much smaller than the original (our work is about 32” x 42”, it captures the gravity of the moment in needlework and silk, and brings the pride in America’s past (and this young woman’s dexterity with the needle) into the parlor of an average American home. The “life” of an image like Leutze’s may be fascinating, but it is considerably enriched when it merges with the artistic expressions of the people it celebrates.

Columbus Landing; A Schoolgirl's View

Some seventy years before Columbus Day was first celebrated as a national holiday in the 1890s, an anonymous schoolgirl probably in New England rendered a tribute in watercolor to one of the most important cultural exchanges of all time. This piece, which she titled “Christopher Columbus Landing on the Island of San Salvador” in florid script along the bottom, has graced our galleries at the Fenimore Art Museum for decades. I have always taken pains to see it included in our exhibitions whenever possible. 

It is not history. In fact this piece was probably based on a print source. Art rarely, if ever, is history in the real sense. Instead, this painting speaks to the young girl’s view of herself, her heritage, and her values. In her watercolor she has created a wonderfully charming and idyllic scene of Columbus and the Natives meeting for the first time. Her Natives are resplendent in their decorative garb and feathered headdresses, one smoking a long pipe and another playfully pointing a bow and arrow out toward the Spanish ships. Columbus himself is a minor payer in this visual drama, barely visible on the shore in the middle ground being greeted by a row of Native dignitaries. The native flora is as stylized and decorative as the Native clothing; the fauna (especially the “monkey” in the tree at the right) is sure to elicit a chuckle in even the most stoic viewer.

Our anonymous schoolgirl also created a patriotic passage along the top of the piece that really sings. The eagle, flags, swords and muskets, and stars, along with the phrase “Where Liberty Dwells there is My Country” written along the margin of the main picture, all speak to the artist’s pride in the nation that arose as a result of the voyage depicted.

What makes this work so appealling? Folk art employs symbols that represent everyone, rendered in a style that is accessible to all. My experience is that most patriotic folk art unites far more than it divides. Our young painter of this piece probably never realized she was an artist, or that her work would ever be in an art museum, but she knew how to imbue a picture with her personal message of harmony, benevolence, and inclusiveness. That's something of which she could be justly proud.

The Hero of New Orleans

America’s popular heroes owe a large measure of their immortality to the everyday artists who made their images ubiquitous. We have in the Fenimore Art Museum folk art collection an example of a watercolor and ink rendering that memorializes one of the great moments in the career of a military figure and politician, indeed the event that made him an American icon.


In December 1814 and January 1815, General Andrew Jackson won critical encounters against a larger British force to secure New Orleans (and the entire Louisiana Purchase, comprising most of the American West) from falling into enemy hands. Although the battles largely took place after the Treaty of Ghent ended the war, the American victories persuaded the British to comply with the treaty without the need for additional hostilities.

Jackson became an immediate hero; the country began celebrating January 8th as the anniversary of the battle, and nine years later Jackson ascended to the presidency of the United States. It was during his campaign for a second term in 1832 that a Connecticut printmaker named Daniel Wright Kellogg issued a lithograph that showed Jackson, “The Hero of New Orleans,” (above) astride a rearing horse reminiscent of the famous image of Napoleon crossing the Alps painted by Jacques Louis David in 1805 (below). Kellogg’s prints found their way into homes across the United States, and helped to solidify Jackson’s military legacy as well as his political future.

Somehow, one such print found its way into the hands of a young woman named Betsy Wellman, and she was inspired enough by the subject and composition that she decided to make her own version (see the image at the top of this post). And what she created is amazing. Jackson’s horse is drawn in intricate calligraphic flourishes and tight stippling, while his saddle blanket and bags are recast in bright, bold patterns of color and line. The result is a perfect blend of watercolor highlights on a confidently rendered ink drawing. A homegrown hero brought to life with artistic techniques known to every schoolchild.

We actually own another version of the same subject by an unidentified artist (above), probably done at about the same time as Betsy Wellman’s (ca. 1840). This drawing really emphasizes the calligraphy, which gives it a more lively appearance but without the bold composition.

Taken together, the two folk art pieces show how ordinary people, borrowing from other artists and using their distinctive skills, greatly embellished the visual legacy of the arts in America. At the same time, they may have had an important role in shaping the country’s political future. It’s hard to trump a folk hero.

The Blue House

So many of the little pictures in the Fenimore Art Museum’s folk art collection are treasure troves of historical information, we tend to forget that there are many that offer a distinctly visual experience despite the lack of detail or information about their origins. Anyone with a taste for modern art would argue, of course, that it is precisely the lack of detail that makes these works so important and so appealing. Such is the case with “Blue House,” an enigmatic but unforgettable watercolor and pen piece done in 1847 and measuring only 13" x 16".

I’ve always admired this piece, but never gave it the attention it deserves because there just isn’t much to say about its history. It is dated, obviously, and initialed by the artist, whose full name is unknown. Jean Lipman acquired the piece from a dealer outside of Richmond, Virginia in 1941, with the notation that it might possibly be of Pennsylvania origin. We’ve never been able to add to that paltry amount of data on “Blue House.”

There is much to be gained, however, if one just looks. It is a striking design pattern, with the rigid geometry of the house and fences all executed in a beautiful monochromatic blue. The artist took great pains to make the flourishes subtle; look at the places where the lines intersect on the house’s outside walls, windows, doorway, and even the artist’s initials and you will find distinct checkerboard patterns in miniature.

The great thing about this piece is that the geometry is very gently softened by more organic lines, especially in the trees, which are done with calligraphic swirls and small hatch marks. Likewise, the large crescent moon and stars at the upper right and the sphere (full moon? Or sun?) at the upper left introduce nature into this representational abstraction.

Lipman felt that “Blue House” was reminiscent of a whole body of female folk art widely practiced in the nineteenth century: cross-stitch samplers. In those works the geometry is imposed by the medium, as you can see from the examples in the collections of both the Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown. It seems likely that “Blue House” was done by a young woman in a female academy where needlework and watercolor skills were thought to be essential to the education of a young lady.

It says a lot that these anonymous young women produced work that the early modernist painters of a century later would admire and emulate. They knew, as we all do now, that artists of all kinds had for a long time turned to abstraction to order their world, even here in America.

Dreaming of Venice

Nineteenth-century folk artists from rural communities often had lives that were circumscribed by the limits of transportation and the family and community ties that kept them close to home. This was especially true of young women. The one exception to this rule may have been when or if the young lady was sent to a finishing school in a town or city. We have a terrific collection of watercolors and needlework pictures in the Fenimore Art Museum from female academies in New England and New York. Looking at these works, I always marvel at the expansive world view of the young artists, as well as the freshness and creativity of the design.

This mid-19th-century watercolor of Venice is one of my favorites. It is about 14” x 19”, and was one of the masterpieces found in the barn on the property of Mr. and Mrs. William J. Gunn in Newtonville, Massachusetts in the 1950s (see my previous post on this collection). The artist, who remains unknown, probably worked from a print source, most likely an engraving in a travel guide that her instructor made available to her in watercolor class. Her reworking of the design is remarkable. Comparing the watercolor to some engravings of the same scene shows how she sharpened the image into a bold, linear composition, and added coloration that emphasized the patterns of the geometric shapes in the exotic architecture of the city. The famous Rialto Bridge dominates the scene, of course, and is executed with a striking angularity that plays nicely off the rounded arch of its underside.

All in all, a picture that evokes a far off place in a time when only the wealthy could think about traveling there. The artist, however, left us one clue to her New England origins: the costumes of the figures in the painting are distinctly local. Why bother recreating such a marvelous destination without placing a part of yourself in it?

She's Got the Whole World in Her Hands

It’s been a great season of new acquisitions for the Fenimore Art Museum folk art collection, as you last saw in my posts about the portrait of the band leader and Kyra Hicks’ Black Barbie quilt. This past January I also encountered a great work of art at The American Antiques Show in New York.

Actually, I encountered one of our trustees, Jeff Pressman, who told me about the artwork. The piece that caught Jeff’s eye is a large watercolor and ink drawing of the world by a young female student probably as part of her course of study at an academy. Always anxious about the prospect of someone buying things like this out from under me, I immediately hopped the subway to The American Antiques Show and sought out the booth of Sam Herrup, where this piece was hung.

It was even more spectacular than I had imagined. The young artist, Mary Hollister, had produced a stunning rendition of both hemispheres of the world on two large sheets of paper. Her work included a fanciful outline of all of the various countries filled in with vibrant strokes of watercolor, and embellished with lively calligraphic inscriptions on the margins. At the top of the Western Hemisphere she included an American eagle, and above the Eastern Hemisphere she put a hot air balloon; symbols of home as well as of adventure in far-off lands. The entire work is covered with minute penwork marking everything from the waves in the oceans to the edges of the picture.

We know from Mary’s inscription that she lived in Ballston, New York (north of Albany) and completed this work on March 24, 1832. She even included her instructor’s name, S. Cole. But here’s the really startling thing about the piece: Mary Hollister was born in Burnt Hills, New York on May 8, 1820, making her just 11 years old when she painted this folk art masterpiece.

We have a good number of strikingly beautiful schoolgirl pieces in our collection, and they always amaze me when I see the age of the girls who produced them. Most of our pieces are needlework pictures, so this map watercolor stands out by virtue of its medium and its size (it measures 23 ¼ “ x 38 ¼ ”).

So now Mary Hollister’s map of the world is now installed in our main folk art gallery, and she joins our roster of superb nineteenth-century schoolgirl artists, a small-town, preteen girl with an astonishingly sophisticated worldview.