- 301
Rare Needlework Sampler, Elizabeth Blyden (b. 1818- c. 1860), Dated 1829
Description
- Baltimore, Maryland
- silk and linen
Provenance
Condition
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
Although there are few documented Southern samplers, the number of schools for girls that advertised in Baltimore newspapers between 1780 and 1825 suggests that a considerable range of educational institutions was available to daughters of the growing merchant class. Many samplers worked in Baltimore academies still exist today, including rare examples of map samplers of the area and marking samplers, inscribed with the name of the town. Such evidence suggests that schools for girls in this Chesapeake Bay city were well attended, and needlework instruction was both competent and varied.3 Catharine Groombridge4 (whose husband William was an accomplished landscape artist) kept a school in Baltimore from 1804 to about 1816, offering girls lessons in an astonishing array of needle arts: "marking, netting, tambour, artificial flowers, fillagree, fancy baskets & plain, cloth, print, paper & shell work with many other accomplishments both useful and ornamental."5 Frequently, special teachers were hired in the fields of dancing, languages, music, and sometimes riding. Often specific instruction, such as theorem (or stencil) painting, was the only subject offered, suggesting the emergence of specialized schooling. At 239 Baltimore Street, M. Carrick taught women in a "select domestic sewing school" where classes were conducted for those who had "finished their education, cutting and making Dresses and every article of plain work necessary in a family would be offered."6 Enrollment in these academies was sizeable. Mrs. Groombridge informed the public on August 22, 1809, that in addition to devoting herself full-time to teaching, she had acquired twelve assistants, "who are in every respect adequate to the branches of education they undertake to teach."7 On the average, tuition for most private schools came to two hundred dollars a year, one quarter in advance. Pupils at Mrs. Curle's and Mrs. Bowen's, as with many other academies, were required to provide their own beds and bedding.8 Rebecca and Harriet Rooker, who kept a school for girls in Baltimore for over twenty-nine years from 1808 to 1837-during which time many of the important Baltimore samplers were worked-advertised in 1810, apparently in response to criticism from an unknown source, that the "number of their pupils is limited to one hundred and that ten persons will be regularly engaged in their instruction, five remaining in the house and the others attending daily at stated hours."9 In 1809, Mrs. Decourt and Mrs. Baconais, who kept a school for young women in Baltimore from 1807 to 1818, conducted examinations of their various departments at the Assembly Rooms over a period of several days.1O Fierce competition motivated these determined ladies to place the following advertisement in 1811: Madam Decourt & Baconais will open their Academy on Tuesday, 1st of September and through the ensuing year invariably adhere to their old system, both of discipline and instruction, that they may ensure the continuance of a liberal support by continuing to deserve it. Madam D. and B. assure their respected patrons that they have no intention of giving up their business, and that the report to that effect so constantly circulated during the last year was a vile and degrading falsehood. The propagators of this shameful story are known, and should they persist in their wickedness, they will assuredly be exposed. In the pursuit of their business they have always courted a manly and generous competition [sic]; but they will never for a moment permit themselves to preside over any institution that must be indebted for its existence to mean solicitation or low and debasing intrigue.11 The most distinguished group of pictorial Baltimore samplers were large in size and visually dramatic. These spectacular samplers are marvelous works of regional embroidered art. The samplers of Charlotte Coates Boyd, c. 1826, and Elizabeth Blyden, 1829 (figs. 64, 65), are examples of this school of embroidery.l2 During the two decades following 1821, one particular, and as yet unidentified, schoolmistress developed a stylish sampler format for her students that places work stitched under her instruction in a category quite unlike any other from this period. 13 The viewer can easily detect the guiding hand of the clever teacher. Boldly conceived, her design cuts across the lower third of the linen with a solid row of silk-embroidered fencing, dissecting it in the center with a black, two-leafed ornamental iron gate. She then opens up the wide walkway directly to the narrowing steps, which are generally endowed with black iron railings, and places the decorated doorway at the arrow's point. The designated buildings, many of which have been identified as specific homes or public buildings stand firmly in place; the entire scene is enclosed within a wide flowering border. Just as needlework design of that time borrowed freely from such other contemporary arts as prints and engravings, it was almost inevitable that sampler makers were drawn to the exceptionally fine painted- furniture produced in Baltimore's cabinet shops. Of particular importance were the famous cabinetmakers, John and Hugh Finlay, who inspired this clever Baltimore school-mistress to include in her sampler designs landscapes virtually identical to those gracing the chairs and cabinets from their shop, which were probably painted by the renowned landscape painter Francis Guy (see above). 14 Above all, it should not go unnoticed that many of the schools for girls in the city were, at one time or another, located on Gay Street, a most prestigious address at the center of a thriving cabinetmaking industry. 15 It is important to note, however, that this body of exceptional Baltimore needlework reached its peak in popularity just as the fashion for similarly elaborate furniture was waning. It was not until at least 1819, 16 by which time production of lavishly painted furniture had diminished, that this unknown schoolmistress imitated the landscape designs appearing on these elegant, but no longer fashionable, pieces of furniture. Copying the original concept of depicting specific buildings or houses, this woman worked patterns that came to be accepted as fine needle art, and in textile circles are today recognized as the Baltimore Samplers.
CHARLOTTE COATES BOYD
The house depicted on the sampler worked by Charlotte Boyd (fig. 64) around 1826 is a duplicate of the one stitched on Sarah Wigart's sampler from the same year, which is identified on the back of the sampler as "St. Paul's Rectory, Baltimore."17 The needleworked rendition is not an exact replica of the actual building on Cathedral and Saratoga streets, for the shape of the upper story windows has been curved (see left). The two girls probably attended the same school, for their samplers were worked in a very similar format. The green-shaded silk lawn of the Boyd sampler is adorned with charming ladies and animals, finely worked in padded satinstitches. The long-leafed palm tree, frequently found on samplers of the period, was probably inspired by oriental scenes found on eighteenth-century decorated wallpaper, porcelain, and contemporary Baltimore painted furniture (see above). Charlotte Coates Boyd may have been the third daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Boyd, who were married in 1800.18 Joseph Boyd conducted business as a hatter at various addresses in Old Town, Baltimore. Charlotte Boyd married Lewis C. Jordan of Portsmouth, Virginia, in Norfolk on October 17, 1837. 19
ELIZABETH BLYDEN
The building on Elizabeth Blyden's memorial sampler (fig. 65) has yet to be identified, although it may represent a naive version of the two-steepled First Presbyterian Church that dominated the skyline of Baltimore during the early years of the nineteenth century (see page 138); this church is prominently featured in several of Francis Guy's landscape paintings of the city.20 The embroidered structure is certainly intended to represent a church, for there is a tiny bronze silk cross touching the lintel above the doors. No drawing or engraving has yet been found that shows a direct frontal view of the church, which in reality had two separate doorways, rather than one, and towers that stood to the side of the main building, not behind it. An identical sampler, stitched with wool strands rather than silk, was worked by Martha Jane Smith in 1839 (see page 138), adding to the puzzle.21 Elizabeth was one of two daughters born to John Blyden and Sarah Muir (whose first husband had died). Muir's family may once have lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. 22 The Blydens kept a tavern and grocery market in Fells Point, near the waterfront at Lancaster and Bond, and later at the Horse Market on Swan Street.23 Elizabeth married John Malone, a farmer, in 1838.24 The couple lived with his aunt, Ann (or Nancy) Dorman, on her plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, with their six children. When Nancy Dorman died in 1850, John Malone was allowed lifetime use of the plantation. Upon his death it became the property of John Samuel, their oldest child. 25 Sometime before 1870, Elizabeth and three of her children died, for their names have vanished from public records. In July of 1869, John Malone was sued for sixty-five dollars by Dr. Francis Marion Slemons of Salisbury. 26 Elizabeth Blyden Malone is probably buried in the Banks/ Malone Family Graveyard on the old plantation grounds close by Wicomico Creek, although there remains only one bleached wooden marker of the original six. It is inscribed "Mary L. Marthy Malone," probably Elizabeth's grandchild. 27
ELIZA PICKET
The sampler stitched by Eliza Picket in Baltimore, 1825 (fig. 66), when she was ten years old, is the second of her two known needlework samplers.28 This embroidery may hold the key to the identification of at least one of the schools where this unique style of Baltimore architectural sampler originated, for Eliza may have attended the Adelphi Academy on Gay Street in Baltimore. Eliza Picket, born 1814, was probably the daughter of John and Elizabeth Rea Picket.29 In 1823, they are shown in the Baltimore City Directory to be living on Gay Street, north of Orange alley. John was a merchant tailor and Eliza a milliner. In the directories of 1824 and 1827, Elizabeth Picket, perhaps by then a widow, resided at 20 Gay Street. Late in August of 1821, John W. Picket and Albert Picket advertised in the Baltimore American, announcing various academic subjects offered at their Adelphi School. The newly opened "Female Department" was to be located at 20 South Gay Street and the "Male Department" at 29 North Gay Street. On August 28, they advertised for an instructress to teach the "ornamental" subjects; parents may have been put off by the "academic" subjects, preferring more fashionable, "polite accomplishments" for their daughters. Within a week, on September 4, 1821, they proudly announced the engagement of an unidentified instructress, well-qualified to teach "various descriptions of needle-work." This remarkable series of newspaper advertisements (see page 140) makes it possible to assume that this anonymous schoolmistress may have been the one responsible for the exceptional, almost unparalleled, sampler design that flourished for twenty years, from the 1820s to the 1840s. It was a style that at some point appears to have become a favorite locally, embraced by several Baltimore schoolmistresses and featuring buildings in the city. 30 Until more solid evidence comes to light, it may be that Eliza Picket worked her sampler at the school on Gay Street, a school very likely conducted by a member of the family. Recent research reveals that around 1830 Albert and John Picket (although not Eliza's father, John W. Picket) kept a school for girls, the Cincinnati Female Institution, in Cincinnati, Ohio.31 It remains for future researchers to verify whether or not these characteristically unique Baltimore samplers, stitched over a span of two decades, were designed by the imaginative schoolmistress at the Adelphi School on Gay Street.
1. Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, 208, opp. 254.
2. Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, July 19, 1822.
3. Betty Ring, "Maryland Map Samplers," in catalogue, 1986 Maryland Antiques Show, (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1986), 105.
4. Columbia Academy, kept by Catharine Groombridge, is interesting to follow through newspaper advertisements and other sources. Between 1800 and 1804 she moved to Baltimore from Philadelphia, where she had kept a school for girls. Her school opened in Baltimore in September of 1804. The Columbia Academy was originally located at the corner of East and Calvert. By 1809, she had hired twelve assistants, and in 1812, she moved to 18 Bank Street. In June of 1813, the school was at 24 North Gay, a street of schools for both boys and girls, and cabinetmakers (Baltimore American, August 31, 1807; August 22, 1809; August 27 1812; June 30, 1813). After the death of her husband William-an English landscape painter who is frequently compared to his contemporary, Francis Guy-in 1811, Catharine Groombridge continued to appear in the city directories until 1815, conducting a young ladies' academy on Calvert Street opposite the Court House. In Four Late Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Landscape Painters (Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1943), J. Hall Pleasants reveals a partial list of the inventory of William Groombridge's estate: three violins, a violoncello, two clarinets, three old piano-fortes, and music, valued at $235. These items were concluded to be for school use. Such documentation makes it clear that Groombridge's students were offered extensive musical instruction, as well as Spanish and Italian (Baltimore American, August 29, 1810), and ornamental needlework including the use of threads of gold and silver (Baltimore American, September 13, 1808). Catharine Groombridge, an amateur painter, exhibited at least one work of art at the Second Exhibition at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts in 1812. It is presumed that she closed the school in 1816, as she is no longer listed in the city directories after this year. She probably moved to Jamaica, where she lived until her death (Pleasants, Four Late Eighteenth-Century Painters, 32, 40). For a long while, I suspected that Groombridge was the schoolmistress responsible for the Baltimore Samplers.
5. Betty Ring, "Print Work: a Silk-Wrought Deception," in 1980 Theta Charity Antiques Show (Houston, TX: Theta Charity, 1980), 10-15, fn. 2. Catharine Groombridge advertised in Philadelphia, October 13, 1800, that she would instruct print work in her school. Print work was an embroidery technique specifically designed to resemble the sepia tones of an engraving. Mrs. Ring aptly describes this needlework skill as that which so closely simulates an uncolored engraving as to be visually indistinguishable from ink upon paper, except under the closest scrutiny. Usually worked on silk or satin grounds, these finely wrought scenes declined in fashion about 1820. Apparently Baltimore school teachers were seldom required to instruct this tedious work, for print work rarely appears in advertisements there.
6. Baltimore American, August 17, 1821.
7. Ibid., August 22, 1809.
8. Ibid., August 16, 1811.
9. Ibid., August 18, 1810. See also Garrett, "American Samplers and Needlework Pictures, Part 2," 695,699.
10. Baltimore American, July 18, 1807, and July 25, 1809. After Mr. Baconais's death in 1817, Madam Baconais conducted the school (Baltimore American, August 27, 1818).
11. Ibid., August 31, 1812.
12. This group of at least sixteen samplers includes those worked from 1820 to 1839: "Henrietta Gro .. a .. " (possibly Groverman, the daughter of Anthony and Henrietta W. Delius), c. 1820, private collection; "Baltimore Hospital" sampler, c. 1820, collection, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; Ann Marie Kreps, 1822, private collection (thanks to the Hampton National Historic Site, Towson, MD, for this information); Mary Ann Craft, 1822, collection, Museum of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, D.C.; Mary Ann Kennedy, 1823 (private collection; see Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, 184); Mary Ann Armstrong, two Baltimore samplers, 1824 (private collections; see Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, 123); Ann Woodward, "House on Fayette Street" sampler, 1824 (private collection; see Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, 244); Eliza Picket, 1825 (private collection; see fig. 66 and Bolton and Coe, opp. 254); Sarah Ann Wigart, 1826 (collection, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore); Martha Ann Cooper, 1826 (Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, 143); Mary Davis, 1826 (location unknown); Charlotte Coates Boyd, c. 1826 (fig. 64); Margaret Boyd, 1827, possibly related to Charlotte (private collection; see Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, 130); Elizabeth Blyden, 1829 (fig. 65); Martha Jane Smith, 1839 (collection, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore); and Margaret Jane McGuire, "Maryland Hospital “sampler, c. 1840 (private collection; see Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 87). This impressive list of related Baltimore samplers was compiled with the kind assistance of Betty Ring. I am indebted to her for her information and suggestions.
13. Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 51.
14. Stiles Tuttle Colwill, Francis Guy, 1760-1820 (Baltimore, MD: Museum and Library of Maryland History, Maryland Historical Society, 1981),24. Colwill theorizes that Francis Guy, landscape painter of the period, worked for a short time in 1804 for the cabinetmakers Hugh and John Finlay, decorating chair crest rails, settees, and pier tables, examples of which may be seen today at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. I believe that Mr. Colwill is correct in this assumption. It also seems likely that this unknown Baltimore schoolmistress was influenced by his work and applied it to her own.
15. Although most schools for girls neglected to include their addresses in the Baltimore American advertisements taken out between 1800 and 1830, it appears clear that most of the schoolrooms were clustered around the neighborhood of Gay Street and Frederick, Fayette, Saratoga, and Baltimore streets. Countless academies for both boys and girls were located in the area, such as the school of Mrs. Groombridge in 1813, Frederick Bassford's in 1817, the Moody school in 1819 and 1822, and the Adelphi Academy conducted by the Pickets in 1821.
16. William Voss Elder III, Baltimore Painted Furniture: 1800-1840 (Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1972),9, 15. See also Skinner catalogue, Bolton Gallery, Bolton, MA, 1305, January 13, 1990, lot 265. The sampler by Elizabeth Ireland (collection, Betty Ring) names Mrs. Lyman as teacher.
17. The Wigart sampler is in the collection of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. A modern photograph of the rectory may be seen in John Dorsey and James D. Dilts, A Guide to Baltimore Architecture (Cambridge, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1973), 40. See also Sotheby's, New York, catalogue, Americana, 4408, July 10 and 11, 1980, lot 455. A nineteenth-century painting by Thomas Ruckle of St. Peter's Catholic Church, Baltimore, includes a contemporary version of the rectory on the left.
18. Robert Barnes, Maryland Marriages, 1778-1800 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1978), 23. See also Baltimore City Directory, 1819-1830.
19. Baltimore American, October 31, 1837.
20. Colwill, Francis Guy, 49.
21. The Smith sampler is in the collection of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; I am in-debted to Betty Ring for bringing this to my attention.
22. Robert Barnes, Marriages and Deaths from Baltimore Newspapers, 1796-1816, (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1978), 29. See also Baltimore American, September 25, 1810. Federal Census, Baltimore, Maryland, 1830, reveals two daughters, ages ten and sixteen.
23. Baltimore City Directory, 1827, 1829.
24. Princess Anne Herald, September 4, 1838.
25. Will Book, Princess Anne Court Records, Wicomico County, Maryland: 5,1837-1859.
26. Federal Census, Upper Trappe, Maryland, 1860. See also No.2 Folios, Princess Anne Court Records, Wicomico County, Maryland, 1870,253,254. Recorded November 3, 1870, the case was brought against John D. Malone by Dr. Slemons on July 2, 1869. The amount in question was sixty-five dollars and must have been for medical services rendered to the Malone family. John Malone, having lost his wife and children through sickness, refused to pay their doctor. When Slemons won the case in court, it was settled by Malone's son, John Samuel Malone.
27. John E. Jacob, Graveyards and Gravestones of Wicomico (Salisbury, MD: Salisbury Advertiser, 1971),1,55. The use of wooden markers continued past the turn of the century, although few exist today. Some were carved of cedar or cypress.
28. Eliza Picket worked a six-alphabet sampler dated 1823 when she was nine years old, probably her first effort; see Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, 208.
29. Elizabeth Rea was the youngest daughter of George Rea of Baltimore; see Barnes, Marriages and Deaths from Baltimore Newspapers, 1796-1816, 254. See also Dielman File, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
30. At least sixteen samplers of similar format have been identified as belonging to this body of work; see n. 12.
31. Sue Studebaker, Ohio Samplers, Schoolgirl Embroideries, 1803-1850 (Lebanon, OH: Warren County Historical Society, 1988), 57.