拍品专文
"...over the mantelpiece still hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect."
Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility (1798)
This extraordinary needlework picture of a fox hunt and the accompanying lot, depicting a gentleman and lady in pastoral garb, were made by Mary Flower (1744-1788), daughter of the prominent Philadelphian Enoch Flower (1705-1773). Needlework made by Mary Flower and her two sisters Ann (1743-1778) and Elizabeth (1742-1781) provides us with a rare opportunity to see surviving examples of eighteenth-century Philadelphia ornamental needlework, and also reveals how the social fabric and education of young women in Colonial America was in part based upon the successful mastery of this difficult medium. Young ladies were expected to produce such ornate works of art in silk thread as part of their educations in private academies that flourished in pre-Revolutionary America. Mary Flower completed this picture in 1768, at the age of 24. Beyond showcasing the talents of individual girls and young women, needlework was also evidence of a family's affluence. Only the top tier of Philadelphia's families could provide the means to this end--sending their daughters to schools like the one the Flower girls attended.
Mary Flower used as her source for the fox-hunting picture a mezzotint entitled The Chase (see illustration above), after James Seymour, which was one of a set of half a dozen hunting prints engraved by Thomas Burford of London. The set was first published in 1754 in two sizes, 13" x 20" & 10" x 14". The 10" x 14" set was reissued in 1761, 1766-67, 1787 and 1794. A number of piracies were engraved for the leading printsellers in London. These were line-engravings and in reverse to the mezzotints. Again, bacause they were privileged Philadelphians, the Flower family could well have had copies of these prints, framed and hanging in their drawing room, or known someone who did. Mary Flower clearly derived her design from one of these prints.
The selection of foxhunting as the subject for her work may be simply the result of her affection for her father. Enoch Flower was a well-known rider to hounds and was a founding member of the Gloucester Foxhunting Club in the New Jersey countryside, just across the river from Philadelphia, whose membeship included John Cadwalader and other prominent Philadelphians.
In addition to this picture and the accompanying lot, the surviving examples of ornamental needlework made by the Flower sisters include a needlework coat-of-arms worked by Elizabeth Flower in 1765, sold in these Rooms January 21, 1989, lot 470, illustrated and discussed in Morrison H. Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (New York, 1992), p. 12, No. 10, now in a private collection; a nearly identical needlework coat-of-arms, made by Ann Flower in 1763, now in the Winterthur Museum. Both embroidered coat-of-arms retain their original walnut cavetto frames with gilt moldings and sand textured mat as does the above lot and it is possible that they were made by Enoch Flower who is known to have been a joiner as well as a successful businessman. A fifth example, a canvas-work prayerbook cover made by Ann Flower in 1765, sold in these Rooms May 28, 1987, lot 113, now in the Winterthur Museum; and a sixth example, a sampler in nine compartments made by Ann Flower, owner not known.
Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility (1798)
This extraordinary needlework picture of a fox hunt and the accompanying lot, depicting a gentleman and lady in pastoral garb, were made by Mary Flower (1744-1788), daughter of the prominent Philadelphian Enoch Flower (1705-1773). Needlework made by Mary Flower and her two sisters Ann (1743-1778) and Elizabeth (1742-1781) provides us with a rare opportunity to see surviving examples of eighteenth-century Philadelphia ornamental needlework, and also reveals how the social fabric and education of young women in Colonial America was in part based upon the successful mastery of this difficult medium. Young ladies were expected to produce such ornate works of art in silk thread as part of their educations in private academies that flourished in pre-Revolutionary America. Mary Flower completed this picture in 1768, at the age of 24. Beyond showcasing the talents of individual girls and young women, needlework was also evidence of a family's affluence. Only the top tier of Philadelphia's families could provide the means to this end--sending their daughters to schools like the one the Flower girls attended.
Mary Flower used as her source for the fox-hunting picture a mezzotint entitled The Chase (see illustration above), after James Seymour, which was one of a set of half a dozen hunting prints engraved by Thomas Burford of London. The set was first published in 1754 in two sizes, 13" x 20" & 10" x 14". The 10" x 14" set was reissued in 1761, 1766-67, 1787 and 1794. A number of piracies were engraved for the leading printsellers in London. These were line-engravings and in reverse to the mezzotints. Again, bacause they were privileged Philadelphians, the Flower family could well have had copies of these prints, framed and hanging in their drawing room, or known someone who did. Mary Flower clearly derived her design from one of these prints.
The selection of foxhunting as the subject for her work may be simply the result of her affection for her father. Enoch Flower was a well-known rider to hounds and was a founding member of the Gloucester Foxhunting Club in the New Jersey countryside, just across the river from Philadelphia, whose membeship included John Cadwalader and other prominent Philadelphians.
In addition to this picture and the accompanying lot, the surviving examples of ornamental needlework made by the Flower sisters include a needlework coat-of-arms worked by Elizabeth Flower in 1765, sold in these Rooms January 21, 1989, lot 470, illustrated and discussed in Morrison H. Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (New York, 1992), p. 12, No. 10, now in a private collection; a nearly identical needlework coat-of-arms, made by Ann Flower in 1763, now in the Winterthur Museum. Both embroidered coat-of-arms retain their original walnut cavetto frames with gilt moldings and sand textured mat as does the above lot and it is possible that they were made by Enoch Flower who is known to have been a joiner as well as a successful businessman. A fifth example, a canvas-work prayerbook cover made by Ann Flower in 1765, sold in these Rooms May 28, 1987, lot 113, now in the Winterthur Museum; and a sixth example, a sampler in nine compartments made by Ann Flower, owner not known.