Description:
Drawing in pencil and crayon on paper titled "She would sit and weep at what a sailor suffers." and the paper water-marked: "Midd... / Hodgk... / 18..." writen in pencil on inside back. The scene, primarily in blue, green, brown and yellow, shows a sad young woman wearing a hat tied with a ribbon and shawl sitting under a tree in a park setting. Probably working from a print or possibly from her imagination, a young woman presumably created this image of “crazy Kate,” based on a romantic figure that William Cowper described in Book I of his epic poem, "The Task, A Poem in Six Books," first published in 1785: "There often wanders one, whom better days / Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm’d
With lace, and hat with splendid ribband bound. / A serving maid was she, and fell in love
With one who left her, went to sea, and died. / Her fancy follow’d him through foaming waves
To distant shores; and she would sit and weep / At what a sailor suffers…Kate is crazed."
Numerous versions of this subject survive, suggesting that the figure of “Crazy Kate” particularly appealed to young women. While teaching at Deerfield Academy, Orra White (1796-1863) illustrated her own version of “Kate is Craz’d.” Perhaps a Deerfield Academy student under her tutelage painted this example (just the right size for inclusion in a scrapbook or letter). This drawing was found in the Allen House in 1977.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+3127 |
