Description:
Cut-work or cut-paper or quillwork shadow box with a paper three-dimensional floral bouquet in a basket on red velvet backing and set in a paint-decorated framed box, which is inscribed “Mary Doane” in ink on the back. Mary Doane (b.1810-after 1850), the daughter of Elisha Doane (1784-1825) and Mary (Bailey) Doane (1788-1811) of Cohasset, Massachusetts, probably made this box in her mid teens. Mary’s mother died when Mary was an infant and her father died when she was 15, probably leaving her in the care of her grandfather, Elisha Doane, (1762-1832), a wealthy Cohasset shipowner and merchant who supported public education in the town. In 1796, he and others co-founded a private Academy that operated until 1812. Mary may have attended another private academy in Cohasset or Derby Academy in nearby Hingham, Massachusetts. In 1829, she married Dr. Sylvanus Brown (1807-1871), and the couple briefly lived in Wenham, Massachusetts, in 1830-1831, and then settled in Derry, New Hampshire. Mary made the three-dimensional floral bouquet from cut, starched and crimped paper, coated with a clear glaze (possibly rabbit skin glue) and sprinkled with mica chips to catch the light. She glued the flowerheads and leaves together and to paper armatures that raise them from the surface of the pieced and glued red velvet backing. She painted the edges of the box with a floral motif and the sides of the box with tendriling grape clusters and leaves. A rare survival, there are under five known related floral cut-work shadowboxes: one unmarked example was discovered in a Cohasset estate and sold at Sotheby's Little collection sale in 1994 (lot 949); and other, which is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2006.45), is inscribed with the name Myra Bates Willcutt (1798-1885), a Cohasset contemporary and neighbor of Mary Doane. The wine-red velvet backing sets off the all-white paper composition, aligning this object aesthetically with whitework embroidery popular in dress, accessories such as reticules and domestic textiles such as bedspreads and dressing table covers. Although female academies occasionally advertised lessons in quillwork (the art of creating designs with tightly rolled strips of paper set on edge), few advertised cutwork among their offerings and this example appears to be more closely related to the craft of artificial flower-making than to two-dimensional cutwork.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2003.20 |
