Museum accessions

Magazine Antiques, August, 2004 by Eleanor H. Gustafson

In the 1780s States Morris Dyckman acquired from the Miers firm in London a silhouette portrait of himself that today hangs at Boscobel, his house in Garrison, New York. A loyalist during the American Revolution, Dyckman also owned portraits of "the King & queen of England in Ivory," according to his estate inventory, and thus Boscobel Restoration long sought appropriate images of George III and his consort Queen Charlotte to hang in the house, not just to reflect Dyckman's possessions but also to emphasize his loyalist allegiance. Recently, the museum had the good fortune to acquire the portraits of the monarch and his queen illustrated here. In a neat turn of events, they remain in their original frame, which bears the printed label of "Miers/Profile Painter/-and-/JEWELLER/NO. 111,/STRAND," the very shop Dyckman himself had patronized. Made by James Tassie, a Scottish member of the Royal Academy in London, the miniatures are of a glass-paste composition imitating ivory that Tassie invented and used for more than five hundred portrait medallions. A friendly rival of Josiah Wedgwood, Tassie supplied Wedgwood with many portrait medallions, and the two occasionally exchanged models with each other.

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Of the many forms of needlework practiced in the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one firmly rooted here is rug hooking. Believed to have originated in northern New England in the early nineteenth century, it consists of pulling loops of yarn or strips of woven fabric through a ground fabric, usually a heavy hemp burlap, using a tool that may originally have been designed by sailors but was improved over the years by a host of innovators. As the craft was long practiced primarily in rural areas, women often devised their own designs, and, drawing from the country life they knew, depicted such subjects as farm animals or farm buildings. In the case of the charming rug illustrated below, the maker used a print after a drawing by the French-American artist Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin for her design, which depicts Robert Fulton's steamboat plying the Hudson River in New York State. The rug was acquired many years ago from a house near Albany, New York, where it is presumed to have originated late in the nineteenth century. It was recently given to the Allentown Art Museum in Pennyslvania, from the collection of the late Rosalind and Edwin Miller; long-time benefactors of the museum, whose special focus was American textiles.

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For many years, the collection of the DAR Museum in Washington, D.C., reflected the generous donations of members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which is to say that it documented the material culture and interests of a primarily white, wealthy, and Protestant group of early Americans. Recently, the museum has been working to expand its collection to reflect the traditions of other Americans as well. To this end it has acquired the dramatic pieced quilt illustrated here, attributed to the African American quilter Blanche Ransome Parker. Probably made in the 1940s, it represents what is often described as the improvisational style of quiltmaking. As is true generally of such quilts, its importance lies not in the quilter's needle skills but in its visual excitement. The fabrics included are all utilitarian cottons, many of them faded, and the quilting pattern and stitching are irregular. However, the colors, stylized birds, and abstract strip design contribute to a masterful whole.

The maker is believed to be the Blanche Ransome listed in the 1910 census for Carroll County, Tennessee, as a widow with no children. She is buried in the Ransome cemetery, an African American cemetery in Huntington. Tennessee, where her tombstone is inscribed "Blanche Ransome Coleman Parker," "A Servant of the People/supervisor, black schools." It is hoped that further research about her will help in a fuller understanding of the role of blacks in the American quilting tradition.

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