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The Collection of Henry and Phyllis Brightman
Lot 42
Memorial to Francis and Polly Gray signed Frances Gray (age 8), Boston, Massachusetts, 1801
19 August 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsUS$3,000 - US$5,000
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Elizabeth Muir
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
Amy Griffin
Cataloguer
Paul O'Hara
Sale Coordinator & Cataloguer
Memorial to Francis and Polly Gray
signed Frances Gray (age 8), Boston, Massachusetts, 1801
watercolor and silk embroidery on silk
panel 16 1/2 x 22 in.
framed 18 3/4 x 24 1/4 in.
Francis Gray (c. 1748-95) was a Boston merchant who married Mary "Polly" Young (c. 1762-97) in 1785. The maker, Frances Gray (born c. 1793), was likely their orphaned daughter, who would have completed this memorial picture as part of her school education.
Teachers and hired artists would trace designs from engraved prints in ink and watercolor on woven textiles for students to embellish with silk embroidery threads. A similar monument surmounted by an angel appears in an 1803 needlework from the female academy of Mrs. Saunders and Miss Beach in Dorchester, Massachusetts, whose 1500-volume library included "the finest patterns for Drawing in Figures, Landscapes, Fruit, Flowers &c." according to advertisements.
The composition is overwhelmingly derived from Classical European sources, themselves indebted to ancient Egypt for the funereal symbolism of pyramids and obelisks, which became highly popular in the United States during the period of national mourning for George Washington (d. 1799). The single mourning woman in Frances' embroidery closely resembles an allegorical figure of "America in Tears" at Washington's tomb, reproduced in countless prints.
More local in character is the church on the far right, whose mighty tower displays a New England staple: the Atlantic Codfish. Information about Frances is scarce; her identity is largely inferred from historical records of her parents, as well as by the fortuitous survival of recycled paper on the reverse, printed for Boston dry goods merchants Churchill & Watson.
watercolor and silk embroidery on silk
panel 16 1/2 x 22 in.
framed 18 3/4 x 24 1/4 in.
Francis Gray (c. 1748-95) was a Boston merchant who married Mary "Polly" Young (c. 1762-97) in 1785. The maker, Frances Gray (born c. 1793), was likely their orphaned daughter, who would have completed this memorial picture as part of her school education.
Teachers and hired artists would trace designs from engraved prints in ink and watercolor on woven textiles for students to embellish with silk embroidery threads. A similar monument surmounted by an angel appears in an 1803 needlework from the female academy of Mrs. Saunders and Miss Beach in Dorchester, Massachusetts, whose 1500-volume library included "the finest patterns for Drawing in Figures, Landscapes, Fruit, Flowers &c." according to advertisements.
The composition is overwhelmingly derived from Classical European sources, themselves indebted to ancient Egypt for the funereal symbolism of pyramids and obelisks, which became highly popular in the United States during the period of national mourning for George Washington (d. 1799). The single mourning woman in Frances' embroidery closely resembles an allegorical figure of "America in Tears" at Washington's tomb, reproduced in countless prints.
More local in character is the church on the far right, whose mighty tower displays a New England staple: the Atlantic Codfish. Information about Frances is scarce; her identity is largely inferred from historical records of her parents, as well as by the fortuitous survival of recycled paper on the reverse, printed for Boston dry goods merchants Churchill & Watson.
Footnotes
Provenance
Stephen and Carol Huber, East Lyme, Connecticut.